Unfolding the typology and quality of the learner agency practices in the teachers’ implementation of the 2013  curriculum in Indonesia: the normalisation process theory perspective

Abstract

Learner agency, or the ability to take control of one’s own learning and the learning of others, is a substantial goal of the curricular reform across the world. This can be seen in the implementation of the 2013 curriculum (K13) in Indonesia. However, there has been little evidence regarding the ways that Indonesian teachers have engaged with prescribed innovations. This interpretivist study examined the extent to which curricular innovations have been embedded in classrooms and how far they reveal the quality of their enactments, with particular interest in the identification of pedagogic practices that are associated with the promotion of learner agency. Using rich data from 15 individual semi-structured interviews and filmed classroom observations of three teachers, the study observed learner agency practices, including those associated with promoting peer and self-assessment, learning autonomy, and sharing learning objectives and assessment criteria. However, the implementation of these strategies varied in intensity and was rather artificial, without a strong conceptual underpinning. Drawing on normalization process theory (NPT), this paper argues that the observed teachers’ engagement in the promotion of learner agency lacked coherence, cognitive participation, collective action, and evaluation. Reform planners and teachers should understand the nature of successful implementation and consider adopting a framework to analyze and guide their evaluation of how reform should be organized, implemented, and evaluated to ensure effective embedding.

Appendix 1

	Interview extract with initial codes in the square bracket	Sub-category	Main category
Researcher	Have you involved students in formulating and discussing the learning targets?
Teacher (C5)	I always do that before the lesson starts [FREQUENCY]
Researcher	Do you ask students to formulate the learning targets?
Teacher (C5)	Yes, after beginning the lesson I always prepare, like, say, preparing the power point slides and presenting the learning media, usually a picture, that implies the learning targets [SETTING UP CONTEXT]. Then I ask students opinions about the picture in the slide [ELICITING IDEAS ABOUT LEARNING TARGETS]	Sharing the teacher-made learning targets	Sharing learning targets
Researcher	All right, but my question is, do you involve students in constructing the learning targets?
Teacher (C5)	Yes, I do it through presenting media and learning activities by which students can infer what they are going to learn. After these activities, I ask them what are we going to learn today? Then they answer “we will learn about this and that” [SETTING UP THE CONTEXT]. I elicited their ideas about the learning target and write the ideas on the board [LISTING IDEAS ABOUT THE LEARNING TARGETS]. Some ideas don’t connect with purposes of the lesson. After all ideas are listed, then I presented the slide informing students about the planned learning targets of today’s lesson [SHARING THE LEARNING TARGETS]	Sharing the teacher-made learning targets	Sharing learning targets
Researcher	Why do you elicit students’ ideas about learning targets?
Teacher (C5)	I think students need to know what they are going to learn [LEARNING TOPICS] and what they going to achieve [LEARNING OBJECTIVES] so they can be motivated in learning and have priority what knowledge or skill to acquire [IMPACTS]. Students also need to know the purposes of completing the task [LEARNING OBJECTIVES]	Reasons for sharing objectives with students	Sharing learning targets
Researcher	Which means that the learning targets are already set up by teacher before lesson begins?
Teacher (C5)	Yes
Researcher	Then students are guessing the learning targets from pictures or other media presented. Have you thought to involve students in a discussion for setting up their own learning targets?
Teacher (C5)	We conduct teaching and learning based on the lesson plan that explicitly mentions the learning objectives [LESSON PLAN-DRIVEN TARGETS]. Our job is to make sure that students know what they are going to learn and what to achieve [MAKING LEARNING EXPLICIT]. If we ask them to formulate their own learning targets, it is kind of unrealistic [UNREALISTIC TASK] because of the numbers of students [LARGE CLASS] and that we [teachers] already have had the learning targets which are synthesized from the curriculum and syllabus that we must follow [CURRICULUM-DRIVEN TARGETS]	Reasons for sharing objectives with students Impractical Reasons for being impractical	Sharing learning targets Perception against learner agency Curriculum- driven pedagogy/contextual influences