The majority of the 120 teachers were female (82 per cent). Around 70 per
cent of the teachers were Kinh and 3 per cent were of ethnic minority origins
(the remaining 27 per cent did not mention their ethnicity). Nearly 60 per
cent of the teachers were under 40, 20 per cent were between 40 and 49
and about 18 percent were 50 and over. Almost half of the participants had
between 10 and 20 years of teaching experience.
Nearly 20 per cent had taught for 25 years or more, while around 30 per cent
of the teachers had less than 10 years of teaching experience. Teachers of all
school subjects were included in the survey sample. On average, the surveyed
teachers were teaching 15 periods per week (45 minutes per period) at the
time of the study.
The researcher held two FGD with lower secondary trainee-teachers at Quang
Ninh Teacher Training College to learn about how they were being trained
in their course. The trainees were randomly selected from the Faculty of
Social Science, the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of English. The two
FGD groups consisted of 24 participants (19 female and 5 male) between the
ages of 18 and 20, including seven first-year trainees, six in second-year and
11 in third-year. Of the trainees, 15 were from the Kinh group and nine from
ethnic minority groups. During the FGDs, the researcher asked questions,
took notes and monitored the discussions.
The researcher also conducted in-depth interviews, via telephone, with three
senior experts and researchers (two male and one female, aged between
45 and 58) who had various kinds of research experience regarding the
relationship between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The interviewees
had previously worked as teachers at secondary schools and at a teacher
education college and had later become researchers and managers with the
Viet Nam National Institute of Educational Science and were consultants on
national projects on curriculum and assessment reform. The duration of each
interview was 60 minutes.
The researcher also observed a 45-minute Vietnamese lesson in the
Pedagogical Practice School. This lesson was a Grade 7 class of 38 students,
15 female and 23 male, given by a 27-year-old female teacher from the Kinh
ethnic group. The teacher had been teaching for five years. She was selected
to demonstrate ‘innovative practices’ as she had good experience in applying
ICT in her lessons. A total of eight people observed the lesson, including the
school principal, head teachers, teachers, the camera operator (who was also
a teacher) and the researcher. After the lesson, the observers gathered for