Michael Tengberg

Experiences of Educational Content in Swedish Technical Vocational Education: Examples from the Energy and Industry Programmes

Abstract In this study, teachers and workplace supervisors in two vocational programmes at a Swedish upper secondary school were interviewed about their experiences of what is important to teach and learn during vocational education. The interviews were analysed thematically by the qualitative method analysis of narratives concerning what the informants talked about concerning the educational content. The told experiences of educational content concern five themes: basic knowledge, assessment, different educations, interest and integration of theory and practice. These themes relates to different levels of knowledge, from basic knowledge to learning to learn.

Improving Reading and Interpretation in Seventh Grade: A Comparative Study of the Effects of Two Different Models for Reading Instruction

This article investigates the potential for developing advanced reading and interpretative skills in Swedish secondary school. Over six weeks, four separate study groups in seventh grade participated in an intervention study. The purpose was to gather more knowledge about how different teaching strategies affect students’ development of advanced reading skills. Data were collected from written assignments and an experiential questionnaire. The study attempts to provide empirical corroboration of previously theoretically founded propositions. The findings indicate that the choice of teaching strategy plays a significant role in students’ learning. However, in order to make normative judgments on the advantages of one teaching model over another, further evidence is necessary. Moreover, studying the implementation and effects of instructional change is a challenging field of research which requires an array of sophisticated methods that combine qualitative and quantitative analyses.

National reading tests in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden: A comparison of construct definitions, cognitive targets, and response formats

Reading comprehension tests are often assumed to measure the same, or at least similar, constructs. Yet, reading is not a single but a multidimensional form of processing, which means that variations in terms of reading material and item design may emphasize one aspect of the construct at the cost of another. The educational systems in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden share a number of traits, and in the recent decade, the development of national test instruments, especially for reading, has been highly influenced by international surveys of student achievement. In this study, national tests of L1 reading comprehension in secondary school in the three Scandinavian countries are compared in order to reveal the present range of diversity/commonality within the three test domains. The analysis employs both qualitative and quantitative aspects of data, including frameworks, text samples, task samples, and scoring guidelines from 2011 to 2014. Findings indicate that the three tests differ substantially from each other, not only in terms of the intentional and operative constructs of reading to be measured, but also in terms of testing methods and stability over time. Implications for the future development of reading comprehension assessment are discussed.

Justice through participation: student engagement in Nordic classrooms

ABSTRACT In this article, we approach large questions regarding justice and equality in the Nordic classrooms. A substantial body of previous research emphasises the importance of student engagement in teaching and learning. Drawing on video data from Norway, Sweden and Finland, we focus on whole-class teaching, i.e. situations in which the teacher addresses the class from the front of the classroom, to investigate justice trough participation. We have approached our topic through two concerns: student participation in classroom discourse and student engagement as providing access to content. Our findings seem to pose some serious challenges for the Nordic welfare society vision of classrooms as core societal hubs for justice and equality. While whole-class teaching is one of the primary tools available for attempting to achieve justice and equality for all, this interaction format seems to contain inherent constraints that do not support equitable student engagement. Further, the way the Nordic classrooms have responded so far to the massive digitisation in their societies seems to pose serious questions rather than provide comforting answers.

Teaching and learning critical literacy at secondary school : The Importance of Metacognition

ABSTRACT Taking Swedish secondary school students as a point of departure, this article focuses on aspects of teaching and learning critical literacy and specifically on what students identify as argumentative text structure. Challenges connected to teaching critical literacies can be considered quite big, since studies show that students have difficulties in identifying argumentative text structure and that teachers feel insecure about what kind of knowledge is required as well as how to organize teaching of critical literacies. By using Bernsteins notions of horizontal and vertical discourses as well as Gees notions of primary and secondary Discourses, we describe the interaction between personal, informal discourses and the more formal, academic discourses in the teaching and learning of critical literacies. The empirical material contains observations in two secondary school classrooms as well as written student material from a study focusing reading of argumentative texts. Our result shows that metacognition is a key component of reading instruction that supports the development of secondary Discourse and vertical discourse. Metacognition also facilitates a critical approach to different texts, and is an important aspect of critical literacies perspectives.