An investigation into the impact of dialogic pedagogy on enjoyment and achievement in history.

Abstract

Dialogic pedagogy is the pedagogy of talk. It is about how teachers talk to their students, how students talk to their teachers and how students talk to other. Teachers are expected to employ talk in such a way that it contributes to the acquisition of knowledge and understanding. Question and answer moves can be monologic in that they employ a particular formula: initiation, response, and feedback/evaluation (IRF/E) such questioning is often said to be guessing what is in the teacher’s head (Smith & Higgins, 2006). There is the need for an authentic voice of students and teachers in analysis of the efficacy of teaching methods. In Socratic questioning, the teacher uses extended, probing, follow-on questions often directed at an individual student. Socratic seminar is a format for discussion that allows students to extend their knowledge and understanding by interacting with each other in discussion on a topic.
Research questions looked at the role of dialogic approaches in the promotion of enjoyment and attainment in history. A scoping review looked at the issue of enjoyment and achievement in history. This revealed a paucity of studies on the theme of enjoyment and achievement in history. Evidence was found to suggest that surveys followed up with structured observation of students’ behaviour was the best way to investigate students’ feelings and attitudes to learning. In search of an authentic teacher voice, this study used an online survey of teachers (n=70) about their attitudes to aspects of pedagogy that might be described as “dialogic”. Teachers expressed support for dialogic approaches, though they were concerned about the need to cover sufficient subject content. A similar approach was taken with students’ views, (n=378) who completed a pen and paper Likert questionnaire about their views of various teaching and learning methods in history. Students expressed their enjoyment of dialogic approaches, 89% responded in the agree category to the items “I enjoy history lessons in class”, although the levels of enjoyment in some areas differed. Students tended not to score being asked hard questions by the teacher and talking about history with their peers in large numbers. Students were shy when it came to self-reporting of their attainment in history, in particular asking their teachers about their grades.
The primary school in the study took part in the Socratic questioning intervention, one class was studying the ancient Olympics and Greek culture the other was studying burial practices of ancient Egypt. Teachers were given examples of Socratic questions (Appendix 1) and encouraged to adapt them to fit students’ ages and context. The teachers did feel that Socratic approaches were worth pursuing and that children would benefit from training in answering questions in the Socratic style. There remained a residual concern with covering subject content and first order concepts.
The high school in the study used Socratic seminars with Year 12 students. Participants did seem to engage in discussions by offering their views as part of a collaborative approach to enquiry. Teachers provided dynamic feedback on students’ participation. Teachers shared the view that students could be trained in taking part in Socratic seminars and that the approach could be adapted to cover more subject content as required to prepare students for final exams. They also reported that their students enjoyed discussion, though they added that some more able students did not voluntarily take part in the seminars but students towards the lower end of the ability range did respond to the approach and took part enthusiastically in the discussion.
This study suggests that children enjoy dialogic approaches to pedagogy though there is a need for effective preparation and training in the methods. Socratic approaches are challenging for teachers to manage and there is a need to frame dialogic approaches more specifically to meet the need to make sufficient progress in subject content coverage. Students and teachers enjoy and value dialogical approaches but there is a need to teach students how to participate in such approaches and a need to make sufficient progress in relation to achievement and attainment.