Does Teachers’ Educational and Professional Experience Impact on Teaching Strategies in Primary Education

Abstract

Teachers’ experience has undoubtedly evolved over a decade. Articulating teachers’ perspectives and the thought-process of their personal educational and career experience and practice may influence their pedagogical approaches in their classrooms. Despite recent research on teachers’ perspectives in digital technologies, their continuous experience of exploring, learning, planning, and training themselves advocates a connection towards various personal and growing experiences in practice that requires further research. Therefore, this paper explores primary school teachers’ perspectives (Australia) towards the interrelation between their educational and career experience alongside its impact on their teaching practices. Theoretically underpinned with the theory of experience concepts (Dewey 1938), the phenomenological approach with the interpretivism paradigm is adopted to accept the subjective views of eleven primary school teachers through semi-structured interviews. Interpretive thematic analysis is adapted to ensure the depth of meaning of an individual’s experience is rigorously investigated. Lastly, the paper demonstrates a broader discussion regarding the influence of ‘experience’ in teachers’ learning acquisition and how it actively influences their teaching practice applied in primary education.