Improving Professional Practice through Practice-Based Research: VaKE (Values and Knowledge Education) in University-Based Teacher Education

Alfred Weinberger,Sieglinde Weyringer,Jean-Luc Patry

doi:10.1007/s12186-015-9141-4

Abstract

Evidence suggests that in the professional education of teachers the moral goals are currently a neglected topic in favor of the subject matter and knowledge. The constructivist instructional approach VaKE (Values and Knowledge Education) addresses this problem by combining the moral and epistemic goals through the discussion of moral dilemmas. The main research question of this practice-based study was whether teacher educators can improve their instructional practice by using VaKE. We describe an empirical study of a teacher educator who used VaKE in order to (i) facilitate pre-service teachers to solve moral conflicts which they are faced with in their workplace learning and to (ii) increase the moral climate in his course. 58 pre-service teachers who formed two classes participated in the study. The study consisted of three research phases: In the first research phase the types of the pre-service teachers’ moral conflicts were examined. In the second research phase the most frequent types of moral conflicts were used as a basis for an explorative quasi-experimental pre-posttest study. This study investigated the effects of VaKE compared to a traditional case-analysis approach with regard to the pre-service teachers’ application of discourse-oriented actions for conflict resolution. In the third phase, a case study method was used comprising a random sample of seven pre-service teachers chosen from each class to investigate the perceived learning climate during the intervention. The results indicate that VaKE provides the possibility to combine the moral and epistemic goals of the professional education of teachers.

Highlights

In the education for the teaching professions two types of general goals can be distinguished which have been called Bmoral and epistemic purposes^ by Sockett (2008) or double assignment in teacher education by Tapola and Fritzen (2010)
For example the acquisition of research based scholarly knowledge, are considered as the core of teacher professionalism (Darling-Hammond and Bransford 2005), the moral goals, as for instance the development of pre-service teachers’ moral judgment competence and their preparation to foster the moral development of their students, are not always taken for granted (e.g., Willemse et al 2008)
In this study we describe the application of Values and Knowledge Education (VaKE) as a moral decision making framework in the context of the professional education of teachers

Summary

Introduction

In the education for the teaching professions two types of general goals can be distinguished which have been called Bmoral and epistemic purposes^ by Sockett (2008) or double assignment in teacher education by Tapola and Fritzen (2010). According to Strike (1990), there are some moral issues that are particular for teaching: First, teachers work for the most part in isolation and what goes on in the classroom is largely unknown to other colleagues or the parents. This isolation is accompanied by the lack of a collectively agreed upon ethical codex for the practice of teaching. Moral conflicts in teaching are defined as problematic situations with no clear-cut answer for the involved teacher, usually arising from a conflict between different values or norms including moral values, which demand reflective judgments about responsible solutions (ShapiraLishchinsky 2011). Sometimes moral conflicts appear as moral dilemmas requiring a decision between mutually exclusive options (Ehrich et al 2011)

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Conclusion