Student voice and its role in creating cognitive dissonance: the neglected narrative in teacher professional development

ABSTRACT

Central to criticisms of teacher professional development is an insufficient focus on its impact including minimal evidence of changes to practice coupled with inadequate emphasis on student outcomes. This year-long study of one case study school investigates the impact of a seven-month professional development initiative designed to support teachers in implementing a reform approach to mathematics teaching. Data sources include teacher interviews, lesson observations, student focus group interviews, and document reviews. Findings suggest initially impoverished mathematics experiences that later begin to show signs of enrichment. Students’ insights into changing practice indicate that students want to be challenged more in mathematics and experience this challenge in inclusive learning environments where all students are valued and supported. A key finding is the effectiveness of student insights in increasing teachers’ engagement with the professional development initiative and in motivating teachers’ engagement in, and commitment to, the reform process. These findings highlight the complexity of the teacher change process, in particular, how cognitive dissonance plays a key role in changing practice. Central to creating this cognitive dissonance were students’ insightful perspectives about learning mathematics. This research contends that student voice can provide unique context-specific insights yet is under-utilised in professional development theory and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Student voice
• professional development
• teacher change
• cognitive dissonance

Introduction

Individual teacher practice has been identified as an influential factor in school improvement (Cuban 2009, Priestley 2011) and it is argued that the power of the classroom overshadows that of the school in explaining differences in student outcomes over time (Teddlie and Reynolds 2000, Stoll 2009, Reynolds et al. 2011). Considering then, that the quality of teachers is synonymous with the quality of an education system (Barber and Mourshed 2007, Fullan 2009, Alexander 2011), any improvements in an education system are precipitated by, and require, improvements to teacher practice. Hence, with its focus on teacher practice and (ostensibly) student outcomes, professional development is typically viewed as a vehicle for school improvement. Despite its universal appeal in an era of relentless reform, determining the effectiveness of professional development has remained elusive. In particular, research has indicated that some teachers demonstrate little to no desire in changing practice after participating in professional development (Bubb and Earley 2008). Furthermore, although much research investigates the relationship between professional development and teacher change, less research investigates the relationship between professional development and student outcomes (Desimone 2009, Whitcomb et al. 2009). Even when such research exists, it often fails to meet rigorous research standards (Yoon et al. 2007). Therefore, the ongoing challenge in demonstrating the effectiveness, or otherwise of professional development features strongly in the literature. Partly in response to the challenges associated with linking teacher professional development with changing teacher practice, and with concomitant improved student outcomes, efforts to theorise the professional development process and teacher learning have accelerated in recent years (e.g. Guskey 2002, Clarke and Hollingsworth 2002, Timperley et al. 2007, Desimone 2009, Opfer and Pedder 2011). Such developments in theorisation have resulted in the complexity of teacher learning, in addition to the multi-dimensional nature of professional development, being foregrounded in the literature. In a detailed conceptual analysis of five influential models of professional development including those purporting linear pathways, multiple pathways, a systemic model, and a cognitive learning model, Boylan et al. (2018) conclude that no model or overarching synthesis can be universally applicable and consequently appeal for more theorisation and development of these models. This appeal is mirrored by Kennedy (2014, p.696) who has heralded calls for a ‘coherent and wide-ranging body of theory’ that will impact professional development policy and practice through the development of tools that contribute to making better sense of teacher professional learning. Specifically, Boylan et al. (2018), highlight the under-theorisation of change processes and learning as a limitation in these models of professional development.

Teachers and Change

Teachers are the ultimate gatekeepers in relation to educational change (Cuban 2009, Hargreaves and Shirley 2009) because learning depends on what teachers do daily (Cuban 2003, Kelchtermans 2005) and consequently individual teachers act as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky 1980) who are pivotal to the change process (Kervin 2007):

Teachers are the ultimate arbiters of educational change. The classroom door is the open portal to innovation or the raised drawbridge that holds it at bay. No plan for sustainable educational change can ignore or bypass the teacher. School leaders can stand on their heads, dish out awards or wave pom-poms in the air, but none of it matters unless teachers are engaged in the changes that have to be achieved. (Hargreaves and Shirley 2009, p. 146)

Change is a gradual process which requires a concerted effort from teachers (Guskey 2002, Loucks-Horsley et al. 2010) and comprises a nonlinear messiness (Fullan 2001). In order for conceptual change to occur, pre-existing conceptions need to be replaced by more fruitful ones thus resulting in deep-rooted epistemological change (Gregoire 2003). While the inevitability of change is indisputable, the reality of its ramifications for teachers’ affective responses is profound. Much of the discourse around the process of teacher change focuses on the concomitant discomfort and disturbance experienced by teachers when attempting to change established practice. However, this ‘cognitive dissonance’ (Festinger 1957) is viewed as an inevitable step in the process of teacher change (Fullan 2001, Guskey 2002, Frykholm 2004, Timperley et al. 2007, Kelchtermans 2009, Loucks-Horsley et al. 2010). When people need new skills and find themselves not being proficient when they are used to knowing what to do, or when they do not understand the knowledge or value base of the new belief system, they ‘feel anxious, fearful, confused, overwhelmed, deskilled, cautious, and – if they have a moral purpose – deeply disturbed’ (Fullan 2001, p. 40). The significant role of teacher affect in the sustainability of practices has been incorporated into professional development evaluation frameworks, for example in the Professional Development Impact Evaluation framework designed and developed by King (2014). Moreover, in addition to being an inevitable step in the change process, cognitive dissonance has been identified as a causal factor in the change process (Thompson and Zeuli 1999, Gregoire 2003). Thompson and Zeuli (1999) contend that creating cognitive dissonance is an essential requirement for ‘transformative learning’ for teachers which results in ‘changes in deeply held beliefs, knowledge, and habits of practice’ (p.342). Of the five requirements they identify for ‘transformative’ teacher learning, two centre on cognitive dissonance. For instance, they contend that transformative learning experiences should create a high level of cognitive dissonance to upset the balance between teachers’ beliefs and practices and new information or experiences related to students, content, or learning. Teachers need to learn more about content, instructional strategies, or ways in which students learn, in ways that prompt them to begin thinking about better ways of teaching, thus creating cognitive dissonance. Additionally, they contend that these transformative learning experiences should embed the dissonance-creating and dissonance-resolving activities in teachers’ own situations and practice by using student work, videotaping, or engaging in student activities as a learner.

In her cognitive-affective model of conceptual change (CAMCC), Gregoire (2003) refers to cognitive dissonance as ‘stress appraisal’. In an effort to theorise the teacher change process including resistant teacher beliefs in the process of implementing change to practice, she proposes a dual-process model of teachers’ cognition and appraisal processes during conceptual change. This theoretical model integrates key findings from cognitive models of belief change, with motivational and affective factors, found in social psychology theory and research. It purports to explain the process of conceptual change in teachers’ subject-matter beliefs. It accounts for the role of emotions, appraisals, motivation, and cognition in conceptual change; and includes teachers’ time and resources as pivotal to the process of belief change. In addition to offering a variety of explanations for why teachers do not change their beliefs, it identifies target areas for interventions to help facilitate teacher belief change – in particular, the appraisals teachers make when confronted with reforms and their affective responses to those appraisals.

In this model, teachers are presented with a dichotomous choice when confronted with reforms. Those who believe they are already implementing the endorsed practice are likely to see the reform as either neutral (benign) or positive – a benign-positive appraisal and so lack the necessary motivation to process the reform message systematically resulting in shallow or heuristic processing (in effect, quick but less effortful processing). Heuristic processing leads to another choice – Yielding – the degree to which the teacher yields to (accepts) or rejects the reform message. This decision is influenced by teachers’ prior beliefs and experiences. If teachers’ beliefs and experiences are supportive of the reform message, they yield to the reform message but the teachers’ cognitive schema is not radically changed and so assimilation/superficial change occurs instead of true conceptual change. If the teachers’ prior beliefs and experiences are opposed to the reform message then they do not yield to it and so no belief change occurs.

In contrast to the benign-positive appraisal, when confronted with a reform message, this model suggests that many teachers feel anxious or experience cognitive dissonance and so they appraise the situation as stressful – stress appraisal. Depending on the teachers’ efficacy beliefs of the reform initiative, teachers can perceive this stressful situation as a challenge (challenge appraisal) or as a threat (threat appraisal). The latter dictates that they adopt the immediate goal of avoiding the threat (avoidance intention) which leads to heuristic or shallow processing as described earlier. Heuristic processing only leads to ‘assimilation or superficial belief change that does not last over time’ (p.168). However, teachers with strong efficacy beliefs, coupled with motivation and capacity for implementing the reform initiative, perceive the stressful situation as a challenge (challenge appraisal) thus formulating an immediate goal of approaching the reform (approach intention) which leads to systematic processing of the reform message. This model contends that lasting conceptual change can only occur when teachers systematically process reform messages; however, ‘systematic processing does not ensure that belief change occurs, it only guarantees that the message is processed deliberately’ (p.168). Gregoire proposes that teachers’ appraisals of reform messages happen automatically before characteristics of the reform message are seriously considered which may result in a reform message never being fully processed by teachers. Consequently, she contends that in order for teachers to yield to the message (and thus offer the best chance of it being systematically processed), the ‘message should be perceived as intelligible, plausible, and fruitful for promoting students’ learning’ (p.168).

Potential of Student Voice

While the origin of the term ‘student voice’ is difficult to ascertain (Flutter, 2007), it is deeply rooted within the discourse and tenets of student participation. Certainly, a catalyst in the movement to attend to student voice was the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (1989), which provides that children and young people should be given the right to express their opinions on matters affecting their lives, particularly in relation to schooling. Since then, research investigating the potential of student voice has revealed a range of strategies to embed the principles of student consultation and participation within the culture and practice of schools. Strategies range from the use of simple questionnaires (Flutter and Rudduck 2004) to more sustained efforts and programmes of student participation that include students as researchers (Fielding and Bragg 2003), peer-assisted learning (Topping 2001), ‘assessment for learning’ approaches (Black et al. 2002) alongside the use of visual methods (photography, photovoice, photo-elicitation, etc.) that marry the worlds of visual methods and verbal description and thereby facilitate capturing the voices of all students.

Research has unveiled the potential benefits of consulting with students. Listening and responding to student voice, and engaging in student consultation in relation to their experiences as learners, supports teachers in accessing students’ perspectives and ‘is the first step towards fundamental change in classrooms and schools’ (Rudduck and Flutter 2003, p. 141). Indeed, students often share similar ideas and opinions about teaching and learning (Rudduck and Flutter 2003) and there is evidence that the voices of students have served as transformative experiences for teachers (MacBeath et al. 2003, Flutter and Rudduck 2004). The advantages for students arising from attending to their perspectives include improving teacher–student relationships (Tangen 2009, Flynn 2014); sense of wellbeing (Simmons et al. 2015) and connectedness (O’Brien 2008); changing power relationships resulting in learning becoming shared responsibility (Rudduck & Demetriou, 2003); improved communicative and academic skills; in addition to increased motivation and engagement in school affairs (Fielding and Bragg 2003, Leitch and Mitchell 2007, Sebba and Robinson 2010).

However, attending to student voice is not a trivial endeavour. Care has to be taken to gather credible and impartial perspectives and to attend to the voices of all students including those who are low achieving and marginalised (Davies 2005, Tangen 2009, Flynn 2014) and not just those who are articulate in the language of the school and are high achievers (MacBeath et al. 2003, Arnot et al. 2004). It is also worthy of note that the concept of ‘student voice’ has received criticism from Noyes (2005), Shirley (2015) and Lundy (2007) who, amongst others, caution that the use of ‘cosy’ language of participation (Roche 1999, p. 489) without a supporting legal imperative may allow adults to simply comply with the outward signs of consultation (see Leitch and Mitchell 2007 for a discussion of ‘tokenistic participation’) yet be insufficient to lead to action, particularly in cases where student voice challenges the dominant thinking or has a financial cost. Consequently, Lundy (2007) suggests a rights-based framework for participation which focuses decision makers on four elements of the UNCRC provision and prioritises Space (Children must be given the opportunity to express a view), Voice (Children must be facilitated to express their views), Audience (The view must be listened to), and Influence (The view must be acted upon, as appropriate).

Despite the moral imperative and practical benefits associated with student voice coupled with the complex theorisation of teacher professional learning, surprisingly, student voice remains an under-utilised construct in professional development practice, research, and literature. This dearth exists despite the primordial objective of professional development aligning with improved student outcomes (e.g. Guskey 2002, Desimone 2009); calls for student voice to be utilised more in professional development (Sugrue 2002, Joubert and Sutherland 2008, Margolis et al. 20166); evidence of the transformative potential of student voice in schools (Manefield et al. 2007, Flutter 2007b); research indicating that student voice can act as a catalyst for teacher engagement in professional development (Timperley et al. 2007, Higgins and Parsons 2009); and the identified potential of using student interviews and conferencing as a method of evaluating teachers’ use of new knowledge and skills (Guskey 2000). Relatedly, research indicates that cogenerative dialogue – structured discourse in which teachers and students engage in a collaborative effort to help identify and implement positive changes in teaching and learning practices – is effective in involving students collaboratively with teachers in improving teaching and learning (Martin 2006), in establishing democratic practices around critical pedagogy (Tobin 2006), and in promoting reflexive practices in classrooms (Siry and Martin 2014). Moreover, Guskey (2002) has called for better and more efficient methods of providing teachers with regular feedback on the learning progress of their students so that they can assess their efforts at changing practice. Observation and/or receiving feedback are approaches which contribute to the effectiveness of teacher professional development (Joyce et al. 1987, Loucks-Horsley and Matsumoto 1999, Timperley et al. 2007); however, this observation and feedback typically constitutes coaching and mentoring from experts or teaching peers rather than providing access to students’ experiences of teaching and learning. We argue that student voice can provide this feedback, with the auxiliary advantage of being uniquely insightful, timely, and sustainable. Furthermore, while consensus exists that focusing on student thinking and learning is a pivotal factor in professional development (Higgins and Parsons 2009, Whitcomb et al. 2009, Loucks-Horsley et al. 2010), and that creating cognitive dissonance is an essential mediator in transformative teacher learning (Thompson and Zueli 1999) and teacher conceptual change (Gregoire 2003), little emphasis exists in the teacher change or professional development literature on harnessing and utilising students’ experiences of teaching and learning. Highlighting this dearth in the literature, Margolis et al. (2016) claim that student voice is the missing link in professional development; that ‘job-embedded teacher learning’ may not be ‘embedded enough’ in that the physical presence of students is the missing variable in the majority of professional development models and literature. They assert that students are conspicuously absent from classroom-based professional development research – including lesson study – despite students being the ultimate focus of these classrooms resulting in professional development that is too de-contextualised and abstracted. They suggest that this ‘student voice’ component is critical in ensuring the learning situation is authentic, and potentially more impactful for the educator and so professional development should be focused on, and with students. We concur with this assertion but argue that the physical presence of students is not essential for involving students and gaining their insight, as evidenced in this study. We argue that student voice can contribute to creating cognitive dissonance or stress appraisal by providing ‘intelligible, plausible, and fruitful’ (Gregoire 2003) accounts of teaching and learning thus prompting teachers to systematically process reform messages. As such, student voice can be a mediating factor in the process of teacher conceptual change and can lead to transformative teacher learning. Including student voice as a mediator can augment the literature and theory on the teacher change process and professional development.

Methodology

This research project involves a year-long qualitative study with one case study primary school in Ireland in which the teachers participated in a seven-month professional development initiative that aimed to support them in implementing a reform approach to mathematics teaching. The professional development encompassed two phases focusing on different mathematical content (measurement concepts of length and weight, respectively) and the study investigates the impact of this professional development initiative on mathematics teaching and learning in the school (an overview of this professional development is provided in Table 1). Further details of the professional development are described and published elsewhere (see Treacy 2017).

Table 1. Overview and timeline of professional development.

Timeline	Foci	Sample content
Phase 1 Session 1 (90 minutes)	Introduction to reform-based mathematics teaching Teacher reflection	Exploration of challenges in mathematics teaching Unpacking Hiebert et al.’s (1997) instructional framework Individual teacher reflections on mathematics teaching
Phase 1 Session 2 (90 minutes)	Exploration of ‘measurement’ Exploration of sample tasks for conceptual development of length	Principles of measurement; measurement instruments; types of scales; standard units; conceptual definitions for length, height, distance; definitions for perimeter, radius, diameter, circumference; prefix naming system Sample tasks for each stage; common student misconceptions; vocabulary; use of personal benchmarks; concrete resources for non-standard and standard units
Phase 1 Session 3 (60 minutes)	Analysis of student voice Teacher reflection Collaborative teacher planning	Analysis of student voice data and comparison with Hiebert et al.’s instructional framework Identification of areas for improvement Teacher planning for length lessons based on the curriculum and Hiebert et al.’s instructional framework
Phase 1 Session 4 (90 minutes)	Collaborative teacher planning Teaching resources	Teacher planning for length lessons based on the curriculum and Hiebert et al.’s instructional framework Exploration of different types of tasks for teaching length, e.g. open-ended, projects, rich tasks, etc. Exploration of resources for teaching length
Phase 2 Session 1 (90 minutes)	Analysis of student voice Revision of instructional framework Observation of practice Professional readings/external expertise	Analysis of new student voice data – from the end of Phase 1 Comparison with initial student voice data, that is, from before and after implementation of intervention Identification of areas of strength and areas for improvement Collaborative revision of instructional framework based on experiences in Phase 1 Analysis of Deborah Ball video footage to explore the role of the teacher in whole class discussion (with a focus on reasoning and mathematical discussion) Teachers read and discussed Mathematics as Teaching (Pratt 2002) Teachers were asked to read Telling Matters in Mathematics Teaching and Learning (Dooley 2011) in their own time
Phase 2 Session 2 (60 minutes)	Professional readings/external expertise Teacher reflection Professional conversations/external expertise Creation of resources	Discussion on the professional readings from last session Teachers read selected excerpts from Teaching Problems and the Problems of Teaching (Lampert 2001) Individual teacher reflection on length lessons in Phase 1 Podcast of Seán Delaney’s interview with Jo Boaler Creation of ‘stock’ phrases or language that could help teachers while facilitating mathematical discussion
Phase 2 Session 3 (60 minutes)	Exploration of sample tasks for conceptual development of weight Problem-solving tasks Analysis of ‘problems’ in textbook	Definitions of weight and mass; measurement instruments; standard units Sample tasks for each stage; common student misconceptions; vocabulary including comparatives and superlatives; use of personal benchmarks; concrete resources for non-standard and standard units Engagement in rich mathematical tasks based on weight from www.nrich.org Analysis of ‘problems’ in textbooks and comparison between problems on nrich.org and philosophy of instructional framework

An embedded single-case study design (Yin 2006) was employed, where the ‘case’ is a primary school, and the classrooms are embedded ‘subcases’. Although all teachers in the school participated in the study, four classes are ‘tracked’ meaning that they are compared and contrasted in order to ‘allow for greater opportunity to generalize across several representations of the phenomenon’ (Borman et al. 2006, p. 123). In an attempt to gain multiple perspectives, the four classes were chosen with consideration given to a spread of classes – junior, middle, senior; length of teaching experience; and permanent and substitute teachers. Table 2 details these classes.

Table 2. Tracker classes.

	Class	Indicative ages	Position	Teaching experience
Ann	Senior infants (SI)	5–6 year olds	Permanent	10+ years
Bernie	Second class (2nd)	7–8 year olds	Permanent	>5 years
Catherine	Fifth class (5th)	10–11 year olds	Substitute	>3 years
Deirdre	Sixth class (6th)	11–12 year olds	Permanent	5–10 years

In an attempt to gain multiple experiences from students, six students from each of these classes were selected to participate in focus group interviews. These students were selected to ensure a spread of mathematical ability as indicated by performance on standardised assessments, and in order to track students’ experiences of mathematics lessons, the same students were interviewed at three stages throughout the duration of the research. The data collected include 8 one-to-one teacher interviews, 12 focus group interviews with students, 1 focus group interview with teachers, 1 interview with the principal, 8 lesson observations, and document reviews of collaborative lessons plans, work samples, student learning logs, teacher reflections, field notes, and researcher reflexive journal. The schedule and type of data collection used throughout the study is outlined in Table 3.

Table 3. Data collection schedule throughout the study.

Data Method	Activity	Participants	Before study	Phase 1	Phase 2	Study end
Interviews	Focus group interview One-to-one interview	Students (24) Teachers (4) Tracker teachers (4) Principal	√	√ √	√ √	√ √
Document review	Teacher reflections Learning logs Work samples Collaborative Lesson plans Field notes Reflective journal	Class teachers (7) Students (80) Students (24) Teachers (13) Researcher Researcher	√ √ √	√ √ √ √ √	√ √ √ √ √	√ √
Observation	Mathematics lessons Engagement in professional development	Teachers (4) Students (104) Teacher and principal (13)		√ √ √	√ √ √
Audio-visual methods	Digital photographs of mathematical tasks during lesson observation	n/a		√	√

Ethical issues were considered at all stages of this research and approval was granted by the college ethics committee. With regard to working with students, informed consent was sought from parents as legal guardians and gatekeepers, details of the study were communicated to students using Plain Language Statements and assent sought from students on age-appropriate forms. Real names of the principal, teachers and students were replaced by pseudonyms and every effort was made to maintain the anonymity of the school.

The data utilised for the purposes of this study (indicated in red in Table 1) were analysed using inductive techniques as described by Miles and Huberman (1994) with the analysis of documents guided by protocols outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). A multi-method approach to data analysis was used through triangulation of data sources (Lincoln and Guba 1985) from teacher interviews, student focus group interviews, principal interview, documents, field notes from observations of classroom teaching, observations of engagement in professional development, and researcher reflexive journal. Other analyses of this data set (Treacy, 2017), report on the efficacy of the professional development and the changes in teaching practice that occurred in the school as a result of the professional development initiative. The purpose of the analysis in this paper, however, was to examine the ‘change space’ and identify the factors that precipitated teacher cognitive dissonance. Data were systematically coded, indexed, re-coded into ‘theme piles’, and reviewed in relation to the entire data set before a thematic map was created (Braun and Clarke 2006). This inductive analysis generated two themes for discussion: students’ insight into mathematics practice and the nature of the cognitive dissonance experienced by teachers.

Discussion of Findings

The first theme, students’ insight into mathematics practice, consists of two subthemes – the first relates to the insightful reflections from students about their experiences of learning mathematics prior to the intervention while the second subtheme relates to students’ insights about changing mathematics practice during the intervention. The second theme, the nature of the cognitive dissonance experienced by teachers, explores the cognitive dissonance that teachers experience when presented with reform messages about practice, and how students’ insights contribute to the teacher change process. These themes support our argument that student insight can contribute to creating cognitive dissonance and motivation to change and so be an effective mediator in the teacher change process.

Student Insight into Practice

Subthemes emerged from the student data prior to participating in the reform-based intervention were as follows: mathematics as boring, mathematics lessons as teacher-talk, and teacher as corrector.

Mathematics as Boring

Students discussed their experiences of mathematics lessons in which they are bored: ‘you have to wait until everyone else is finished and it’s kind of boring waiting’ (SI); ‘they [mathematics lessons] can be a bit boring’ (5th); ‘it’s sort of boring when you are just sitting in the class and the teacher is writing numbers on the board and you have to do them in your copy’ (5th) and mostly passive: ‘so the teacher puts it up [on the board] and one person would do it for the teacher and we would watch. We see if they do it right. Then we have to write it into our copy’ (6th); ‘she [the teacher] just tells us to copy and she writes it on the board (2nd); ‘it’s just the teacher who does it up on the board and then you have to do it; That’s the end of it (5th), suggesting mathematics lessons in which students typically transcribe procedures completed by the teacher on the board and adopt a passive role. This echoes evidence from Irish research indicating that primary school students do not engage actively with mathematics (Department of Education and Skills (DES) 2013) and students work individually and silently for long periods (DES 2005a) thus casting students in the traditional passive role of ‘received knowers’ (Belencky et al. 1986). Contrastingly, Askew (2012, p.100) argues that children need to be actively engaged in mathematical activity rather than assuming that ‘knowledge is something that they lack, we [teachers] have and simply need to pass on to them. We have to help children to become knowing, through collective activity, rather than see them as passive recipients of knowledge’. Boaler (2009) highlights the irony that ‘mathematics, a subject that should be all about inquiring, thinking and reasoning is one that students have come to believe requires no thought’ (p.37).

Mathematics Lessons as Teacher-talk

Unsurprisingly, opportunities for students to discuss their mathematical ideas do not feature in these lessons: ‘nobody is allowed [to talk]’ (SI); ‘we don’t get to talk about them [mathematics] because we have other work as well … sometimes we get pages [worksheets] and sometimes we do work in our [text]books’ (2nd); ‘we never get to talk about maths … mainly it’s the teacher [who talks]. I think we would like to talk a little bit more in maths’ (5th); ‘[Talk] is mostly to check answers’ (6th). This finding echoes the self-reports of Fourth class Irish primary school teachers who assert that their most frequent mathematics practices include asking students to listen while they explain new content, and asking students to listen to their explanations of how to solve problems (Clerkin et al. 2017). This lack of opportunity to discuss mathematical ideas is concerning considering the important role of meaningful dialogue in developing understanding about important mathematical ideas (Schoenfeld 2002, Askew 2012) where students reason and communicate their ideas and thinking to others (Wood 2001) and engage in ‘arithmetic with a reasoning system’ – the core mathematical content for high-achieving countries in mathematics comparison studies (Ma 1999).

Teacher as Corrector

Relatedly, students describe mathematics lessons in which the teacher holds the mathematical authority and is the sole arbitrator of mathematical correctness. This is illustrated by data shared across all four class levels which highlight the traditional role of the teacher as corrector: ‘sometimes when you get a thing wrong and you don’t know why it’s wrong and the teacher does not still make sense’ (5th); ‘when we get something wrong … she does an X or a circle around it and then she says I’m not surprised some of them are wrong’ (2nd); and as demonstrator and explainer: ‘it is nearly always the teacher who talks [in mathematics lessons]’ (SI); ‘when she [the teacher] is telling us she kind of shows us what to do’ (2nd); ‘she [the teacher] would tell you what to do. That’s what she normally does – she tells us coz we never know what to do’ (SI); ‘the majority of the students do it the way the teacher does it which is the easiest way’ (5th), suggesting mathematics lessons in which the teacher tells and students listen. This is consistent with Irish research suggesting that teachers dominate mathematical discussions in primary school (Murphy 2004, DES 2005b, 2005b, 2010). Research indicates that sharing mathematical authority with students can be challenging for teachers (Hamm and Perry 2002, Nathan and Knuth 2003, Frykholm 2004) partially due to the ‘mathematical authority vacuum’ that can be created in which there is a dearth in mathematical rigour (Nathan and Knuth 2003) and a proliferation of mathematical talk with little focus on developing mathematical thinking (Fraivillig et al. 1999, Nathan and Knuth 2003). Interestingly, not all students believe that the teacher is the only person who should hold this mathematical authority, as illustrated in the following quotations:

But sometimes the teachers can get over-complicated when they are explaining it [mathematics] coz sometimes it is not the easiest way [the teacher’s way] and some people don’t understand it then. The teacher might find it hard to do it the easier way coz they might not understand it and we [the students] might understand the easier way (5th).

Don’t just let the teacher explain it [mathematics]. Let other people [explain] so that we can share how we do maths (5th).

Student Insight into Changing Practice

Three subthemes emerged from the student data following participation in the reform-based intervention. These include students’ desire for challenge in mathematics lessons, inclusive learning environments and opportunities to participate and share ideas.

Challenge in Mathematics Lessons

Students’ desire to be challenged more in mathematics lessons became more explicit once they had participated in the reform-based mathematics lessons, suggesting that these new experiences provided students with an alternative view of how mathematics could be learned. The following data illustrates how students enjoyed the challenge in the reform-based mathematics lessons: ‘It was boring then but it’s fun now’ (5th); ‘Today’s lesson was a challenge – that was the fun part’ (6th); ‘I liked the way we were able to do it ourselves and we weren’t being told what was wrong and what was right … coz then you could figure out for yourself what was wrong and what was right’ (5th); ‘It was a challenge. They weren’t too easy … you had to find out … and try different ways’ (6th); ‘It was good [teacher not telling] because we had to do it and it became more of a challenge rather than her [the teacher] just telling us what to do’ (6th), suggesting that students embraced and enjoyed being challenged in these mathematics lessons. The affective dimension of engaging in reform-based mathematics lessons also feature strongly in the data. Specifically, the advantages highlighted by students include mathematics lessons being more fun; making mathematics more interesting; making mathematics more realistic; motivating you to do more mathematics; and making it easier to learn mathematics. This increase in students’ participation mirrored a change in the teacher’s role in mathematics lessons. Students’ perceptions of this change in role are illustrated in their descriptions of teachers advising, checking, helping, and supervising the work: ‘She [the teacher] was going around checking … and seeing if people were doing team work’ (2nd); ‘It’s not like teachers aren’t doing anything. They are supposed to be giving advice and seeing what they [students] come up with and things like that’ (5th); ‘She was helping us … she was giving you tips kind of – like advice – not answers – go figure it out on your own’ (5th); ‘she [the teacher] was supervising – to give a hint. We had to do it ourselves’, suggesting that the teacher’s role was supportive of the increased student participation and additional challenge inherent in these lessons. One student summed up the teacher’s role in explaining that ‘She didn’t do that much, but she did enough’, which stands in stark contradistinction to the teacher’s role at the beginning of the study – a role that was very much in line with the traditional conception of mathematics teaching in which the teacher demonstrates and explains lessons which students reproduce accurately over and over again, while working silently and individually (Boaler 2009, Askew 2012) with an over-emphasis on isolated procedural skills (Stigler and Hiebert 1999).

Inclusive Learning Environments

Although students want to be challenged more in mathematics lessons, they want to experience this challenge in inclusive learning environments. Students’ desire for inclusive learning environments featured strongly throughout the data from all four classes and students’ perspectives strongly suggest that students prefer to work on mathematics in groups. Additionally, the data suggests that students find mathematics easier when working in groups because there are more mathematical ideas to share and discuss: ‘We learned that it is easier in groups – team work – you have more help thinking and more ideas’ (6th); “Our group all had different ideas and then we put them together and we tried each one and then we got the best one in the end” (6th); “[In a group] those four people might have totally different answers and you can like combine them – you can sort of discuss – you can sort it out and see which one is the better answer” (5th); “ [We could] think through a lot to see if the answers we were getting were realistic” (6th), suggesting that working on mathematics in groups allows students to decide on the optimum solution through reasoning involving dialogue and negotiation. However, Irish research indicates that rather than working collaboratively, students work individually and silently for long periods (Department of Education and Science 2005a) with working in groups occurring infrequently compared to other teaching practices (Clerkin et al. 2017). This stands in direct contrast to the literature which asserts that developing conceptual understanding in mathematics requires students to engage in problem solving, reasoning and communicating their ideas to others (Hiebert et al. 1997, Wood 2001, Warfield et al. 2005). This collaborative approach is echoed by Cobb (2000) who reports that he and his colleagues have come to reject purely individualistic approaches, and instead find it more useful to view students’ mathematical reasoning as ‘ … acts of participation in communal practices that they and the teacher establish in the course of their ongoing interactions’ (p.76). Another advantage of group work highlighted by students is its suitability for shy or quiet students as illustrated in this explanation:

Do it [mathematics] in groups because like the quiet people they would be nervous to talk in front of the class. They would get to talk to other people in the group and it would be easier for them. It would be easier for shy people (5th).

This suggests that in addition to benefiting mathematical thinking, group work has a positive affective impact on students.

Opportunities to Participate and Share Ideas

In addition to working in groups, students want inclusive learning environments where all learners can learn mathematics and be included in mathematics lessons. In particular, students highlight as problematic teachers’ tendency to choose the same students repeatedly to solve problems and answer questions in mathematics lessons. For example

Usually it would be the same people who are being picked and it’s kind of like you are invisible kind of—sometimes you are not getting picked and you are kind of like is it coz I don’t know something or is it just those people that you [the teacher] think know (5th).

This is supported by data from other students: ‘The same people the whole time would have their hands up’ (5th); ‘Whoever puts their hands up first the teacher asks them’ (6th); ‘If some people don’t normally put up their hands because they don’t know it [the answer] but if they do this time she [the teacher] would just normally pick the regular people that put up their hands the whole time’ (5th), suggesting that the same ‘regular’ students are privileged by teachers in mathematics lessons resulting in other students being excluded or ‘invisible’ either because they do not ‘normally’ have the solution or are slower to offer their solutions. This finding is of particular value because it resonates with the literature indicating that students with more negative attitudes to mathematics at age nine experience greater anxiety aged 13 (Smyth 2015) but it also offers nuanced insights into possible reasons for this, specifically, how teachers’ actions can contribute to students’ attitudes to mathematics. This is an important finding because engagement with mathematics at age nine is predictive of later academic self-image, and students with higher reading and mathematics achievement at the age of nine feel better able to cope with schoolwork four years later (Smyth 2015).

The data presented here illuminate students’ insight into mathematics teaching and learning, suggesting an impoverished mathematics experience before the study began and which is in stark contrast to demonstrated signs of enrichment as teachers implemented reform-based approaches. We argue that this insight can be used to motivate teachers to systematically process reform messages about mathematics because it is responsive and adaptive to local needs, contexts, and priorities and can contribute to a ‘learning situation that is authentic’ in which ‘school-based job-embedded learning’ can become ‘student-based teacher learning’ (Margolis et al. 2016) because it is directly related to teachers’ classrooms and student outcomes, thus adding a valuable perspective to professional development (Joubert and Sutherland 2008).

Cognitive dissonance experienced by teachers

The findings in this section are presented using two sub-themes: the decision to use student voice in the professional development and the challenges teachers encountered when attempting to implement changes to their practice.

Use of Student Voice Data

In planning this research project, the purpose of collecting data from students was to document students’ experiences of mathematics practice in the school with a view to then tracking any changes to practice following participation in the professional development initiative. However, resulting from teachers’ lack of engagement in the initial stages of professional development, a decision was made to include the student voice data in the professional development. This represented an attempt to motivate teachers to engage with the initiative by highlighting students’ negative experiences of mathematics lessons thus creating cognitive dissonance which could lead to conceptual change. Examples of the initial lack of teacher engagement are described in this section.

Concerns were raised by some of the teachers on the first day of professional development regarding the implications of the reform approach to mathematics teaching. These concerns included the role of the teacher, in particular, divergence from the traditional teacher role and knowing when to ‘tell’; the capacity of less-able students to engage in problematic tasks; and parents’ perceptions of their well-able children helping other students and sharing in the collective responsibility for understanding mathematics in the class. These concerns arguably reflect teachers’ beliefs about the suitability of problem-solving for all students and the appropriateness of students taking responsibility for learning of their peers. Raising these concerns is indicative of these teachers beginning to engage in ‘sense-making’ of the reform message (Datnow and Schmidt 2005) at which point teachers make an appraisal – a ‘benign-positive appraisal’ which can lead to either no belief change or superficial belief change – or ‘stress appraisal’ which can lead to either no belief change or true conceptual change (Gregoire 2003), suggesting that getting buy-in from teachers at this early stage of the professional development process is crucial to the change process. Research indicates that teachers’ openness and willingness to engage with, and sustain a new practice is significant to its implementation and survival over time (King 2016). Importantly, these teachers presented as lethargic and passive on the second day of professional development. Some teachers indicated that they were tired and asked the facilitator to ‘take it easy’ on them. Additionally, teachers struggled when invited to come up with group definitions of some terms for measurement, for example, teachers found it difficult to explain their understanding of ‘to measure’, other than to say it involved ‘measuring’ or ‘weighing’ or ‘comparing’. It is unclear whether this can be attributed to capacity or motivation. One teacher asked ‘how many of these lessons do we have to do?’ suggesting a lack of agency and possibly a lack of commitment to implementing the reform approach to mathematics teaching. Teachers’ demonstrations of lethargy and passivity are important here because emotion and cognition are tightly interwoven (Schmidt and Datnow 2005) and the relationships between thoughts and actions are important for professional development (Loucks-Horsley et al. 2010). This data is arguably reflective of Gregoire’s (2003) ‘benign appraisal’ of conceptual change in which teachers lack the necessary motivation to process the reform message systematically. Consequently, in an effort to motivate teachers’ engagement in the professional development initiative and the implementation of the reform approach, and to emphasise its relevance for their students, it was decided to include analysis of students’ experiences of mathematics lessons as a component of the third day of professional development. Although awkward and sensitive, this proved a decisive move in the professional development initiative. Based on this small-group analysis and reflection of students’ experiences of mathematics lessons, teachers identified the need to re-evaluate the role of the teacher in mathematics lessons; to increase opportunities for sharing mathematical ideas including the need for student reflection and communication between students; and to increase the use of tools, in particular, the use of concrete materials in mathematics lessons. Engagement with the professional development initiative increased considerably in subsequent sessions, suggesting that students’ experiences of mathematics lessons were pivotal to motivating teachers’ engagement in, and commitment to, the reform process. This is aligned with the literature which argues that teachers are interested in practices that improve student outcomes (Bubb and Earley 2008, Evans 2008) and that improvement initiatives are more likely to be successful when teachers work together on something they believe is worthwhile (Cuban 2003, Harris 2011, Townsend 2011) and which is tailored to their specific needs (Treacy, 2017) because focusing on student outcomes clarifies for teachers what they are trying to accomplish and drives backward through the change process towards moral purpose (Guskey 2002). Interestingly, at the end of the study, the principal identified the analysis of student insights as a turning point for teachers – one which prompted teachers to reflect on their practice in mathematics lessons:

I thought some of the input they [the teachers] got shocked them to be honest … out of their complacency. As in realising how the children felt about the maths—the feedback from the children was a real eye-opener to the teachers and I think it really made them reflect on their practices … (Principal interview)

Challenges during Implementation

At the end of phase one in the study – where teachers had engaged in one cycle of professional development and implemented changes to mathematics for lessons on length – teachers identified and discussed challenges that they experienced while implementing the reform approach to mathematics teaching. These challenges include changes to the teacher role, providing guidance, and sharing authority. This data underscores the ‘non-linear messiness’ of change (Fullan 2001) whereby teachers engage in a process of adopting, adapting, discarding, and resurrecting aspects of their practice. It is reflective of change not occurring in one step, but being progressive (Loucks-Horsley et al. 2010) in which reform implementation involves teachers engaging in a complex process of interpretation and reinterpretation (Schmidt and Datnow 2005), and so change may not be a ‘revolution’ but a process in which some new features develop out of the old tradition (Ma 1999).

Teacher role. Teachers discussed their confusion about their ‘changed’ role in mathematics lessons – a role which required them to encourage more student participation and share mathematical authority. This is in keeping with evidence suggesting that despite engaging in professional development based on constructivism and mathematical problem-solving, teachers retain a deep respect for traditional mathematics instruction and find it difficult to move from a didactic to a more facilitative role (O’Shea and Leavy 2013). This changing role of the teacher and the students has been identified as a source of emotional discomfort for teachers including the loss of ritual in classrooms, anxiety around guiding mathematical discussion, and the vulnerability experienced by teachers when engaged in mathematical exploration with students (Frykholm 2004). Furthermore, the ambiguity that exists both in theory and practice in relation to the teacher’s role has been raised as a concern (Nathan and Knuth 2003). Ann exemplifies this challenge: ‘Well the biggest challenge would be the teacher stepping back and trying to give that control … rather than the teacher voice it is the student voice that needs to be heard. That was the biggest challenge’ (Ann). This change to the teacher’s role caused uncertainty for teachers and triggered discomfort about their beliefs and practices about teaching mathematics. For example, Ann explains:

I just found it hard to know what was my role … I was kind of like I’m not allowed tell them [the students], they have to figure it out for—I can say to them what do you think but I won’t be able to intervene but then actually I was intervening. (Ann)

This is consistent with the literature that posits that when change occurs disturbances are inevitable; change brings a certain amount of anxiety and can be very threatening (Guskey 2002) resulting in an ‘implementation dip’ in performance and confidence when an innovation requires new skills and new understandings (Fullan 2001). Nonetheless, Loucks-Horlsey et al. (2010) contend that all educational changes of value require individuals to act in new ways (demonstrated by new skills, behaviours, or activities) and to think in new ways (demonstrated by new beliefs, understandings, or ideas), suggesting that this teacher uncertainty is a necessary step in the change process because dissonance can arise from logical inconsistency, or more likely, from violating a person’s expectations of a particular situation (Gregoire 2003).

Providing guidance. Related to this confusion regarding the teachers’ role, teachers highlighted their uncertainty in knowing how much guidance to give students. Teachers referred to this challenge in many ways from ‘stepping back” to ‘handing over [control]’ to ‘letting them [students] off’ to ‘biting your tongue’ to not knowing if you ‘have said too much or too little’. This dilemma is illustrated by Ann and Bernie:

I found it hard to know, can I say anything at all, do I let them [the students] completely find it out on their own or can I still guide them anyway. (Ann)

Should you ask any question or by asking a certain question are you giving them [the students] too much … are you like helping them to discover? Do you want to ask the bare essentials and let them completely come up with everything or do you want to steer the question? … so you want questions that are going to get them completely thinking kind of openly or do you want a kind of steering question? It is important to know what type of question to ask because you weren’t sure like, should I even have said that, or is that still me being in control … (Bernie)

This data highlights the tension that exists for teachers and echoes the literature indicating that a substantial proportion of primary school teachers in Ireland report limited confidence in teaching students to reason mathematically and to use mathematical language in their teaching (Kavanagh et al. 2015), perhaps reflective of the evidence suggesting that Irish primary school teachers have difficulty in following students’ mathematical explanations and evaluating students’ understanding (Delaney 2010). The challenges associated with this changing role for teachers in reform-based mathematics classrooms features in the literature, for example, Boaler (2003) and Grootenboer and Zevenbergen (2007) contend that mathematics teachers engage in a ‘dance of agency’ when encouraging students’ own agency as mathematicians and thereby positioning students in the role of active knowers, instead of the traditional passive role of ‘received knowers’ (Belencky et al. 1986). In line with this, teachers have to nudge conversations in mathematically enriching ways (Walshaw and Anthony 2008) and they ‘need to learn the stepping in and out that is paramount to promoting productive discourse’ (Nathan and Knuth 2003, p. 204) while ensuring the discourse is accessible to all students, knowing when to be explicit and use ‘direct telling’, and also refraining from ‘direct telling’ (Nic Mhuirí 2012), thus reflecting the complexity of implementing new approaches to teaching mathematics for teachers. So, these excerpts highlight the dilemmas encountered by these teachers when attempting to change their mathematics practice, arguably reflective of Kelchterman’s (2005, 2009) contention that vulnerability is an inevitable condition of teaching and can result in negative and positive emotions; situations in which teachers ‘feel anxious, fearful, confused, overwhelmed, deskilled, cautious, and – if they have a moral purpose – deeply disturbed’ (Fullan 2001, p. 40), arguably creating one of the requirements for transformative teacher learning – a high level of cognitive dissonance (Thompson and Zueli 1999).

Sharing authority. Teachers initially struggled with sharing mathematical authority with students. In Phase 1 of the study, teachers demonstrated reluctance and uncertainty about intervening in the reform-based mathematics lessons (as illustrated above). This resulted in teachers often relinquishing mathematical authority to the students during Phase 1. However, relinquishing mathematical authority lies in stark contradistinction to sharing mathematical authority. Evidence suggests that when teachers remove themselves from the analytical aspects of classroom discourse, a mathematical authority vacuum is created and so student ideas are offered publicly for others to pick up, refute, or ignore, with no basis for evaluation other than opinion (Nathan and Knuth 2003) thus sending mixed messages to students about their authority to develop and to verify mathematical knowledge (Hamm and Perry 2002). Boaler (2003) provides direction in this regard in her contention that such situations can be addressed by teachers shifting the source of authority to the domain of mathematics rather than the teacher or student. She argues that rather than respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to student’s questions ‘is this correct?’ (referring authority to the teacher) or saying ‘what do you think’ (referring authority to the students), that instead by asking questions such as ‘have you tried it with a different number?’ or ‘can you draw a diagram?’ (referring to the authority of the discipline) the teacher makes the activity in such classrooms ‘more mathematical, because the teacher positions the discipline of mathematics as the authority from which students should draw’ (p. 1–9). Despite these initial challenges, during Phase 2 there was evidence of teachers sharing mathematical authority with students, indicating a change process whereby over the course of the year teachers moved from holding the mathematical authority towards relinquishing mathematical authority to students towards sharing mathematical authority with students. Bernie’s reflection illustrates this:

The last time [during Phase 1] … you felt almost as if you were neglecting or stepping back too much whereas when we were doing it in Phase 2 I felt more reassured that the teacher was the facilitator but like, you were still the teacher but you were giving them [the students] that freedom …

This data resonates with the literature which suggests that teacher education needs to provide spaces where ‘discomforting dialogues’ can challenge deeply held beliefs triggering deep reflection (Kelchtermans 2009) so that teachers can act in intentional ways to shape their own responses to problematic situations (Fallon and Barnett 2009). Schmidt and Datnow (2005) contend that conflict, tensions, and disturbance to long-held beliefs, ideologies, and structures are inevitable in the change process and so should not to be feared. This cognitive dissonance is necessary because teachers viewing their practice as problematic may foster belief change through either motivational or cognitive mechanisms or both, providing teachers with the opportunity to systematically process the reform which can lead to true conceptual change (Gregoire 2003). However, despite student voice being highlighted as the missing link in professional development (Margolis et al. 20162016) and calls in the literature for student voice to be utilised more in professional development (Sugrue 2002, Joubert and Sutherland 2008); little emphasis is evident in the literature of how student voice can be used effectively in professional development and teacher learning. Therefore, the explicit analysis of students’ experiences of mathematics lessons as a core component of teacher professional development, as evident in this study, can add to the literature and practice on professional development and can be considered as a mediator in the change process for teachers. This is of value because evidence suggests that despite incessant innovations in schools over the last few decades, little concomitant lasting impact on practice is evident (Cuban 1998, Sahlberg 2012), perhaps reflective of a need to do things differently. We argue that incorporating student insight into professional development can constitute one way of doing things differently.

Conclusion

Examination of the perspectives provided by students in our study reveals commonalities with the findings of other studies. Providing teachers with access to students’ voices constituted what Rudduck and Flutter (2003) describe as ‘the first step towards fundamental change’ (p. 141) in our study. Similar to findings from other studies (MacBeath et al. 2003, Flutter and Rudduck 2004, McIntyre et al. 2005), it was the power of students’ voices which were incorporated into the initial stages of our study, and motivated by the lack of engagement of teachers with the professional development, that served as transformative experiences for teachers. The quality and content of student feedback, in particular their constructive focus on learning, and their appreciation for collaborative learning and interactive teaching for understanding are also reported by McIntyre et al. (2005).

The data presented here in relation to teachers’ challenges in changing their mathematics practice strongly support the contention that teacher uncertainty, vulnerability, and emotions are central to changing practice. This is congruent with the literature which postulates that creating ‘cognitive dissonance’ is an essential component of the teacher change process (Schmidt and Datnow 2005, Timperley et al. 2007, Loucks-Horsley et al. 2010) whereby ‘discomforting dialogues’ contradicting deeply held beliefs can trigger deep reflection – in which the content of one’s personal interpretative framework is thoroughly challenged and questioned – without which personal scholarship cannot develop (Kelchtermans 2009) and transformative learning cannot occur (Thompson and Zueli 1999). Teachers’ emotions are ‘not unimportant side-effects or marginal phenomena, but on the contrary, show that something is “at stake” that goes beyond the simple question of changing one set of practices for another’ (Kelchtermans 2005, p. 996). Added to this, the appraisals teachers make when confronted with reforms and their affective responses to those appraisals have been identified as key mediators in conceptual change (Gregoire 2003, Frykholm 2004). Consequently, teachers should be given the emotional support needed to take reasonable risks (Schmidt and Datnow 2005) because to change means to take risks and to risk failure; which not only could result in embarrassment but might have negative consequences for student learning – thus contradictory to teachers’ deep commitments (Guskey 2002). Central to creating this cognitive dissonance was the insightful perspectives of students about mathematics teaching and learning in which they describe impoverished mathematics experiences that later begin to show signs of enrichment. However, despite the insights provided by students in this study, student voice remains a neglected narrative in teacher professional development. We argue that, student voice can be used effectively to motivate teachers and trigger deep reflection through ‘discomforting dialogues’ and as such be a mediator in the teacher change process, and can arguably lead to ‘systematic processing’ of the reform message (Gregoire 2003).

The findings of this study have implications for the incorporation of student voice into the professional practice in schools and into the design of professional development experiences. In our study, giving voice to the experience of students provided valuable insights into their learning experience and, from the perspective of teachers, brought a relevance and authenticity to the reform of their mathematical practices. The lack of agency of these same students prior to the study resulted in lost opportunities to innovate practices within the school; and has implications for the opportunities we provide for students to play a more active role in the teaching and learning process. From a broader perspective, it is valuable for students to know that their opinions and expertise are valued. Participating in decisions about their education and seeing attention to and acknowledgement of their experiences and opinions may, in turn, lead to greater student engagement and ownership of learning. Future research should transcend incorporating students’ classroom experiences into the professional development initiative towards approaches that actively seek to increase student agency. Valuing student voice as a meaningful and insightful construct can improve classrooms and drive change.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.