Linda Hobbs, Coral Campbell, Seamus Delaney, Chris Speldewinde, Jerry Lai

Deakin University

This presentation explores the methodology used to develop a definition for a complex phenomenon, out-of-field teaching. Out-of-field teaching is an educational construct developed to highlight the mismatch between a teacher’s disciplinary background and what they are teaching. Definitions can be communicated in different ways: intentional definitions specify the necessary conditions that need to be met or the properties of the objects, while extensional definitions list the objects the term describes. The former is used to focus on the characteristics of what constitutes misalignment between the teacher’s expertise, background and identity with what they are assigned to teach. We conducted a systematic review of the literature and policy context  to develop a set of criteria and dimensions, with bands to show more in-field or more out-of-field and a number of definitions that could be used for different purposes.

A lack of common understanding of what constitutes out-of-field teaching makes it difficult to assess the extent and impact of out-of-field teaching.. . We encountered a number of challenges in deciding what to foreground in the definition, elucidating what the definition should be used for (to inform, for example, policy, school management practices, teacher learning), and taking the policy context into account. emphasising different criteria were designed for different purposes. A white paper synthesising the ideas was used to gain expert feedback.

We conducted a systematic review of the literature (from 2010-2020),with search parameters including different labels (such as out-of-field, unspecialised, non-specialist, unqualified, under-qualified, misfit), the full range of subjects, different levels of education, different methodologies, and a scope of analysis ranging from local to international. A set of definitions have been developed, with inclusion and exclusion criteria associated with each definition. For external validation, these definitions were presented to experts (principal, teachers, subjects, associations) to ascertain usefulness, applicability and implications in the Victorian school context.