There is an abundance of research identifying barriers and enablers teachers experience whenimplementing innovative and reform-oriented pedagogical practices, such as inquiry-basedinstruction (IBI), which are intended to prepare young people for the complexities andunpredictability of the contemporary world. Research on teachers’ beliefs and practices hascontributed significantly to this field. However, there remains less clarity about why teachers adopt,adapt, resist, or reject pedagogical innovations, and how changes in their pedagogical understanding,professional identities, and instructional strategies occur within wider sociocultural, institutional, andpolicy contexts. The variability and complexity of teachers’ ecological environments indicate theneed for a more ecological understanding of teacher change.This study focuses on the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP),an inquiry-based curriculum framework designed for students aged 11 to 16. While the MYPpositions IBI centrally within curriculum design and classroom practice, its enactment can requiresignificant shifts in teachers’ existing pedagogical assumptions and practices, particularly in AsiaPacific education contexts where IBI approaches may interact with established curriculum,assessment, and accountability expectations. Rather than extending the literature only by examiningthe relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices, this study takes a step back to investigatehow MYP teachers understand IBI and its enactment, what ecological enablers and barriers shape thedevelopment of those understandings and practices, and what forms of support may strengthenteachers’ transition towards IBI.The study adopted a qualitative phenomenographic design, supported by Bronfenbrenner’sbioecological Process–Person–Context–Time (PPCT) model. Data were generated through semistructured interviews with 24 MYP teachers from 10 schools across eight Asia-Pacific countries,supplemented by five focus group discussions with 26 stakeholders, including teachers, MYP6coordinators, school leaders, and parents. The interview data were analysed phenomenographically toidentify qualitatively different ways in which teachers understood and enacted IBI. The focus groupdata were used to enrich the ecological interpretation of the findings by providing school-level andstakeholder perspectives.The findings revealed six interrelated categories shaping teachers’ understanding andenactment of IBI in the MYP: learning environment and student participation; written, taught andassessed curriculum; programme coordination; teacher learning and development; school leadershipand culture; and structure and system. These findings suggest that IBI is not experienced only as aclassroom strategy, but as a whole-school and system-mediated practice. Teachers associatedeffective IBI with student agency, conceptual learning, authentic questioning, guided inquiry,collaboration, and reflective practice. However, enactment was constrained by time pressure,assessment expectations, documentation demands, uneven professional learning, variable leadershipsupport, student readiness, parent expectations, and tensions between inquiry-based pedagogy andexam-oriented cultures.The study concludes that teachers’ transition towards IBI is an ecological process rather thanan individual act of enactment. Stronger enactment depends on sustained professional learning,collaborative planning, knowledgeable programme coordination, supportive leadership, alignedassessment practices, adequate time and resources, and school cultures that allow teachers toexperiment, reflect, and refine practice. The study contributes to research on inquiry pedagogy,teacher learning, agency, and IB implementation by showing how teachers’ pedagogical choices andchange journeys are shaped through the interaction of personal, professional, institutional, andsystemic conditions. Its findings have the potential to inform an ecological model of support forschools and leaders seeking to strengthen MYP teachers’ understanding and enactment of IBI.7
| Date of Award | 24 Jun 2026 |
|---|
| Original language | English |
|---|
| Awarding Institution | |
|---|
| Supervisor | Mary Hayden (Supervisor) & Jeff Thompson (Supervisor) |
|---|