Autonomy, relevance and the National Curriculum: a contextualized account of teachers’ reactions to an intervention

ABSTRACT

In this article we report on a university‐initiated action research project ¦which focused on the development and evaluation of strategies for enhancing pupils’ self‐regulated learning in a secondary school. The project involved the research team working with teachers of one class of year‐8 pupils, many of whom were considered to be low achievers. The intervention consisted of the introduction of an innovative teaching approach designed to enhance self‐regulated learning strategies. Participant‐observation research methods were used. After a brief description of the project and a review of the theoretical background and school context, the article focuses on the three teachers who were involved in the project. These case studies consist of accounts of the ways in which the teachers reacted to and interpreted the project, together with the interpretation and evaluation of the research team. Key issues to emerge during the research were the significance of subject identity in teachers’ responses; a view of the pupils as cognitively and morally deficient and the reinforcement of the collection‐code type curriculum construction in the school following implementation of educational reform. In conclusion, it is suggested that if pupil autonomy is the aim of education, then the National Curriculum appears to be doing nothing to increase the likelihood of schools realizing this.

Keywords:

• autonomy
• self‐regulation
• cognition
• learning
• National Curriculum
• relevance

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Winter

Dr John Quicke is Professor of Education, Division of Education, University of Sheffield, and Christine Winter is a Lecturer in Education, Division of Education, University of Sheffield.