Teaching Goals in Primary Education or There and Back Again

Aim: To describe how teachers of the junior classes in Basic School (ZŠ) think about teaching goals, which teaching goals they set themselves, how they communicate them to pupils and how they work with them in actual teaching.
Methods: A multi-case exploratory study, the cases each being a teacher’s work with educational goals. The participants in the study were 10 teachers of the junior classes in Basic School. The methods employed were observation of teaching, in-depth semi-structured individual interviews with teachers, and content analysis of teaching artefacts.
Results: Educational goals do not appear in teaching in explicit form. During observation, implicit goals emerge - at the beginning of lessons when the programme is communicated, in the course of lessons in the tackling of learning tasks and above all in assessment processes including concluding reflections. The educational goals become most evident when criterial assessment is used. The quality and modes of work with goals were very various among the teachers in the study. In many lessons the educational goals, teaching methods, and assessment of pupils were at odds. In interviews the teachers did not explicitly mention the development of values as a goal in teaching.
Conclusions: When goals, content and assessment techniques are in harmony, this has benefits for pupil learning. Our analysis of statements by teachers and the responses of pupils has led us to the view that improving work with teaching goals has the potential to bring pupils greater gains from learning and to increase the quality of their education overall. In view of the big differences between teachers it seems to us important to individualise support offered to them.