Primary Teachers’ Adaptive Expertise for Teaching Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science - Findings from a Video Questionnaire

Oct 15, 2026

Adaptive expertise concerns educators’ capability to respond effectively to novel and unexpected classroom situations, supporting students’ cognitive engagement, understanding, and meaningful participation. This paper reports findings on primary teachers’ adaptive expertise in interdisciplinary mathematics and science using a video-stimulated questionnaire with multiple-choice items and verbal explanations. Data were collected before planning and teaching STEM interdisciplinary lessons, revealing discrepancies between item responses and explanations. Results indicate gaps between teachers’ espoused and enacted adaptive expertise in practice.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Research Questions

Method and Data Collection

Findings and Implications

Primary Teachers’ Adaptive Expertise for Teaching Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science: Findings from a Video Questionnaire Colleen Vale Monash University [colleen.vale@monash.edu](colleen.vale@monash.edu) Gahyoung Kim RMIT University [jinny.kim@rmit.edu.au](jinny.kim@rmit.edu.au) Wanty Widjaja Deakin University [w.widjaja@deakin.edu.au](w.widjaja@deakin.edu.au) Lam Pham Deakin University [lam.pham@deakin.edu.au](lam.pham@deakin.edu.au) Jan van Driel University of Melbourne [j.vandriel@unimelb.edu.au](j.vandriel@unimelb.edu.au) Joe Ferguson Deakin University [joe.ferguson@deakin.edu.au](joe.ferguson@deakin.edu.au) Lihua Xu Deakin University [lihua.xu@deakin.edu.au](lihua.xu@deakin.edu.au) Amanda Berry RMIT University [amanda.berry@rmit.edu.au](amanda.berry@rmit.edu.au) Adaptive expertise concerns the ability to respond effectively to novel and unexpected situations. This expertise is important for improving students’ cognitive engagement, understanding and participation in meaningful learning. This paper presents findings on primary teachers’ adaptive expertise in interdisciplinary mathematics and science using a video-stimulated questionnaire with multiple choice items and verbal explanations. Data were collected prior to the teachers’ planning and teaching interdisciplinary lessons. Findings showed discrepancies between responses to the items and verbal explanations, indicating gaps between their espoused and enacted adaptive expertise. Introduction Adaptive expertise (AE) involves both innovation and efficiency (Bransford et al., 2005) . Adaptive teachers apply deep levels of content and pedagogical knowledge in order to respond flexibly to unexpected, diverse and complex classroom situations (Anthony et al., 2015; Hatano & Oura, 2003; Timperley & Twyford, 2022; Yoon et al., 2019) . Previous studies of adaptive expertise have used qualitative methods involving interviews, observations and videotaping of teachers and their teaching of science or mathematics lessons (e.g. Alonzo & Kim, 2016; Estapa & Amador, 2023) . Others have used video analysis tasks to pose open-ended questions to analyse teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge or their capacity to ‘act in the moment’ in research, teacher education or professional learning contexts (Borko, et al. 2015; Chan, 2021; Copur-Gencturk & Rodrigues, 2021) . In this paper we report findings from a video-stimulated questionnaire used within a designbased longitudinal study on the development of primary teachers’ adaptive expertise when teaching interdisciplinary mathematics and science. We used a video-stimulated questionnaire to gather data about how teachers might respond to classroom situations to identify teachers’AE at the beginning of the longitudinal project. The research questions are: • To what extent do primary teachers select and explain adaptive expertise practices in complex teaching scenarios in STEM lessons? • How is their amount of teaching experience associated with their anticipated use of adaptive expertise? Theoretical Framework Adaptive expertise as a construct has gained significant traction in education as it foregrounds teachers’ responsiveness to the diversity of students in their classrooms and their needs as part of inclusive education (Anthony et al., 2015; Parsons, 2012; Soslau, 2012) . In regard to science pedagogy, Crawford et al. (2005) align adaptive expertise as a disposition with “excellence in science teaching”(p. 3) . Such teachers undertake causal and data-driven forward reasoning through self-regulation and cognitive flexibility to address student learning needs. Yoon et al. (2015, 2019) argue that “high quality teaching”(p. 903) in science manifestsas adaptive expertise as the combination of flexibility, deep-level understanding and deliberate practice (see Table 1) . Suh et al. (2023) propose that such adaptive expertise is necessary for teachers to effectively induct students into the

FAQs

What is adaptive expertise in this study?

Adaptive expertise refers to teachers’ ability to respond effectively to novel and unexpected situations using deep content and pedagogical knowledge. It supports flexible, data-informed decision-making for student learning needs.

How did the study measure teachers’ adaptive expertise?

The study used a video-stimulated questionnaire that combined multiple-choice items with verbal explanations. This helped capture how teachers might respond to classroom scenarios.

What discrepancies were found in the teachers’ responses?

Findings showed gaps between how teachers answered questionnaire items and how they explained their reasoning verbally. The results suggest differences between espoused and enacted adaptive expertise before teaching the interdisciplinary lessons.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Taylor Morgan