The success of educational reforms and changes are highly dependent on their key figures, the teachers. To improve the education of teachers and to make it more effective it would be essential to explore the teachers’ thinking more deeply and thoroughly.

The present paper aims at contributing to a deeper understanding of teachers’ thinking on the cognitive development of children, is a fundamental domain in education. Cognitive pedagogy provides the theoretical basis for mapping the self-perception of nursery, elementary, secondary and vocational school teachers as experts, as well as their child-concept.

We used empirical research methods: the data were collected with questionnaires (reliability is Chronbach-alpha 0,81) containing open tasks that asked for associations and definitions. Approximately 700 educators took part in the research with layered sampling from 73 schools in Fejer County, Hungary. The data induction was processed with SPSS 11.0 statistical software.

Hypothesises of the research are the following: Teachers in the practice overwrite their own expert knowledge learnt during their teacher training with the routines, schemes, habits have learnt in their school they work. Teachers working with different age-groups or in several school-types have typical thinking patterns inside their own teacher-group. Their concepts of experts and children are very different. The positive self-concepts of teachers depend on their success inside their school.

The research justified our hypothesis, i.e. there are significant differences in the teachers’ thinking and we received new and surprising results as well.

The field of pedagogical thinking is the research area where the characteristics of the teacher education system can be observed, because the more the teachers are trained to work with younger students, the more pedagogical and psychological basis they receive, and the higher the importance of the actual teaching practice. The changes in the education system of teachers must begin at this stage.

The success of educational reforms and changes are highly dependent on their key figure, the teacher. To improve the education of teachers and to make it more effective it would be essential to explore the teachers’ thinking more deeply and thoroughly.

The present paper aims at contributing to a deeper understanding of teachers’ thinking on the cognitive development of children, a fundamental domain in education. Cognitive pedagogy provides the theoretical basis for mapping the self-perception of nursery, elementary and secondary school teachers as experts, as well as their child-concept.

Using empirical research methods the data were collected using questionnaires containing open tasks that asked for associations and definitions. The sample was selected with layered sampling in Fejer County. The participants were the following: 144 teachers in nursery schools, 328 teachers in primary and senior classes, and 194 teachers in vocational schools and gymnasium. In the process of data gathering in 73 schools and nursery schools 23 pedagogical consultants worked with us. Using mathematical statistical methods have processed the data was made with SPSS 11.0 statistical software.

Hypothesises of the research are the following: (1) Teachers in the practice overwrite their own expert knowledge learnt during their teacher training with the routines, schemes, habits have learnt in their school they work. (2) Teachers working with different age-groups or in several school-types have typical thinking patterns inside their own teacher-group. Their concepts of experts and children are very different. (3) The positive self-concepts of teachers depend on their success inside their school.

The theoretical background is being built rising two hundred papers (some of them in: [1]). I show now only the main streams. The study of teacher thinking is one field of the pedagogical research. It is aimed at exploring the educators’ mental life, the description of the thinking processes and structures occurring during the pedagogical activity and the study of the forms and structures of the pedagogical activities in the complexity of the educational process. This has seen several changes in its study throughout the years. In the beginning, the educator’s activity system was in focus [2] and then a shift was made towards the decision-making and the pedagogical way of thinking [3]. Schön [4] started a new tendency, whose work of shaping the research aspects drew the attention to the significance of the practical knowledge, and pointed out that this knowledge is independent from the acquired knowledge. The development of the cognitive studies has had a great impact on the social studies, the developmental and the social psychology. The analysis of the teacher’s knowledge turned to be the central topic of the researches.

The theoretical basis for this study is Csapo’s work [5], which sees the cognitive pedagogy as a scientific background for the modern didactics. He defines education as a guide for development since "the education fundamentally influences the whole cognitive development in the schooling age and beyond".

The results revealed that the positive self-concept and self-evaluation of the educators examined depend mainly on intra-institutional factors, among which contact with children plays an essential role. In many data in background the type of institution where educators work was the only significant aspect that produced marked differences in their thinking with respect to their professional self-concepts, expert-concepts and child-concepts.

In their self-concepts the participants ranked their social status rather low and their financial reputation even lower. They are moderately satisfied with their professional ambitions and the achievement of their pedagogical goals. One of its reasons seems to be the contradiction between the teacher’s views about the main factors that influence the students’ success or failure.

One of the most interesting results was in the expert-concepts of teachers: their opinion is the teachers’ personality is the most significant factor in the students’ development; diligence and motivation (not the abilities) are the influencing factors determining the successfulness of the studying process. However, what they believe to be the reason for failure is mainly the lack of the students’ various abilities and other external reasons. The greatest difference between the educators lies in the question of the professional commitment and the teacher’s personal role.

Their belief in the children’s development and their views of themselves is rather different, too. The grade teachers’ way of thinking resembles the most to the classic and idealised view of the pedagogical profession. They are concerned about the significant impact of their professional commitment, purposefulness and high professional knowledge on their students’ cognitive development. Rank, qualification, in-service training or the number of years spent practicing the profession influenced educators’ thinking only in minor issues of children’s cognitive development or facilitating this development.

The research justified our hypothesis, i.e. there are significant differences in the teachers’ thinking and we received new and surprising results as well. In the public opinion the high school teachers and the grade teachers represent the two margins, however, their way of thinking is quite close to each other in many cases. On the other hand the kindergarten nurses and grade teachers who are supposed to have parallels in thinking have fairly different views at certain points, and the same mark the two types of secondary school teachers, too.

The field of pedagogical thinking is the research area where the characteristics of the teacher education system can be observed, because the more the teachers are trained to work with younger students, the more pedagogical and psychological basis they receive, and the higher the importance of the actual teaching practice. The changes in the education system of teachers must begin at this stage.

[1] Hercz, M. 2006: Teachers’ Concepts of Experts and Children. In: Magyar Pedagógia, 105. 2. 153-185.

[2] Andelson, J. 1968: Teacher, as a Model. In: Bennis, W. G., Schein, E. H., Steele, F. I. és Berlew, D.E. (editor): Interpersonal Dynamics. The Dorsey Press: Illinois; Georgetown, Ontario. 491-503.

[3] Eggleston F. J. (editor) 1979: Teacher decision-making in the classroom. Boston.

[4] Schön, D. 1983: The Reflective Practitioner. Temple Smith, London,

[5] Csapó, B. 1982: Kognitív pedagógia. Akadémiai Kiadó: Budapest. 31.