The influence of discipline on teachers’ knowledge and decision making

The knowledge required by teachers has long been a focus of public and academic attention. Following a period of intense research interest in teachers’ knowledge in the 1980s and 1990s, many researchers have adopted Shulman’s suggestion that expert teaching practice is based on seven forms of knowledge which collectively are referred to as a knowledge base for teaching. Shulman’s work also offered a decision-making framework known as pedagogical reasoning and action, which allows teachers to use their seven forms of knowledge to make effective pedagogical decisions. Despite the widespread acceptance of these ideas, no empirical evidence exploring the connections between knowledge and decision-making is evident in the research literature. This paper reports on a pilot study in which the connections between knowledge and decisions in science, mathematics and information technology teachers’ lesson plans are quantified and represented using epistemic network analysis. Findings reveal and levels of complexity that have been intimated but, until now, not supported with empirical evidence.