Theoretical appropriation in pre-school teachers’ expressions after in-service training

Purpose: The aim of this article is to describe pre-school teachers’ learning of a theoretical framework, introduced in an in-service training by describing the ways they implicitly and explicitly appropriate the theoretical framework. Methods: This paper is the second analysis from a course evaluation that aimed to develop a group of 24 pre-school teachers’ knowledge and use of learning study. The empirical material was collected after a course funded by the Swedish National Agency of Education. The participants (n = 24) were all highly experienced pre-school teachers selected by their municipal employers. The course consisted of literature studies, theoretical discussions and practical work in the form of a learning study project focusing on the teachers’ own practices. They were divided into seven groups. Each group conducted one learning study. After the course, the pre-school teachers answered an evaluation and one of the questions analyzed here was: “Has your understanding of children’s learning developed during the course and, if so, in what way?” The answers were analyzed to show whether and how the theoretical framework was appropriated and expressed in their practice. Results: The result shows that all teachers understood the meaning of the concept of“variation” in the theoretical framework to mean variation of aspects of the content instead of variation of methods. Half of the teachers (n = 12) also used the concepts of variation theory properly, even if the question did not require them to do so. In total, 12 out of 24 participants used the concepts from the theoretical framework, namely: object of learning, critical aspects, variation, simultaneity and discernment.