Interdisciplinary Exploration of Qualitative Research Methods for Profession Research with a Focus on Gender and Natural Science

Today’s teacher education research gives great relevance to issues concerning the development of professional knowledge in terms of didactical, theoretical and practical knowledge (Fischer 2010). The Professional Content Knowledge Model (PCK) developed by Shulman (1987) takes centre stage in the discussion about the understanding Natural Science teachers have of their profession. PCK regards itself as an amalgam of specialised knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge and context knowledge, and distinguishes between specialists and teachers who own the ability to transform a specialised subject into a “learning subject”.

However, instructional action does not exclusively depend on explicit knowledge, but rather is guided by deeply internalised, subjective theories of teaching and learning. Similarly, intention for pedagogical action and actual action occasionally diverge in the course of instruction, as unconscious structures take effect. It is precisely these implicit theories that we hope to uncover here, tracing the interaction between gender and subject (Lembens & Bartosch, 2012). We investigate the extent to which these structures influence instructional action and what forms the awareness of modes of action takes.

Based on the parallel research project (“Case Studies and Train the Trainer on Gender and Diversity in new PFL” Bartosch 2015) [1], the research project at hand undertakes to perform a continuative and data triangulating analysis of implicit theories in instructional action. A group discussion, interviews and class observations are evaluated according to the Documentary Method (Bohnsack/Nohl/Przyborski) and are subsequently presented and discussed as case studies (Yin).

The aim of the interdisciplinary research project is to explore instructional action from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary approaches (Gender Studies, Didactics, Educational Theory, Sociology, Psychology), and to make the results thus gained available to practitioners.

Bei der Entwicklung der innerpsychischen Räume wird der Fokus auf physische, psychische und soziale Dimensionen zur adäquaten Teilhabe aller Menschen an Bildung gerichtet, wie dies in der aktuellen Diskussion um, Bindung, Bildung und beliefs geschieht. PädagogInnen verfügen zu Beginn ihres Studiums nur bedingt über mentale Kapazitäten, um konstruktive sowie destruktive Impulse zu containen. Dabei ist es von entscheidender Relevanz eigene innerpsychische Vorgänge sowie jene der Lernenden in Kohärenz zu bringen, das Verstehen zu lernen und in Lehr-Lernprozesse zu transformieren.