Pedagogical actions under pressure? Primary school teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogical actions

In Dutch primary schools, pedagogical actions seem to receive much less attention than content knowledge. This is the consequence of several developments and innovations that aimed at enhancing pupils’ learning outcomes and at improving teachers’ content knowledge and didactic actions. This results in a multitude of tasks and responsibilities for teachers around didactics and seems to constrain time and attention for pedagogical actions. This research explores whether the pedagogical actions of primary school teachers are indeed under pressure in the current educational climate. The goals of this study were threefold; (1) to examine teachers’ perceptions regarding their pedagogical actions, (2) to examine how teaching experience, age of the students and the specific school context influence these perceptions, (3) to determine which needs for professionalisation teachers have to increase their pedagogical actions in the classroom. A survey was conducted among a sample of 261 Dutch mainstream primary education teachers in the northern part of the Netherlands. Data were collected with a questionnaire, which consisted of fifteen open and closed questions. Teachers were asked about their perceptions of pedagogical actions in the classroom, the school’s vision of pedagogy, their personal vision of pedagogy and background variables of the respondents. Half of the responding teachers (47.5%) indicate that pedagogical actions of primary schools are under pressure. Over 60% of teachers indicated that they would like to pay more attention to this issue. Pedagogical actions of primary school teachers are indeed under pressure in the current educational climate.