Reforming Teachers Work

How Teachers Made Sense to Evidence Based Knowledge on Student Outcome

Abstract

In 2014, an evidence-based teaching standard was introduced in conjunction with the learning objectives of the Danish primary school reform. This teaching standard can be perceived as a twofold phenomenon, as both a professional method and as a managerial technology aimed at managing the way in which teachers perform teaching. Although the teaching standard has received wide attention scholarly, only few empirical studies explore how teachers make sense of the teaching standard in their school practice. Drawing from sense making theory, this article investigates how teachers made sense of the teaching standard, in the years after the school reform. The study follows the teachers’ sense making process in a municipal school system in two phases, in which teachers were fi rst introduced to the teaching standard, and subsequently applied the standard in teaching practices. The study fi nds that teachers were at fi rst open, albeit ambiguous about how to use elements of the teaching standard in practice, but later rejected the standard when applying it in teaching. The article contributes with an inside perspective on how teachers perceived the teaching standard as a professional method and as a managerial technology.