Leveraging Scenario-based Assessments to Uncover How Mathematics Teachers Make Decisions

What is it about?

This research delves into how teachers make decisions while teaching. Typically, researchers study this by identifying what teachers notice in the classroom. Scenario-based assessments provides a viable alternative for collecting data from teachers at scale, but these tests often lack essential details teachers need for making decisions. To bridge this gap, the study introduces the idea of "conditional construals," moments when teachers express needing more context to decide if a teaching action is right. The article shares analysis of a large set of responses to these scenarios, identifying specific language markers that indicate these moments. This analysis helps us understand whether teachers use analytical or intuitive reasoning in these situations and what kind of information they need to make decisions effectively.

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Why is it important?

This article is important because it introduces a new concept called "conditional construal" that helps us understand how teachers deal with uncertainty in the classroom. Teaching can often be unclear and challenging, and this concept helps us see when and how teachers notice and handle these uncertain situations. The article also presents a linguistic method for finding instances of conditional construals in a large set of responses from teachers. This method allows researchers to study how large numbers of teachers make decisions in similar situations, which is hard to do with traditional methods that rely on classroom observations. While closed-ended responses are easier to analyze, they lack the depth and subtlety of open-ended responses like conditional construals. This new method complements traditional approaches, helping us study professional decision-making on a larger scale.