A breed apart? A comparison of secondary and university teachers' perspectives on self‐regulated learning

Abstract

Teachers’ perspectives in secondary and higher education have been investigated separately until now, probably owing to the differences expected between these two groups of teachers. In this study similarities and differences between secondary and university teachers’ perspectives on self‐regulated learning were investigated using semi‐structured interviews. The purpose of this study was to improve our understanding of the problematic transition of students from secondary to higher education. Thirty‐six secondary and university teachers from different disciplines were interviewed with the aim of describing the variety in their perspectives. Diverse metaphors about teaching and learning were presented to the teachers during the interviews, with the assumption that this would encourage explication of beliefs. A qualitative analysis of the interview protocols resulted in a codebook with six themes, each containing up to seven categories of description of the variation within each theme. The themes found in the analysis were goals, learning, characteristics of the learning process, students, regulation and instructional activities. All themes and most description categories were found in both groups of teachers. The differences found could be related to a focus on either the learner or the content. University teachers tend to be more focused on variety of content and secondary teachers more on variety between students. The results of this study can make both secondary and higher education teachers aware of their own and other teachers’ perspectives and the possible influence on students’ learning and adaptation in higher education, for instance on pre‐service and in‐service courses.

Keywords:

• Perspectives
• Self‐regulated learning
• Metaphors
• Secondary teachers
• University teachers

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Ben Smit of ICLON Graduate School of Education, Leiden University, for his assistance in analysis of the interview data.

Notes

1. S and U at the end of each quotation stand for secondary or university teacher.