AARE February 10, 2025
By Meghan Stacey, Sue Creagh, Nicole Mockler, Anna Hogan and Greg Thompson
…In our research, we sought to ask the question of whether decision making might be part of the subjective intensity of teaching work. To do this we used an app developed for the Teachers and Time Poverty project. The app asked teachers to report on the number of decisions made within a time-sampled 30-minute period, and the stakes and time pressure associated with these decisions. In a recent chapter for a book two of us edited on time poverty, we present these decision making data from a trial of the app with 138 teachers reporting on 280 30-minute timeslots…
…This highlights the complexity of what teachers do: the wide range of tasks they undertake, the kinds of decision making these demand, and the ‘typical’ unevenness and lack of predictability that require teachers to make these decisions. We think this might be a key part of what makes teaching such an exhausting (albeit worthwhile and fulfilling) job. It also points to why ‘quick fixes’ like a little less playground duty, or less after school meetings cannot, on their own, solve the enduring problem of teacher time poverty.
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