Characteristics of expertise in teaching: Differences in levels of expert teachers in solving classroom management problems

The present study examined characteristics of expertise and how teachers at different levels of expertise solve classroom management problems differently. Eighty-four public school teachers and fourteen public school administrators participated in this study. Three groups of expertise were formed via cluster analysis using information provided by public school administrators on the teachers who participated in this study. The groups included: high experts, average experts, and low experts. Performance between groups was compared on classroom management problems, years of teaching experience, and number of college credits taken beyond certification, and three additional exploratory instruments. Exploratory comparisons included: creativity, metacognition, and self-monitoring. Groups differed significantly on the classroom management problem solving task. The high experts scored significantly higher than the low experts; however, there were no other significant differences between groups. No significant differences were found between groups for years of teaching experience. The high experts and the low experts did differ significantly for number of college credits taken beyond certification. Results of the exploratory analyses indicated that there were no significant differences between groups for creativity or self-monitoring. There was a significant difference between groups on the metacognition task. Follow-up procedures revealed that high experts differed significantly on goal achievement, as it relates to metacognition from the low experts. An additional follow-up procedure revealed that high experts scored significantly higher than average experts on self-awareness as it relates to metacognition. In summary, it appeared that high expert teachers performed classroom management tasks better than low expert teachers. In addition, high expert teachers displayed characteristics unique to their group. Scenarios of typical teachers at each level of expertise are included in this study