Teachers and Decision-Making Processes: An Italian Exploratory Study on Individual and Collaborative Decisions

This research was aimed at highlighting the decision-making processes of Italian teachers; in particular, we have focused on individual and collaborative decisions developed both during meetings and in the classroom. The study has underlined the features of teachers ’ decisions when decisions are made in groups and individually. A questionnaire was administered to teachers (N=411) of Italian basic schools (pupils aged between 3 and 14 years old) and, in addition, we observed 18 meetings. The findings of this research indicate the main modalities for teachers ’ decisions when they work individually or in groups. For group decisions, we emphasize the level of teachers ’ involvement during meetings and how the participants process the information; from an individual point of view, we pinpoint the main features of instructional decisions and what types of heuristics and biases teachers use during instructional activities