Perception, interpretation, and decision-making of geography educators in the classroom

Educators face unique challenges in the classroom while teaching, and they have to identify and address these challenges for the benefit of student learning. This is defined as noticing, or the three-step process by which teachers balance instruction and observation simultaneously. These three steps include perception, interpretation, and decision-making. Perception occurs when the teacher observes the situation as they are teaching. Interpretation is when educators evaluate the occurrence. Decision-making is the action or actions the teacher takes ad hoc to respond to the situation. Research has been done to develop the widely accepted three-step process of noticing. However, the process of noticing and the relationships between the three steps has not been studied within geography education. The researchers in this study examined seasoned geography teachers responding to simulated instruction and critical incidents to see how much time elapsed between the incidents and response, how teachers interpreted these incidents, and what decisions were made to address the incident.

The study was comprised of seven certified geography educators from Germany. Each teacher had 9 to 37 years of experience teaching high school geography. The researchers created two, nine-minute videos that were viewed by the participants. Both videos contained Critical Incidents in Geography Instruction (CIGI) that should have been detectable by the educator. A CIGI is a teachable moment on key geography skills students need to learn. Video A was centered in map analyses and video B focused on critical thinking strategies like cause and effect of geographic relationships. Video A had five CIGI and video B had eight. Before watching the videos, each participant was told to pretend to be the teacher in the video and was given a general background on the video. While watching the video, the participants were evaluated on the three steps of noticing. Participants were asked to stop the video when they felt something occurred that was directly related to a student's ability to read a map or to think critically (perception), share why they stopped the video (interpretation), and explain how they would move forward with the lesson (decision-making). The data for perception was mapped on a graph and the data for interpretation and decision-making were coded for analysis.

One of the primary research questions this study evaluated was the length of time between a CIGI happening and the teacher's perception of the occurrence. In general, participants stopped both videos within three seconds of a CIGI. There were only a few cases where the response time was longer (up to 13 seconds), and rarely were the CIGIs not perceived at all by the participants. When participants explained why they stopped the video, four types of interpretation were revealed. The four CIGI interpretations were: 1) described as it happened; 2) categorized as a student error or student change of perspective; 3) judged as a good or bad student interaction or situation; and 4) explained with context and reason. For most of the CIGI, participants combined at least two of the four types of interpretation; only in a few instances did a CIGI elicit a single type of interpretation. These interpretation techniques allowed teachers to respond quickly to CIGI. Finally, decisions were made in 20 of the 82 perceived and interpreted CIGI across the study. Decisions were characterized by the researchers as statements of actions and they were made in one of two ways: either straight-forward or complex. For example, one straightforward participant decision was “I wouldn't intervene, but I would keep it in mind.” In some cases of a complex decision, the participant explained their action and how it would affect the students' learning or the possible side effects. In other cases of a complex decision, the participant explained their action compared with other alternative actions they could take in that situation. These instances of decision-making were less routine and more diverse than the researchers initially anticipated. After the qualitative data analysis, the researchers found no significant pattern for the sequence of the three-step noticing process in the participants.

This study had a few limitations. The sample size was small and only included educators who were considered experts, which inhibits the generalizability of this study to larger groups of educators and educators with less experience. There was much variability in how the participants considered and responded to each CIGI in both videos. In addition, the study methodology of having participants stop a video on their own is a newer technological capability and there are some pitfalls to the technique. A real classroom setting provides more factors that influence noticing which cannot be replicated in a video simulation. For instance, an educator cannot pause and reflect on a live situation in the classroom as with a video recording. These include existing relationships between students and educators as well as previous situations that can inform noticing. The researchers recognized that the way educators responded to the videos may not accurately represent their noticing and teaching in real life.

Although the researchers do not make specific recommendations, they did assert that, in general, geography teachers are quick to perceive critical moments in student learning while teaching. Noticing and responding to CIGI quickly is beneficial for student outcomes, so both inexperienced and expert educators should aim to replicate this trend of quick perception of critical moment. This research can help geography educators review their own teaching to be more cognizant of the noticing process and potentially develop a plan for making decisions ad hoc.