Extending research on ‘conceptions of teaching’: commonalities and differences in recent investigations

Abstract

There is a significant body of research on conceptions of teaching. However, newer studies have reported facets of teaching which did not emerge in previous research. This has lead to claims that there may be still much to learn about university teachers' conceptions of teaching. In this line, the present study is aimed at exploring, from a phenomenographic perspective, conceptions of teaching in a multidisciplinary sample of university teachers. The focus was on undergraduate courses. Results obtained extended prior investigations by: (1) providing further empirical support to the teacher-focused/student-focused framework for analysing conceptions of teaching; (2) presenting a new dimension of variation and extending prior knowledge on them; and (3) providing further empirical support for conceptualising conceptions of teaching as related in a hierarchy where lower level conceptions are included in the higher level ones.

Keywords:

• university teaching
• conceptions of teaching
• phenomenography
• higher education