On the Adequacy of Expert Teachers: From Practical Convenience to Psychological Reality

Abstract

This literature review examined approximately 10000 titles in five representative journals in education. It is conducted at two levels. Section A identified the preferred terms and metaphors to describe teachers at different expertise levels. Results indicated a great inconsistency in terms of terminology as well as definition of the same terms or metaphors in different journals, with a lot of them being suggestive and poetic. Section B started with the two most frequent terms, "expert" & "experienced", and put thirty two empirical studies into content analysis to uncover how their respective samples were operationally defined and selected. Findings showed both terms were constantly under-represented and there was a lack of dependable agreed-upon definition of "experienced and expert". It is argued our limitations in educational knowledge could be partly attributed to such poor conceptualizations, imprecise operationalization, and ‘reductive bias ‘of researchers.

Novice and expert teachers’ situation-specific skills regarding classroom management: What do they perceive, interpret and suggest?

“…Our selection of experts was based on domain-specific experience (at least five years after qualification) and external evaluation (indicated by being selected for additional responsibilities and tasks in school or teacher education). However, we could not use student achievement or peer nomination as a further criterion of expertise (Caspari-Sadeghi & König, 2018;Palmer et al, 2005) because there is no longitudinal student testing in Germany that would allow to relate student achievement to a specific teacher.…”

“…In general, expert teachers are described as highly experienced and qualified teachers. However, what this means in terms of identifying expert teachers' has been interpreted differently (Berliner, 2004;Caspari-Sadeghi & König, 2018;Palmer et al, 2005). Palmer et al (2005) suggest a two-gate procedure:…”

“…In line with the results from expertise research (Caspari-Sadeghi & König, 2018;Palmer et al, 2005), expertise was defined by experience and professional membership:…”

“…Since teachers participated voluntarily, a self-selection bias cannot be entirely ruled out. We applied a criterion commonly used in Germany to make sure that we not only recruited experienced but indeed expert teachers, namely teachers' leader functions (Caspari-Sadeghi & König, 2018). These functions are often related to promotion in the career ladder and typically assigned after competitive application processes and in-depth evaluations by committees.…”

“…thus following recommendations of teacher expertise research(Caspari-Sadeghi & König, 2018;Palmer et al, 2005): Experts were required to have at least five years of teaching experience after finishing their teacher education program. Furthermore, they had to be selected for additional responsibilities and tasks in their schools (e.g.…”