Page 156 - Getting of the fence

Chapter 6
spectrum were Caitlin and Fred, whose average deviation from the assumed even distribution changed with 1%, whereas on the other end was Liz, whose average deviation changed with 14%. In order to interpret these results, several factors should be considered.
First, in year 2, the teachers were knowledgeable about the Comprehensive Approach and they were aware of the focus of our observations. The teachers indicated that through the Comprehensive Approach they got a clear insight into the why, how, and what of their curriculum which helped them in structuring their lessons and being able to include their students. Because they experienced the Comprehensive Approach as a useful framework that made them more aware of their literature teaching practice, this heightened awareness could have caused them to be more explicit in their teaching practice. This might also be the reason why we were able to code 15% more lesson time in year 2 compared to year 1 and why teachers, on average, taught more literature lessons in year 2 (122 lessons in year 1 and 154 in year 2). Additionally, the actual video recording could have served as a so-called implementation driver (Hulleman & Cordray, 2009), creating a situation in which teachers are more likely to embrace the curriculum reform to a higher extent (Desimone & Stukey, 2014).
Second, multiple studies have hypothesized the reasons for the variation in the extent to which teachers implement educational reform (Desimone & Stukey, 2014). One of these reasons is the so-called implementation dip which refers to the fact that because “change involves grappling with new beliefs and understandings, and new skills, competencies, and behaviours, changes will not go smoothly in the early stages of implementation” (Fullan, Cuttress, & Kilcher, 2005, p. 56). That “teacher and student performance can get worse before it gets better” (Desimone & Stukey, 2014, p. 19) could also be caused by a lack of accountability pressures. According to Desimone and Stukey (2014), “power exerted through the pressure of rewards or sanctions can alter teacher behaviour, but such changes are usually not as long-lasting as behaviour changes that result from self-motivation or buy-in” (p. 14). In other words, because there was no external obligation including rewards to participate in our study, some of the teachers perhaps did not feel the pressure to comply. Other reasons for the variation in extent of implementation include the previously mentioned mediating and moderating influences (Desimone, 2009), or so-called ‘noise’ (Kennedy, 2010) such as student characteristics, contextual factors at classroom level (e.g. social dynamics and interaction patterns), and contextual factors at
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