Infant, primary and secondary teachers’ conceptions of learning and teaching and their relation to educational variables

AbstractIt has been established that teachers’ conceptions of learning and teaching influence their instructional practices. Several authors maintain that these conceptions are based on certain implicit assumptions that give rise to different theories. Our view is that people have multiple alternative theories which they use depending on the context and the demands of the task. The main purpose of this study was to find out whether such representational plurality exists in teachers’ conceptions and, if it does, whether this plurality can lead to the identification of different representational profiles. We were also interested in studying some of the teaching practice variables that might influence the nature of the representational profiles. Our results, obtained by means of a dilemma questionnaire answered by 1074 teachers from different educational levels and knowledge domains and with different ranges of experience, are consistent with the assumption of representational plurality, as they show that the same teacher may hold different conceptions that set up a conceptions profile. Moreover, the combination of the responses in each profile is not random. Teachers at the more advanced levels and with more teaching experience manifested more traditional conceptions. Furthermore, some knowledge domains were associated with certain conception profiles