Researching Authenticity: The Relationship between Kindergarten Teachers' Espoused Theories and their Actual Practices

This paper reports on a study that investigated the relationship between 12 Melbourne kindergarten teachers' espoused theories and their actual practices. The Framework of Perspectives and Descriptions of Practice (Raban et al., 2003a, 2003b) was used to guide the study. The theoretical perspectives of 10 out of the 12 teachers' did not match their actual practices. The teachers who espoused critical considerations involved children in more interactive and explorative pedagogical experiences than the teachers who did not espouse such thinking. Higher qualifications or more years of teaching experience were not linked to greater congruence between the teachers' espoused theories and observed practices.