Teachers’ Instructional Design Competency: From The Perspective Of Teacher-Resource Interaction

Teachers’instructional competency is the core of teaching expertise. Under the background of currently-deepened reform of curriculum and instruction, research on teacher’s instructional competency can not only help us to gain a better understanding of teachers’practical activities but also enlighten us with regard to the research and practice of teachers’professional development.From the perspective of teacher-resource interaction, this study constructed a theoretical framework representing the teachers’competency in instructional design and its operating mechanism based on the previous theoretical exploration in order to refine the constructed theoretical framework by carrying out the qualitative research and analyzing the empirical data. Having responded to the questions "what the structure and feature of teacher’s instructional design competency and the role of teacher’s instructional design competency in teaching practice is", this study developed a theory which can explain teachers’instructional design competency in the context of classroom practice.This dissertation is comprised of five chapters and the main idea for each chapter is summarized as follows.Chapter 1 establishes the bases for this study by literature review. The role of teachers within the field of instructional design theory was clarified, based on a brief review of the history of instructional design. And then, a systematical literature review was carried out on teacher’s instructional design competency, the concept of resource, and the development of its concept and the field of teacher-resource interaction.Chapter 2 is theoretical foundation. Philosophical perspective of tacit epistemology, theories from the field of action science and competency modeling were adopted in order to build a theoretical foundation for this study.Chapter Three constructed the theoretical framework for teacher’s instructional design competency. From the perspective of teacher-resource interaction, a three- dimensional structure of explicit instructional knowledge-instructional practical knowledge-generalized instructional belief was constructed to analyze teachers’ instructional design competency and a four-stage process of perceive-interpret-mobilize-utilize was framed as the operating model of teacher’s instructional design competency. The theoretical framework will be used as a reference in the following empirical study and a prototype for theoretical development.Chapter 3 reported the specific methods, research design and implementation of the empirical study.Chapter 4 reported findings and conclusions from the empirical study. The dimension of explicit knowledge illustrated features aligned with teacher-centered instructional ideas, while the dimension of generalized instructional belief comprised of various student-centered constructivism philosophies. The confliction of the above-mentioned two dimensions is reflected in the dimension of instructional action knowledge. During the perception and interpretation stages, teachers tend to emphasize knowledge-oriented objectives. Insufficiency of the external resources and instructional action knowledge in the mobilization stage attenuates the student-centered instructional design intention in the classroom practice during the stage of utilization.Chapter 5 described the theoretical outcome of this study and its implication for practice. This study developed the following theory. Match and mismatch among the three dimensions forms the internal contradiction of teacher’s instructional design competency, which has an effect on the operation of teacher’s instructional design competency and was also shaped during the operation in the same time. The former procedure is reflected in the teachers’function on resources and the latter is embodied in the function of resources on the teachers. It is during these procedures that teacher’s instructional design competency functioned and developed. This theory illustrated a dynamic relation of the structure and function of teacher’s instructional design competency and had implication on the practice of their professional development and curriculum resource design.By the end of this dissertation, the author reviewed this study and analyzed the limitation, finally pointing out several research topics for future research.