Abstracts - Earli

Why do teachers teach the way they do? Approaches to teaching in relation to context anddemographic teacher characteristicsAnn Stes, University of Antwerp, BelgiumDavid Gijbels, University of Antwerp, BelgiumPeter Van Petegem, University of Antwerp, BelgiumThe purpose of the present study is to gain more insight into the relationship between teachers’approaches to teaching on the one hand and context and demographic teacher characteristics on theother. Data were collected from 50 teachers of the University of Antwerp and obtained from threesources: a Dutch translation of the approaches to teaching inventory (ATI), information given bythe teacher and information obtained through the personnel department of the university. Only theconceptual change/student-focused scale of the ATI had a good reliability and was used for furtheranalysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed no relationship between teachers’ approaches toteaching and the context variables students’ expert level, discipline of teaching and number ofstudents in the classroom. Neither a relationship was found between teachers’ conceptualchange/student focused approach and the teacher characteristics gender, academic status, amountof teaching experience, age and intention to participate in a teacher training. Several explanationsand perspectives for further research are discussed.Teaching approaches in higher education: relations between conceptions of learning and teachingand teaching strategiesVincent Donche, University of Antwerp, BelgiumPeter Van Petegem, University of Antwerp, BelgiumStudies indicate that learning-environment related factors as well as personal characteristics likegender, academic discipline and teaching experience could have an effect on teaching strategiesand teaching conceptions (e.g. Norton et al., 2005). This study aims to explore the relationshipbetween different personal and contextual factors and teaching strategies in a non-academiccontext of teacher education. Data were collected from 119 teacher educators. We used anadaptation of an inventory of Roelofs & Visser (2001) to measure teacher educators’ conceptionsof own learning. The inventory ‘Learning to Teach Process’ developed by Oosterheert et al. (2002)to measure student teacher learning was adapted to measure teacher educators’ conceptions oflearning-to-teach. Teaching strategies were measured by 7 scales measuring the extent to whichteacher educators succeed in implementing different types of learning environments ranging frommore transmission-oriented/teacher-focused to more learning-oriented/student-focused learningenvironments. In contradiction to former research (Kember & Kwan, 2000) we could not find asound relationship between more traditional conceptions of learning and teaching and therealisation of more teacher focused learning environments. As we also found significantcorrelations between more transmission-oriented/teacher focused learning environments and moreconstructivist conceptions of learning and teaching, inconsistencies or ‘disjunctions’ betweensimilar conceptions and strategies occur which has also been found in former research (Murray &MacDonald, 1997; Trigwell and Prosser, 1996b). Possible explanations for disjunctions could befound in teacher characteristics like gender and teaching experience as these factors were found tobe predictors for several conceptions about own learning and student teacher learning and were notfound to be directly related to different teaching strategies.– 398 –