The purpose, description and development of teachers’ professional seeing a dialogue between Hattie and Schön

ABSTRACT

A pedagogy of vision and seeing has a long history. Teachers’ professional vision, seeing and noticing are today regarded as important factors that affect the quality of their teaching and are considered important to develop. The article argues that there is a need to gain a deeper understanding of teachers’ professional vision, seeing and noticing and how they can be developed by creating bridges between various research traditions. Drawing on hermeneutic conversation as a method, the study addresses how two different researchers, John Hattie and Donald Schön, describe a) the purpose of teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing, b) what kind of development regarding teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing they suggest and c) where plausible similarities and/or differences between their reasoning can be found. The article’s major contribution is that it provides a metacognitive roadmap for professionals and educational researchers that both shows where Schön and Hattie intersect and where their views of teachers’ professional vision, seeing and noticing differ.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional teacher
• professional vision/seeing
• metacognition
• hermeneutic Schön
• Hattie

Introduction

In the humanities and social sciences, human activity is often described as a form of visual culture. Here, visual culture means what we see with our eyes, the mental models or metaphors we use to see [cf. meaning-making] and the ways in which seeing and meaning-making generate directions for doing and acting. In research on visual culture, it is also about the relationship between what is visible and made visible through language and what is invisible or actively made invisible (Mirzoeff 1999). In this article, teachers’ professional seeing is approached as a gateway to a field of interrelated concepts, such as professional perception (Bentea and Anghelache 2012, Ling et al. 2021), professional noticing/attention (Mason 2002, Jacobs et al. 2010, Erickson 2011, Schack et al. 2017, Thomas et al. 2017) and professional vision (Goodwin 1994, Sherin et al. 2008, Stürmer et al. 2012). Indeed, in research on professional identity, a teacher’s vision, which is about establishing an ideal platform for teachers’ seeing, is regarded as an important factor that affects the quality of their teaching (Ibarra, 1999; Shulman, 1991). Research on effective schools indicates that these schools have a clear vision of how education is to be taught, while non-effective schools lack this common ideal platform for seeing, i.e. vision (Bottoms and Schmidt-Davis 2010, Sun and Leithwood 2015, Mombourquette 2017). At the same time, it is pointed out that abstract organisational visions are not enough, because they overlook teachers’ personal visions or ideal platforms for seeing that are tapped into the concrete buzzing of everyday life and influence what teachers notice in the classroom (Fullan 1993). This vision is not the same for everyone, but differs from teacher to teacher and therefore needs to be articulated, i.e. placed in the open for scrutiny (Snyder 1980, Messaris 1994). For instance, Kelchtermans (2009) argues that professional identity can be described as ‘a lens through which teachers (educators) look at their job, give meaning to it and act in it’ (p. 260).

Accordingly, an important generator for promoting change or reform is developing a vision for teachers that is cultivated from within (Hammerness 2001). Vision tends to dictate what teachers see or notice and is part of the broader concept of perception. Perception [Lat. perception] means receiving or gathering and incorporating knowledge about sensory information, such as vision, smell, taste, sensing and hearing (Bruce and Cacciamani 2021). The notions of perception, vision, seeing and noticing as central gateways for meaning making or understanding have a long history and are influenced by various traditions (Stepkowski 2018).

This suggests that although there is a general agreement that teachers’ seeing, or vision, affects educational and learning outcomes (see e.g. Mason 2002, van Es and Sherin 2002, Ainley and Luntley 2007, Sherin 2007, Sherin et al. 2008, Jacobs et al. 2010, Seidel and Stürmer 2014), the way that seeing is approached and understood depends on how the teaching profession is valued in society. The teaching profession is one of the oldest in the world and its status and responsibilities have changed over the years. Overall, there are two conflicting traditions in terms of how the teaching profession is understood (seen): teachers as technicians and teachers as intellectuals. Teachers as technicians refers to teachers who mechanically act from a system based on rationalisation, measurability and streamlining, where the intention is not to make continuous judgements of the practice that surrounds them, but to follow fixed templates and structures as much as possible. In contrast, teachers as intellectuals not only act on the practice in which they operate but also reflect on it (Ball 1995; Attard 2016).

John Hattie’s Visible Learning and Donald Schön’s The Reflective Practitioner can be said to embody these two different traditions. Whereas Hattie has been criticised for overlooking everyday complexity (see for instance, Klaus and Klitmøller, 2021; Rømer 2019, McKnight and Whitburn 2020), Schön has been criticised for relying too much on subjective sentiments instead of systematic research (see for instance, Newman 1999, Russell 2013). At the same time, both Hattie and Schön have influenced the educational field regarding teachers’ professional seeing, albeit from two radically different starting points. Schön has contributed greatly to the field of education and teacher professionalism but was himself not an educationalist but an American professor of urban planning who coined the term reflective practitioner (Rømer 2019) and part of the Bildung tradition stressing self-cultivation (Yagata 2018). Hattie, an Australian professor of education, became famous for conducting the world’s largest synthesis of meta-analyses based on quantitative effect sizes to detect the kind of qualities that define successful educational outcome. Against this background, it is therefore worthwhile approaching their reasoning as complementary without falling into the pit fall of dichotomised thinking (cf. Blömeke et al. 2015).

In accordance with Hammernes et al. (2005), it is here argued that the complexity residing in education requires the development of a metacognitive toolbox through a professional language that enables teachers to handle the balance of everyday uncertainties and deep research-based knowledge. In this way of reasoning, it is more fruitful to avoid treating Hattie and Schön as enemies and instead study what their reasoning might contribute with regard to the processes of developing teachers’ seeing from a metacognitive perspective that pays attention to language use.

With this as a background, the purpose of this article is not to cultivate a particular trait of teachers’ professional seeing, but rather to contribute to developing a deeper metacognitive understanding of how various ideas about teachers’ professional seeing are expressed through language. This is done by establishing a staged dialogue between Hattie and Schön using their texts Visible Learning and The Reflective Practitioner as starting points for analysis. Inspired by the notion of dialogue as research and hermeneutic conversation (Gadamer, 1975/2006), this study sheds light on these two researchers, both of whom stress the importance of nurturing teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing from two different platforms of inquiry. Placing different and sometimes contradictory voices in dialogue with each other can lead to ‘threshold’ situations in which a more nuanced and sharper understanding of the outside world can emerge.

The following questions are addressed in the article: a) How do Hattie and Schön explain the purpose of teachers’ seeing [and its related concepts]? b) How do Hattie and Schön describe seeing [and its related concepts]? and c) Are there any similarities and differences in how Hattie and Schön suggest the development of teachers’ professional seeing [and its related concepts]?

The article begins with an account of how concepts of vision, seeing and noticing/attending are approached in research on teacher professionalism. The notion of hermeneutical dialogue as research is described in the next section. This is followed by a staged dialogue between Donald Schön and John Hattie by using Schön’s book The Reflective Practitioner and Hattie’s Visible Learning as the main points of departure. The staged dialogue between the authors takes its starting point in the questions posed above. In the concluding section, the similarities and differences between the perspectives are discussed, not as a way of stressing the gap, but to enable a sharper roadmap for teachers’ professional development.

Research on teachers’ professional seeing

Professional vision and noticing

In accordance with a broad range of research, a teacher’s perception is vital for educational outcomes, in that their perceptions and beliefs influence their practice and, subsequently, their students’ performances (Eggen & Kauchak, 2001). This implies that the status and necessity of teacher professionalisation is reliant on developing perception and practising interpretation and decision-making in situation-specific contexts (Blömeke et al. 2015). The broader term of perception is linked to research on teachers’ professional vision and seeing.

According to Goodwin (1994), who coined the term professional vision, a profession is characterised by a particular group that establishes a social organisation for seeing governed by the group’s needs and interests. In this sense, professional vision is based on specialist skills and knowledge that guide the group’s understanding (a.a). In this sense, professional vision is broader than visual perception yet encompasses various senses to make meaning out of events (Endsley, 2015).

Professional vision is generally described as a capacity to notice relevant details, practices and interactions in the classroom (see also Sherin et al. 2008, p. 28) or an educational environment. Thus, professional vision becomes closely interconnected with noticing, which involves a selective attention to the events taking place in an educational situation and an interpretation of the same based on professional knowledge (van Es and Sherin 2002). There is some consensus that a central characteristic that distinguishes professional expertise from technicians (using methods without systematic reflection) is the ability to notice, i.e. give selective attention to something in order to see important dimensions in the learning environment with the intention of enhancing the nuances in students’ learning (Sherin 2001, Mason 2002, 2021).

Hammerness (2001) shows that a teacher’s personal vision is characterised by three interconnected dimensions: distance, range and focus. These may be seen as open concepts and help to structure how vision comes into expression in research and teachers’ day-to-day practices. Focus of vision helps to analyse vision in terms of where the area or centre of attention lies, where interest is directed, as well as the clarity and blurriness of vision. Range of vision entails an awareness that vision can be narrow and detail focused and/or encompass a broader panorama. Distance of vision emphasises how close or distant vision is in relation to daily practice. Vision may thus be perceived as quite close to current practice, or extremely distant from daily experience (a.a).

In recent years there has been an upsurge of research on eye tracking in order to study what teachers direct their attention to in their everyday classroom practices (Cortina et al. 2015, Dessus et al. 2016, Stürmer et al. 2017; McIntyre and Foulsham 2018, Smidekova et al. 2020). Eye tracking, or focus of gaze, tends to be separated from interpretation and can be understood as a complement to noticing and teacher vision (Seidel et al. 2020). Professional vision can thus be described as an interplay between knowledge-based reasoning (a top-down process) and selective attention that involves continuous encounters with practice (a bottom-up process). A professional teacher is expected to be able to see (notice) what takes place in practice, reflect on this noticing based on their knowledge and the contextual needs and decide on future action (Sherin et al. 2011).

Professional noticing, as interconnected with the top-down knowledge-based [or phronesis] professional visioning, directs attention to the multi-layered needs and conditions of the practice and focuses on a teacher’s ability to shift their attention between entities. It also means seeing or noticing that which takes place in the practice and involves a teacher’s responsiveness, sensitivity and the techniques that are used to encounter the particularity of the present. Subsequently, professional noticing can be understood as a dimension of selectivity (what to notice) and a spur of the moment reaction or sensitising (Mason 2011; cf. van Es and Sherin 2002). Mason’s (2011) notion of sensitising, in contrast to habitual action, as a dimension of noticing can be compared to professional sensing, which involves opening up to what is unique in education, with regard to the unique student and the unconscious perceptions that tend to cloud teacher judgment.

Here, it becomes important to connect the language of academic knowledge with practice (cf. Irisdotter 2013) and be aware that a focus on teachers’ seeing can help to bridge these two entities (Hammerness 2006). Knowledge-based reasoning aims to sharpen and broaden vision with the aid of previous knowledge, including scientific concepts, for more elaborated interpretations and well-grounded teacher judgements. This reasoning can be divided into three interrelated areas: the ability to describe, explain and predict. A teacher’s professional verbal description of the central parts of an educational situation depends on their ability to know what to look for (to identify) based on previous knowledge, how the parts can be understood in relation to one another and the educational purposes at hand (to differentiate). Teacher explanation is about an ability to explain how previously gathered knowledge can be used in relation to an observed educational situation. Finally, the ability to predict what kind of consequences various ideas and actions may have depends on a teacher’s broader knowledge of patterns and causality (Stürmer et. al. 2013).

Finally, it is well established that professional vision [an ideal platform for seeing] and seeing as noticing/attending are entwined with a political and power dimension, which implies that the way we look at the world is governed by perspectives that organise reality and are value loaded. From this it follows that it is important to acknowledge that vision is constructed through policy and expressed through teachers’ choices, in that professional noticing has the ability to both silence perspectives and/or give voice to them, i.e. open up to perspectives (cf. Goodwin 1994, Lefstein and Snell 2011, Jacobs et al. 2010; Barnhart and van Es 2015, Taylan 2017). It is therefore important to study the similarities and differences between the different idea systems of teachers’ professional seeing and the consequences for what is to be noticed in practice.

Newly qualified teachers and experienced teachers

Teachers who are described as efficient are not only more aware that teaching is a demanding and complex endeavour but can also approach this complexity in a systematic way (Lampert 2001). In other words, expert teachers are able to notice patterns based on various focus points in the classroom activities, whereas newly qualified teachers only see a disjointed or chaotic practice (Romo-Escudero et al. 2022). Newly qualified teachers are keener to focus their noticing on what they themselves do as teachers, rather than understanding how their doings shape their students’ learning (Lampert 2001). Moreover, newly qualified teachers tend to use language and concepts as though they were obvious, without having established a broad and deep repertoire for how the concepts can be interpreted (Hammernes et al. 2005).

Hammernes et al. (2005) refers to three central challenges for teacher development. First, a central challenge for developing professional teachers is to distance oneself from a so-called apprenticeship of observation, which means that education is only viewed through the experience of being a student. Apprenticeship of observation produces preconceptions that prevent new teachers from developing their capacity for professional observation. Second, besides stimulating a deep understanding for seeing as a professional teacher, new teachers face the challenge of enactment, where multifaceted aims in practice need to be balanced in a way that interconnect with knowing what, knowing why and knowing how. Third, the challenges of complexity imply that teachers cannot simply act in a routine way, because people and practices include aspects of uncertainty and alteration. In order to deal with this complexity, teachers need to systematically reflect on complexity with the aid of research, i.e. a metacognitive tool box that guides reflection and decisions (a.a). However, it is not sufficient to simply explain the various aspects of what makes teaching efficient. It is also important to have knowledge about the different theoretical orientations underpinning ideas about good or efficient education (Heck and Moriyama 2010; Hofman, Hofman & Gray, 2010, Sammons 2009). This article aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of metacognition with regard to professional seeing [and its related concepts] by providing conceptual descriptions and explanations from two researchers representing two different idea systems.

A hermeneutical conversation – methodological considerations

In this section, two texts are highlighted in relation to teachers’ seeing, with a specific focus on the interplay between the certain (top-down) and uncertain (bottom-up): Donald Alan Schön’s (1930–1997) The Reflective Practitioner. How Professionals Think in Action (1983) and John Hattie’s (2009) Visible Learning. A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-analyses Relating to Achievement, both of which have contributed in various ways to highlighting teachers’ seeing [and its related concepts]. Although these scholars have published other books and articles over the years, the two selected publications address the topic in question and are well quoted, thereby rendering them suitable for an in-depth analysis of their theoretical understandings of the topic in question. Hattie’s research is implemented in approximately 23 countries and he is described as a supporter of evidence-based research (Knudsen 2017), whilst the notions of reflection and reflective practitioner used in the field of teacher development stem from the work of Donald Schön and are thoroughly addressed in the selected text (Cole et al. 2022).

Language, as a means of meaning-making for broadening horizons and the importance of building bridges between various traditions regarding teacher vision, seeing and/or noticing, guides the choice of methodology. While dialogue is a common method in education, it has also been emphasised as an important tool for research investigations (Burbules 1993, MacInnis and John 2002, Frank 2005). A dialogue between parts considered as equals (1970) is particularly fruitful for making the similarities and differences between various paradigms visible in ways that enable new insights and possibilities for change (Green and Chandler 1990, p. 215, MacInnis and John 2002). Dialogue comes in different shapes and in this study is understood as a form of inquiry based on language use (Burbules 1993). Placing what is to be studied and discussed at the centre is important in any dialogue (Shor and Freire 1987, p. 3).

In the context of this article, dialogue is understood through the lens of hermeneutics, which is both a method(ology) aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of a text and a philosophy of being and interpretation. Hermeneutics was initially used to interpret biblical texts and gradually became a methodology for interpreting text in general (Ramberg and Gjesdal 2009, Loren 2014). The ambition from the start was to capture the original meaning or pure essence of a text (see for instance Schleiermacher 1838/1998). However, Heidegger (1927) and later Gadamer (1976) made an important ontological turnover when they stated that all interpretation needed to consider the interpreter’s preunderstanding coloured by history, thereby interconnecting cognitive processes with human existence (Edling et al. 2020). This entails that the dialogue between Hattie and Schön is bound to be coloured by the context: the research questions and texts that are chosen and the interpreter’s own historical horizon. The ambition is to carefully examine the language by oscillating back and forth between reading the text as a whole to its parts and back again in a spiral movement. Although the text is read from a particular horizon, its uniqueness can enable new concepts and ideas to emerge and in that way facilitate a widening of horizons (Gadamer 1976). Accordingly, the texts have been read and reread several times with the aim of understanding their overall meaning. We have then moved to the ways in which the authors address vision, see* and notic* together with related words like perception, view*, observ*, monitor*, regard*, look* and attend*. It should be stressed that the intention is not to fully capture the essence of the authors’ minds or their life works, but to engage in a staged dialogue with two scholars who have had a significant impact on education and who emphasise the importance of acknowledging and developing (teachers’) professional seeing.

Accordingly, the focus of this article is to gain a deeper understanding of the notion of teachers’ professional seeing by engaging two different scholars in a staged dialogue with one another. The arguments were organised in two sections in order to answer the following questions: a) How do Hattie and Schön explain the purpose of teachers’ seeing [and its related concepts]? b) How do Hattie and Schön describe seeing [and its related concepts]? and c) Are there any similarities and differences in how Hattie and Schön suggest the development of teachers’ professional seeing [and its related concepts]? The overall ambition has been to explore the similarities and differences between the two scholars as a way of creating a bridge between the two traditions and a clearer roadmap for professionals and educational researchers to orient from.

Professional seeing from two different traditions: a dialogue

During the process of reading and rereading the texts, various themes were developed based on aspects that occurred in both texts that enabled a dialogical comparison. These themes are: motivation, development focusing on environment, teachers’ repertoires, teachers’ and students’ visions, seeing and noticing, and active learning. In Table 1, the similarities and differences between the two researchers are compared and categorised. The interpretation of the reading is fleshed out systematically in the following sections.

Table 1. An overview of the similarities and differences between Schön’s and Hattie’s reasoning. The similarities are captured in the middle, while the two columns on each side highlight the differences. For clarification: the descriptions in the table are the article author’s summaries and not quotations from the two studied texts.

SCHÖN	SIMILARIIES	HATTIE
CASE STUDIES		META STUDIES
Purpose
develop a capacity for vision and seeing that unites knowledge with a unique and changeable practice in an ongoing process handle dilemmas problem solving and problem posing	teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing are important to develop because they influence practice	develop a capacity for vision and seeing that master education by means of evidence-based research resolving dilemmas problem solving
Environment
the environment interconnects pieces in a complex manner that influence outcome important to keep changes in the environment alive for ethical reasons when designing education	learning takes place in an environment that is relational and complex important to allow people to make errors and experiment humans’ ‘well-being’ in the environment is important to pay attention to	learning environments should be caring and provide good feedback
Repertoire
professional repertoire is also developed continuously when reflecting in and on action, interconnecting feeling for and knowledge the repertoire is a springboard for an artistic designing of practice knowledge about scientific inquiry and not just science results is important to incorporate in the repertoire	teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing depend on their repertoires professionals need to develop a robust and varied body of knowledge (repertoire) as a base for seeing important to build repertoires that broaden and deepen teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing by adding something new (unfamiliar) to what is already known (familiar) the teaching profession and seeing are developed through science (theory and methods) teachers should that know their teaching is based on conceptions that need to be problematised teachers should oscillate between their repertoire and practice	repertoires should be based on a broad range of evidence-based research methods and defensible theories the repertoire is for mastering practice
Teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing
meaning making of seeing-as and doing-as depends on language use expressed through verbal descriptions that set the frames for practice (naming/framing) seeing and noticing always involve inclusion/exclusion that is vital to be aware of and scrutinise teachers need to be aware of the fact that there is always a gap between science, practice, seeing and noticing. We cannot fully embrace everything in practice and see exactly what others see it is important to develop a double vision, where past and present and the familiar and unfamiliar continuously meet in a dialogical fashion (enhances deep learning)	teachers should know that their teaching is based on conceptions through which they interpret, see and notice educational practice these conceptions need to be problematised and developed because they influence practice professional seeing and noticing involve a movement between the repertoire of various forms of knowledge and practice	effective teachers see themselves as agents of change teachers should have a shared vision of the success criteria and ideas about progression it is possible and important for teachers to see through their students’ eyes because success depend on it
Students’ vision, seeing and noticing
there is a risk that student teachers will avoid noticing and that this then becomes a selective inattentiveness to data that falls outside pre-given categories not even an expert will master everything	it is important to acknowledge that each student is unique and has unique interests and learning experiences from the past student teachers (and professionals) risk having prejudices about education, overlooking task complexity and searching for rules it is important to make student teachers see their prejudices and problematise the (de-education) to avoid students being stuck in their own isolated seeing patterns, it is important to expose their insights, reflections and conclusions to external stimuli	student teachers risk seeing themselves as students rather than future professional teachers the ultimate goal is to make students see themselves as teachers a newly qualified teacher will fail more in seeing and noticing while an expert has already mastered these skills
Active learning
expose students to open-ended puzzles that do not merely involve problem solving but problem posing encourage students to continuously place their repertoire in dialogue with each other and practice (reflection-in-action/double vision) in ways that open up to generative metaphors – new visions for doing and detect nuances encourage students to be attentive to consequences of action – even unintended encourage students to practise artistic investigation and embrace uncertainty and risk encourage students to embrace uncertainty and risk encourage students to verbally describe practice in relation to the familiar and unfamiliar	building repertoires: lenses and concepts for orienting and interpreting practice important to expose students to various lenses for seeing and noticing engage students in dialogue understanding and meaning-making are important to practise for deep learning applying trial and error and making students aware that learning is not always easy and linear problematise governing conceptions (lenses for seeing) continuously expose students to new (unfamiliar) knowledge meta-analysis is important to practise in order to move from the whole to its parts	expose students to problem-solving make the objectives visible for students give students a varied set of evidence-based methods and defensible theories

How does Schön explain the purpose of teachers’ professional seeing?

Schön’s reasoning takes its starting point in empirical case studies and his own reflections on professional practices (p. viii), where he concludes that a narrow technical rationality as a basis for professional vision [as utopian imagery p. 287] is insufficient and ethically undefendable. A narrow technical rationality implies that the professional is expected to use their repertoire of previous knowledge to solve practical problems in the present in a causal manner, without explicitly reflecting on the consequences of the pre-defined modes of action. Contrary to this, he argues that a central purpose of professionals is their capacity to recognise the presence of uncertainty and deal with dilemmas based on conflicting paradigms that cannot per se be solved, in that various paradigms have their own value rationality. For example, a method may be economically functionable yet ‘carry unacceptable risks to environmental quality or human safety’ (p. 42). There is also ‘always a gap between such [reflective] descriptions and the reality to which they refer’ (p. 276), which is important to acknowledge due to the dimension of unpredictability (see also pp. 41–42). Subsequently, seeing-as when reflecting in and on action can function as a generative metaphor that opens up new visions and seeing in an innovative way, which is (pp. 183–185) not feasible in the logic of technical rationality.

How does Hattie explain the purpose of teachers’ professional seeing?

Whereas Schön looks more closely at educational practice and reflection by drawing on case studies, Hattie’s reasoning is based on a synthesis of over 50000 meta-studies that include data from several millions of students (p. ix). His attention is on ‘[t]he effect size of 0.40’, which he maintains makes it possible to ‘notice real-world differences’ for learning outcomes and therefore make a ‘benchmark of such real-world change’ (p. 17). Only the words notice and attention are used in this sense to stress the importance of ‘paying deliberate attention to learning intentions and success criteria’ (p. 36). One reason for attending to teachers’ and students’ seeing is to develop a capacity for efficient teaching and learning (p. 22), problem-solving and ‘resolving dilemmas’ (p. 226). Although a novice may choose ‘trial and error strategies’, a more mature and knowledgeable student would tend to use ‘strategies that might work’ (p. 30).

How does Schön describe the development of professional vision, seeing and noticing?

Environment

When reading Schön, it would appear that the teaching profession is entrenched in an environment in which various aspects interconnect in a complex manner and where problems interact and tend to change in an unpredictable way rather than existing neatly and waiting to be solved (p. 16 see also p. 144). A belief that problems are obvious and can be solved with the right method ‘carry unacceptable risks to environmental quality or human safety’ (p. 43). Against this background, it becomes essential to design education as interwoven with environmental change, rather than regarding them as two different yet interrelated entities (p. 231).

Teachers’ repertoires

According to Schön, professions can be understood as both science-based (p. 202) and entrenched in a dynamic practice. Teachers’ professional capacities lie in their ability to describe the practice in front of them and act on it. Hence, descriptions are unavoidable in everyday life, whereas advocators of a technical rationality tend to make these descriptions tacitly, without conscious reflection. Schön argues that a profession that aims to take consequences of practice seriously needs to develop a repertoire and capability to reflect-in-action (p. 182, see also p. 138) in relation to frames (p. 309).

It goes without saying that everyone has a repertoire of some kind. However, a professional needs to have accumulated a more robust and varied body of knowledge that encompasses a plurality of theories, methods ‘examples, images, understandings, and actions’ based on their own experience and a scientific knowledge (p. 138, see also pp. 203, 270) that allows them to make relevant inquiries into the practice before them and in relation to the demands of their profession. As descriptions of practice activate practitioners’ seeing, it automatically becomes limited by the depth and breadth of their repertoire and the accumulated base for reflection-in/on-action (p. 182).

Teachers’ vision, seeing and/or noticing

A repertoire and its visions dictate what a person sees [seeing-as] and does [doing-as], which in turn renders repertoire a central dimension for Schön to develop in a way that does not overlook uncertainties in practice or the gap between the repertoire and uniqueness of each situation. Since seeing-as tends to guide action, it is important to continuously develop and nuance the repertoire of seeing-as that cuts across the practitioner’s own design domain to allow a variation of seeing-as and doing-as (p. 138). Repertoire influences what a practitioner can notice in practice (p. 139).

Language use and seeing interconnect. By naming (verbally describing) a situation in a reflective conversation, a specific frame or lens is created through which a phenomenon is made visible, i.e. by continuously describing a new situation in an experimental way the frame of seeing can change (widen) and problems can become newly framed (pp. 181–182).

According to Schön, technical approaches are based on a single vision that draws on professional (past) knowledge and as such is incapable of handling any outcome of practice and dilemmas that might occur. Moreover, technical rationality only focuses on solving problems (p. 19 see also p. 319), which forces the practitioner to understand a situation and at times reframe and see it from a different perspective.

In order to take the uncertain into account, the professional needs to develop a double vision, where the past and present meet in an experimental and dialogical way. Schön argues that there is a ‘temptation to treat the [past] view as the reality/ … /[n]evertheless, if the inquirer maintains his double vision, even while deepening his commitment to a chosen frame, he increases his chances of arriving at a deeper and broader coherence of artifact and idea’ (p. 164). In accordance with Schön, double vision involves a movement between past knowledge and present practice, as well as an awareness that a situation contains ‘a multiplicity of views’ that are important to take into account (p. 281). As such, it demands a reflective conversation or ‘design process’ in an artistic sense (p. 170), where ‘doing, seeing, and thinking are complementary’ (p. 280).

The idea of balance is central to Schön’s reasoning about double vision. If something dominates vision, seeing-as and doing-as, it becomes narrow and rigid and thereby risks harming people in a practice, rather than stimulating growth and improvement. At the same time, a sole focus on uncertainties, improvisation and creativity makes it difficult to be professional and develop the depth and scope of a critical (sharp) vision (p. 61). According to Schön, the ability to combine previous techniques, experiences and theories and be open to the present situation is a vital entrance to ethical inquiry (p. 164). Following, Schön: ‘[i]t is this entire process of reflection-in-action which is central to the “art” by which practitioners sometimes deal well with situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflict’ (pp. 49–50).

Student teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing

Like a practitioner, a student is unique and always sees practice in a certain way and influenced by previous experiences (p. 276). The core in Schön’s reasoning is to constantly question and problematise seeing, which does not change when the student becomes a professional. In a technical tradition, seeing-as and doing-as take shape in a mechanical way, based on the familiar, but render people blind [unable to notice] to plausible unfamiliarity in the present (p. 139). In other words, a narrow focus on specialised past knowledge could lead to students and professionals ‘/ … /cutting the practice situation to fit professional knowledge’ and therefore ‘become selectively inattentive to data that falls outside their categories’ and ‘avoid noticing’ aspects that might be of importance in practice (p. 44).

Active learning

Previous knowledge (like experience, methods and theory) is not something that is forced on or rigidly implemented in a practice (p. 45), but rather functions as a springboard for the professional to make sense of a unique situation (p. 58). Developing a repertoire is therefore not enough – it is equally important to furnish the capacity for reflection-in-action through experimental practice referred to as an ‘art of scientific investigation’ (p. 177) and open-ended puzzles (p. 124), where ‘each new experience of reflection-in-action enriches [develops] his repertoire’ (p. 139). As reflection interconnects a feel for and knowledge, it implies that ‘an experienced practitioner cannot convey the art of his practice to a novice merely by describing his procedures, rules, and theories, nor can he enable a novice to think like a seasoned practitioner merely by describing or even demonstrating his ways of thinking’ (p. 271).

Moreover, as there is always a risk that professionals and students will become stuck in their own isolated seeing patterns, it is important to expose their insights, reflections and conclusions to external stimuli, such as a wide range of research theories, colleagues and peers, in order to widen and critically problematise seeing and allow new solutions to take shape (pp. 282–283). A repertoire of variations (the familiar) is continuously placed in relation to the unique situation (the unfamiliar) (p. 59).

The repertoire and the seeing that are articulated through language (naming) frame and form practice in a certain direction. This needs to be taken into consideration and scrutinised (see also pp. 164, 270), because they work in an excluding/including way (pp. 40–41). All reflection requires words (concepts) to describe what it is that is known and seen and what it is that changes knowing and seeing when the professional’s familiar seeing-as encounters the unfamiliar and they need to deal with unforeseen consequences (p. 59). One dimension that is important to practise is a metalanguage described as a ‘reflection on the action of designing’ (p. 81).

The presence of complexity means that a practitioner, regardless of their technical skills, may produce unintended consequences in practice that need to be addressed, thereby forcing them to continually change and sharpen their perception (p. 79). Schön refers to this as a language of designing (pp. 80, 95) that interconnects a tacit feeling for the situation with the professional’s previous knowledge (pp. 54–56).

How does Hattie describe the development of professional vision, seeing and noticing?

Environment

For Hattie, learning takes place in an environment that needs to be acknowledged (p. 160) and where deep learning stresses understanding (p. 28), ‘holistic patterns’ (p. 202) and ‘seeing from the parts to the whole’ (p. 60) as being more efficient for problem-solving than surface learning (p. 211). Classroom environments ‘/ … /are places where complexities abound and all participants constantly try to interpret, engage or disengage, and make meaning out of this variegated landscape’ through meta-analysis (p. 10). Schön stresses that an efficient environment is idea-rich and allows the learner to experiment safely without being punished for making mistakes, and where failure is welcome because it spurs development. A safe environment is equally important for the teacher, who needs to feel that they too are safe and can develop and produce their best in a community with others (p. 23). A good teacher-student relationship in which students are helped to understand that they matter, that constructive feedback is available and that there is a friendly, safe and caring environment is imperative for stimulating learning (p. 128).

Teachers’ repertoires

Like Schön, Hattie maintains that teachers see and act according to the depth and range of their repertoires, thus rendering teachers’ repertoires as important starting points for inquiry. Also in line with Schön, Hattie links the teaching profession to science, although for him this is primarily about the results generated in evidence-based research, which he refers to as a guiding barometer and explanatory story rather than a unified single recipe (see for instance Chapter 3). In other words: ‘[t]eachers enter classrooms with these conceptions of teaching, learning, assessment, and curriculum, and these influence, how they see classrooms working, students’ progression, and themselves as teaching’ (p. 111). Having a variety of perceptions, lenses and/or seeing is thus a prerequisite for Hattie in order to stimulate, ‘teachers [who] are successful/ … /can move students from single to multiple ideas then to relate and extend these ideas such that learners construct and reconstruct knowledge and ideas’ (p. 36) and provide feedback that relates to the students’ maturity and needs (p. 241). Having a varied repertoire of learning strategies is a prerequisite for providing students with a wide range of concepts for thinking and acting that are necessary in order to stimulate a deep and surface learning (pp. 22–23). Following Hattie, ‘[t]eacher education programs can do much to build lenses and conceptions that can lead to teachers being prepared for the rigors of the classroom/ … /’ (p. 111).

Teachers’ vision, seeing and noticing

A teacher always enters the field of teaching with ‘certain conceptions [visions] about progress, relationships, and students/ … /’. In terms of success, it is important that they see ‘that their role is that of a change agent – that all students can learn and progress, that achievement for all is changeable and not fixed, and that demonstrating to all students that they care about their learning is both powerful and effective’ (p. 128). The lens through which a teacher looks at success criteria is also important (p. 110), because it can help them to visually scan their teaching for defaults, i.e. unsuccessful actions (p. 252). To do this, the teacher needs to see ‘learning and teaching from the students’ perceptive; and placing reliance on teaching study skills and strategies of learning’ (p. 199), or by observing the students’ body language, eye expressions and so on (p. 241). It also means that ‘[i]t is teachers seeing learning through the eyes of students, and students’ seeing teaching as the key to their ongoing learning’ (p. 22). According to Hattie, learning that involves working with students’ conceptions (seeing) is not linear or easy but involves struggle and failure (see for instance p. 238).

Students’ vision, seeing and noticing

Accordingly, teachers are also required to work with student teachers’ ‘prior knowledge’, which is referred to as experience formed by culture (p. 31) that colours seeing. Prior knowledge can at times lead to prejudices or oversimplification of the profession that could hamper student teachers’ development. As such, student teachers need to be de-educated from solely seeing education through the eyes of a student and instead start to see the profession as (future) teachers (p. 110). Moreover, student teachers need to understand and see that ‘school subjects consist of more than the facts and rules they themselves learned as students, that there is much to be learned about the complexities and ambiguities in teaching’, that ‘teaching is more than snippets of personal craft techniques and common sense’ (p. 110) and that both teaching and learning are complex (p. 110). The ambition is to make ‘students see themselves as their own teachers’ (p. 238). Hattie acknowledges that all students learn in their own unique and personal ways and use a plurality of learning strategies, and that this is challenging for the teacher in that it becomes difficult to use a single method in the hope of achieving success (pp. 22–23).

Active learning

Teachers are encouraged to interrelate a student-centred and teacher-centred strategy and combine two worlds: getting the students acquainted with knowledge and ideas and engaging them in deep learning that allows them to construct conceptual artefacts for orienting in the real world. These two worlds involve an interconnection ‘between theory and observation, personal and cultural belief and observation, and between personal belief and theory’ (p. 238). Accordingly, effective learning requires that students are active learners and provided with numerous ways (based on evidence) of approaching and solving problems in ways that can expand their repertoires (pp. 35, 37). Teacher programmes often tend to focus ‘on training of low-level skills, reinforcing the skills that were already part of the training teacher’s repertoire’, which means that student teachers are not exposed enough to ‘new conceptions of teaching and new ways of teaching’ (p. 112).

If an assignment is complex, ‘meta-cognitive skills’ are preferable to practise, in that they are a key component of good learning outcomes (p. 30). Active learning involves more than just thinking, in that it encompasses various factors in a dynamic way, such as discussing multiple perspectives (seeing) and trying to understand the phenomenon at hand. However, according to Hattie it is vital to distinguish between what is and is not worth learning. He stresses that the desire of teaching and learning is to attain mastery by adapting efficient ‘strategies [that] can then lead to/ … /the development of problem-solving skills, and to the enjoyment of some control over one’s learning’ (p. 36). While Schön intertwines seeing with reflection-in-action and a balance between the certain and uncertain, Hattie clearly takes a stand against teacher reflection beyond the scope of the certain (evidence-based research): ‘/ … /critical reflection in light of evidence about their teaching’ (p. 239). The major focus in Hattie’s book is on certainty, the mastery of uncertainty and an idea that more knowledge will lead to more certain actions (pp. 251–252). For Hattie, the balance is between deep and surface learning ‘leading to students more successfully constructing defensible theories of knowing and reality (the third world)’ (p. 28).

Several suggestions for reducing risk and solving dilemmas are mentioned in the book. For example, Hattie maintains that ‘students can learn most effectively when working together, as it exposes them to multiple perspectives, revision on their thinking, varied explanations for resolving dilemmas, more sources of feedback and correction of learning errors and alternative ways to construct knowing’ (pp. 225–226). As such, he does not touch on the difficulties of value dimensions. He states that students’ openness and willingness to see the benefits of learning are crucial if learning is to be efficient and emphasises that this personal desire to invest in and take an interest in education can be fostered in the preschool and kept alive in higher education (p. 60). Also, ‘people in happy moods can solve complex tasks better and faster thus freeing cognitive capacity for other challenges’ (p. 45) and that trust reduces vulnerability in ways that allow the teacher to see new and uncertain assignments that research has found to be efficient for creating change and solving problems (p. 240).

Discussion: differences and similarities between the two stances

Professional seeing, or vision, has long been considered central to the teaching profession (see for instance Goodwin 1994). Accordingly, there appears to be consensus on the importance of developing teachers’ professional seeing and its related concepts (see for example Mason 2011, van Es and Sherin 2002; Sun and Leithwood 2015, Bottoms and Schmidt-Davis 2010; Hammerness, 2014; Ibarra, 1999; Shulman, 1991). Professional seeing has some similarities with concepts like teachers’ task perception (Kelchtermans 2009). At the same time, no studies have yet provided a roadmap of differences and similarities in various educational traditions regarding teachers’ professional seeing in order to facilitate their critical reflections and deliberations.

There are many examples of articles highlighting tensions between the research of Hattie and Schön (see for instance Klaus and Klitmøller, 2021; Newman 1999, Russell 2013, Rømer 2019, McKnight and Whitburn 2020). However, the aim with this study has been to problematise the often simplified and dichotomised approach to the two researchers by showing where they intersect and differ with regard to professional seeing. Although Hattie and Schön have been well discussed over the years, the main contribution of this study is the way in which their descriptions of teachers’ professional seeing are placed side by side and how they provide support for metacognition (Hammernes et al. 2005). The comparisons of the selected questions and texts, together with the interpreter’s previous knowledge, will hopefully enable a more nuanced understanding of Hattie’s and Schön’s ideas and concepts. A general reflection is that Hattie’s range of vision using Hammerness (2001) terms is dictated from a distant perspective narrowed to findings from evidence-based research, while Schön claims to incorporate both technical and practical knowledge in his approach to professional seeing, and in that sense make it broader. At the same time, Schön’s text mainly focuses on the intimacy of reflection in and on action and ignores the findings in larger studies (distance).

Concerning Hattie’s and Schön’s explanations of the purpose of professional seeing [and its related concepts], it is clear that they both agree that it needs to be developed because it has a significant influence on professionals’ practices. At the same time, the comparison serves as a reminder that Hattie’s use of concepts and descriptions emphasises that teachers’ vision developed through evidence-based research can master education and solve problems and dilemmas, whereas Hattie systematically raises aspects that oppose mastery, namely the presence of uniqueness and change in practice. Besides solving problems, Schön adds the need to continuously keep posing them.

The second question in the study concerns how Hattie and Schön describe seeing [and its related concepts]. Drawing on hermeneutics, the parts are always in relation to the whole. During the deep reading the concepts appeared to be structured into four overarching themes that united both researchers: (1) seeing is relevant in order to develop a learning environment that is complex and relational (cf. for instance Lampert 2001), (2) that teachers’ and students’ repertoires for seeing are continuously deepened and broadened by exposing them to a variety of methods and/or theories (see for example Stürmer et. al. 2013), (3) that teachers’ and student teachers’ seeing is coloured by preconceptions that are important to problematise in education (see for instance Hammernes et al. 2005) and (4) that the possibilities for developing teachers’ and student teachers’ professional seeing requires active learning (see for instance Hammernes et al. 2005). The findings seem to be both obvious and supported by research in the field of professional development. However, is surprising is the ways in which the two researchers – both of whom are frequently portrayed as radical counter poles – seem to agree on these four themes. At the same time, several differences can also be discerned.

While both scholars locate the discussion about professional seeing in a ‘learning environment’, Hattie links good environments to fixed guidelines from evidence-based research, and especially the importance of stimulating care and constructive feedback. In a sense, Hattie helps teachers to concentrate on these aspects and thus lighten the burden of what they should notice. Contrary to this strategy, Schön acknowledges that the environment is complex and allows for an openness to other factors that may also be of importance and which a technical rationality would be unable to fully capture beforehand. He leaves these factors to teachers themselves to detect. The difference in their strategies is also reflected in how they approach the notion of repertoire. Following Hattie, a repertoire should only be created using the variety of results found in evidence-based research, since the main purpose of teachers’ repertoires is to master education and therefore only need to contain knowledge about what works. Although Schön does not write anything about erasing evidence-based. technical knowledge, he widens and problematises it by emphasising the need to develop the repertoire for seeing and doing partly through technical knowledge and partly through continuous reflection in and on action that intersects cognitive knowledge. Schön argues that this makes it possible for professionals to foresee the possible consequences of actions and determine whether they are desirable or not in the given situation. Hattie’s more technical rationality for building repertoires is here described as an artistic designing of practice that also requires knowledge about scientific inquiry rather than simply applying scientific results.

When it comes to teachers’ professional seeing, Hattie describes it through a lens of mastering, effectiveness, excellence and success. Teachers should see themselves as agents of change, have a shared vision of success and progression and see education through the eyes of their students (cf. Bottoms and Schmidt-Davis 2010, Sun and Leithwood 2015, Mombourquette 2017). Schön, on the other hand, provides a language of professional seeing that also incorporates elements of the unknown, which he maintains are always present in human practice. He introduces the terms seeing-as and doing-as and points out that they always need to be made explicit through language (naming), because a specific way of seeing both metaphorically (meaning-making) and physically functions in an including and excluding manner that frames the directions for action. Moreover, from Schön’s perspective there is a gap between science and people’s meaning-making, which means that there is a need to develop a double vision that allows professionals to see the familiar gained from academic knowledge and to experience (routine) the unfamiliar (cf. Mason 2011; cf. van Es and Sherin 2002).

As mentioned above, both Hattie and Schön agree that teachers’ and student teachers’ previous conceptions and prejudices about teaching and learning need to be problematised before they can develop as teachers (see also Hammernes et al. 2005). Schön maintains that if student teachers do not problematise they will be unable to use new knowledge that falls outside their preconceptions and will therefore fail to notice important dimensions in practice (cf. Sherin 2001, Mason 2002, 2021, van Es and Sherin 2002), while Hattie states that without switching the focus of attention from student to teacher, student teachers risk seeing education through the lens of the student and thereby fail to develop appropriately (cf. Hammernes et al. 2005). Both scholars agree that development is important and means that those who have deepened and broadened their repertoires are open to seeing more nuances and are able to change their focus (cf. Romo-Escudero et al. 2022). However, while Hattie emphasises that good teachers should master education, Schön argues that even well-developed teachers cannot fully master everything.

Finally, with regard to the last question of whether there any similarities and differences in how Hattie and Schön see the development of teachers’ professional seeing [and its related concepts], they both concur that active learning is important. The similarities between them are many: a) it is important to create and develop repertoires, lenses and concepts for orienting and interpreting practice, b) it is important to expose students to various lenses for seeing and noticing, c) it is important to engage students in dialogue, d) it is important to develop understanding and meaning-making in order for deep learning to take place, e) it is important to apply a trial and error approach to make students aware that learning is not always easy and linear, f) it is important to problematise governing conceptions (lenses for seeing), g) it is important to continuously expose students to new (unfamiliar) knowledge, and h) that meta-analysis is important to practise in order to move from the whole to its parts. The presence of uncertainty or unfamiliarity that Schön brings to the table entails a stronger focus on exposing students to open-ended puzzles that do not merely involve problem-solving but also problem posing, and encouraging students to continuously place their repertoire in dialogue with each other and to practise (reflection-in-action/double vision) in ways that open up to generative metaphors. New visions for doing and the detection of nuances encourage students to be attentive to the consequences of their actions – even unintended ones. It is also important to encourage students to practise artistic investigation and embrace uncertainty and risk and encourage them to verbally describe practice in relation to the familiar and unfamiliar. Hattie, on the other hand, mainly stresses the need to expose students to problem-solving, make the objectives visible for students and equip students with a varied set of evidence-based methods and defensible theories.

In sum, the above results do not aim to widen the gap between Hattie and Schön further but rather to bring them together as interconnected entities that despite their differences share many similarities, including the urgency of developing teachers’ professional seeing.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the University of Gavle for giving me the time to write this article and for the support and comments on an earlier version of the article from the members in the research group SEEDS. Finally, I would like to send my thanks to Sue Flover Frykman for her thorough language editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.