The interaction between professional vision and conceptual change in higher education teaching – self-reports, videos, and eye tracking as study methods

Abstract

<p>While university teachers are experts in their field, they might lack pedagogical knowledge and skills. Higher education teachers’ pedagogical expertise has been previously studied mainly using self-evaluation methods. However, a wider repertoire of methods is needed to understand and support the pedagogical development of higher education teachers. Teachers’ underlying conceptual knowledge, such as their ideas about learning and teaching, affects the way they observe and interpret classroom situations. Furthermore, teachers’ teaching-learning conceptions vary, and misconceptions exist. Studies on higher education teachers’ professional vision suggest that there are differences in teachers’ gaze patterns and in the ways they notice pedagogically important phenomena when watching a video of a teaching session. This chapter explores the theoretical underpinnings of the possibility of studying higher education teachers’ pedagogical expertise through eye movements and professional vision. It also discusses the possibility of investigating conceptual change in relation to professional vision – for example, how certain misconceptions of teaching may affect teachers’ visual noticing ability. In this chapter, the answer for this is sought through analysing the unique environment of university teaching, higher education teachers’ pedagogical expertise, their opportunities for pedagogical development, and their conceptual understanding of the teaching-learning phenomenon.<br></p>