Personal Theory Building

A reflective practitioner does not only borrow theory from researchers. They also build their own theory about how teaching and learning actually work in their setting. Personal theory building is what turns a teacher from a competent practitioner into a thoughtful one. It rests on a few clear ideas about what theory is, what makes a theory good, and how thinking moves between observation and explanation.

What theory building aims at

Theory building has two aims.

Explanation

The first aim is to explain what produces what. A teacher who has noticed that students engage more in lessons that start with a question than in lessons that start with a definition is on the way to an explanation: the opening question produces the engagement.

A useful test of an explanation is whether it would let someone else, doing the same thing, get a similar result. An explanation that only works for the person who came up with it is shaky.

Prediction

The second aim is to predict. If A happens, B will follow. A teacher who has built a theory about lesson openings can predict that a class given a new topic with a question will engage more than the same class given a definition.

Prediction is the test of a theory’s usefulness. A theory that does not let you predict anything is description, not theory.

Two everyday examples of personal theory show the two aims at work.

The first is the common-sense theory that punishment deters bad behaviour. It tries to explain (punishment changes behaviour) and predict (if punishment happens, behaviour will improve). Whether the theory is correct in any specific case is a different question; what matters here is that it has the form of a theory.

The second is the equally common-sense theory that improved teaching increases student achievement. Same form. Tries to explain and predict.

A reflective practitioner builds theories of this kind about their own work. The theories are provisional and updated as evidence comes in.

The two levels at which theory operates

Theory building works at two levels at once.

The first is the abstract level of concepts. Concepts are ideas pulled away from any specific object: “engagement”, “questioning”, “metacognition”, “scaffolding”, “fairness”. A theory operates at this level when it relates concepts to each other.

The second is the empirical level of experience. The empirical level is what actually happened: the lesson on Tuesday, the student’s response, the worksheet’s effect. A theory connects to this level by being about specific observable events, not just abstract relations.

A good theory holds both levels together. It uses concepts that are abstract enough to be general but stays connected to specific empirical evidence. A theory that is purely abstract is empty. A theory that is purely empirical is just description.

Issues in developing personal theory

Personal theory building runs into a few common issues.

Belief change requires critical reflection

People are unlikely to change their beliefs unless they have an opportunity to critically reflect on them. A teacher who holds a particular belief about how students learn will not change it just because they read a counter-argument. They have to slow down, examine the belief, and look at evidence that pushes against it.

This is one of the reasons solo reading rarely changes practice on its own. The reading provides an idea, but the change in personal theory requires the reflective work to follow.

The intent to learn

Theory building also depends on the intent to learn. The intent comes from two sources.

The first is problems experienced in practice. A teacher who has run into a difficulty has a real reason to look for a better understanding of what is happening. The difficulty drives the inquiry.

The second is the desire to stay current. Even without a specific problem, a teacher who wants to remain a thoughtful practitioner has an ongoing intent to learn. This intent keeps the theory-building active during periods when nothing is going visibly wrong.

Without one of these sources, theory building does not happen. The teacher who has stopped having problems and stopped wanting to grow has stopped building personal theory.

The recursive cycle

The intent to learn supports a recursive cycle. The teacher tries something based on a current theory. Evidence comes in. The theory is updated. The teacher tries something again. The cycle continues.

Recursive here means that each cycle uses the output of the previous one. A teacher who builds theory recursively across years has a much more sophisticated personal theory by year ten than they did in year one. The growth happens through the cycles, not despite them.

What theory is

A working definition of theory is useful at this point. A theory is a coherent set of general propositions used as principles of explanation of the apparent relationships of certain observed phenomena.

Each part of the definition matters.

Coherent: the propositions hang together. A theory whose propositions contradict each other is broken.

Set of general propositions: more than one statement, and statements that are general rather than specific. “My class learned more on Tuesday” is a specific observation. “Active learning produces deeper understanding than passive reception” is a general proposition.

Principles of explanation: the propositions explain something. A theory that does not explain has no work to do.

Apparent relationships among observed phenomena: the theory connects things that have been observed. It is not pure speculation; it is anchored to phenomena.

A teacher’s personal theory of, say, classroom questioning meets this definition when it has multiple coherent general propositions about what kinds of questions produce what kinds of student responses, and the propositions explain patterns the teacher has observed.

What makes a good theory

Several qualities distinguish a good theory from a weak one.

Validity

Validity is the most basic quality: the theory fits the facts. If the theory says one thing and the evidence says another, the theory is not valid.

A teacher whose personal theory of questioning is contradicted by what they actually see in their classroom has a problem. They can update the theory, or ignore the evidence and keep an invalid theory. Reflective practitioners update.

Generalisation

Generalisation is the theory’s reach. A theory that only applies to one specific lesson with one specific class on one specific day has limited generalisation. A theory that holds across many lessons, classes, and days has more reach.

Theories with more generalisation make more predictions about future or other events. They are also more useful. A teacher who has a personal theory of questioning that holds across most of their classes can use it to plan future lessons. A teacher whose theory only holds for one lesson cannot.

Replication

Replication is the theory’s reliability across uses. A theory should produce similar findings when applied to similar situations. If applying the same theory to the same kind of class produces wildly different results each time, the theory is not yet reliable.

For a teacher’s personal theory, this means that the predictions the theory makes should hold up over time. A theory that worked once but never again is suspicious; the success was probably from something else.

Hypotheses

Theories generate hypotheses, and good hypotheses have specific qualities.

A good hypothesis is precise. “Active learning is good” is not a hypothesis; it is a slogan. “Asking three open questions in the first ten minutes of a lesson increases hand-raising in the next twenty minutes” is a hypothesis.

A good hypothesis specifies the variables to measure. The hypothesis above specifies the kind of question, the time window, and the kind of student response. Each of these can be measured.

A good hypothesis specifies relationships between variables. The hypothesis says one variable (open questions in the first ten minutes) is related to another (hand-raising in the next twenty). The relationship is specific, not vague.

A reflective practitioner who can write good hypotheses about their own teaching can test them in their classroom. The testing is a small-scale version of research and produces real growth in personal theory.

Flashcard

What three qualities make a good theory?

Tap to reveal

Answer

Validity, generalisation, replication

Validity means the theory fits the facts. Generalisation means it predicts future or other events beyond the specific case it was built on. Replication means it produces similar findings when applied to similar situations.

The double movement of reflexive thought

Personal theory building uses two movements of thought, repeatedly.

Induction

Induction starts from observation. The teacher notices a fact and asks why. To answer the why, they develop a tentative hypothesis as the explanation.

This is the same inductive logic that grounded theory uses on a research scale. The teacher is doing it on a small, personal scale.

A teacher who notices that students disengage in the third quarter of a lesson, and asks why, and develops the tentative hypothesis that attention has a natural cycle that needs interruption every fifteen minutes, has done induction.

Deduction

Deduction tests the hypothesis. From the hypothesis, the teacher derives a prediction: if I interrupt the lesson every fifteen minutes with a brief change of activity, engagement should hold up better. The prediction is then tested.

The deductive movement uses the hypothesis to generate testable predictions. The test produces evidence that supports or undermines the hypothesis. If the prediction holds, the hypothesis gains support. If it does not, the hypothesis needs revision.

The double movement, induction followed by deduction followed by more induction as new evidence appears, is the engine of reflexive thought. A teacher who does both movements builds personal theory that improves over time. A teacher who only does induction has hypotheses but never tests them. A teacher who only does deduction tests theories without ever generating new ones.

The reflective practitioner moves between the two movements continuously. New observations generate hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested. The tests produce new observations. The cycle continues, and the teacher’s understanding deepens.