Early Childhood Teachers' Curriculum Beliefs: Are They Consistent With Observed Classroom Practices?

Research Findings: This study examined the consistency between early childhood teachers' self-reported curriculum beliefs and observations of their actual interactive behaviors with children in classrooms. Also tested was the hypothesized moderation by teacher and classroom characteristics of the association between beliefs and practices. A total of 58 preschool teachers completed a survey describing their professional backgrounds and curriculum beliefs. Their classroom practices were observed using a newly developed instrument that documented teacher interactions with children. Most teachers in this sample strongly endorsed child-initiated learning beliefs, although their beliefs about teacher-directed learning varied considerably. The most frequently observed teacher behaviors in the classroom were giving directions to children, responding to children's initiations, and engaging in non-interactive classroom management activities. Overall, teachers' curriculum beliefs and observed classroom practices were weakly correlated. However, there were moderation effects. Stronger congruence between teacher-directed learning beliefs and observed teaching behaviors was found among teachers who had more professional training and more years of teaching experience. Practice or Policy: These results support the importance of early childhood teacher professional development. They suggest that teacher preparation and professional development programs should focus on the intellectual transformation between teacher knowledge and teacher practice, promoting both aspects of development.     

A well-started beginning elementary teacher’s beliefs and practices in relation to reform recommendations about inquiry-based science

Given reform recommendations emphasizing scientific inquiry and empirical evidence pointing to the difficulties beginning teachers face in enacting inquiry-based science, this study explores a well-started beginning elementary teacher’s (Sofia) beliefs about inquiry-based science and related instructional practices. In order to explore Sofia’s beliefs and instructional practices, several kinds of data were collected in a period of 9 months: a self-portrait and an accompanying narrative, a personal philosophy assignment, three interviews, three journal entries, ten lesson plans, and ten videotaped classroom observations. The analysis of these data showed that Sofia’s beliefs and instructional practices were reform-minded. She articulated contemporary beliefs about scientific inquiry and how children learn science and was able to translate these beliefs into practice. Central to Sofia’s beliefs about science teaching were scientific inquiry and engaging students in investigations with authentic data, with a prevalent emphasis on the role of evidence in the construction of scientific claims. These findings are important to research aiming at supporting teachers, especially beginning ones, to embrace reform recommendations.     

The Relationship Between Teacher Beliefs and Practices, and Head Start Classroom Quality

Within early childhood research considerable emphasis has been placed on examining teachers' beliefs about developmentally appropriate practices in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to describe Head Start teacher beliefs and self-reported practices as they relate to classroom quality and examine the potential differences in the beliefs of those teaching in high, average, and low quality classrooms. Scores on two subscales, appropriate and inappropriate, for both self-reported beliefs and practices were used as the dependent variables. Analysis of variance was used to examine differences between the self-reported beliefs and practices of teachers in classrooms of differing quality. The results for both the appropriate beliefs and appropriate activities subscales were statistically nonsignificant. However, the results for the two inappropriate subscales were statistically significant. These results would seem to indicate that teachers in the low quality group tended to respond more favorably to statements about inappropriate beliefs and practices than did those teachers in either the high or average quality classrooms. These findings provide important information about offering professional development opportunities for Head Start teachers that focus on providing theoretical perspectives on children's development and instructional practices aimed at changing beliefs about teaching practices.     

Relations of Early Childhood Education Teachers’ Depressive Symptoms,Job-Related Stress,and Professional Motivation to Beliefs About Children and Teaching Practices

Research Findings: This study used teacher questionnaires to investigate the relationships of early childhood education teachers’ depressive symptoms, professional motivation, and job-related stress to their beliefs about children and teaching practices. Teachers (N = 207) were recruited from early childhood education programs in the southern United States. Path analyses showed that teachers who exhibited fewer depressive symptoms were more likely to have a career orientation to their jobs and indicated feeling less job-related stress. Teachers with a career orientation to their jobs were also more likely to have child-centered beliefs and endorse developmentally appropriate teaching practices. Teachers’ job-related stress, however, was not related to beliefs about children or teaching practices. Practice or Policy: These results suggest that teachers’ psychological and job-related well-being are linked to their beliefs about children and teaching practice in early childhood education. It is therefore important to provide support systems and preventive programs for teachers to enhance their well-being.     

Assessing Beliefs of Preservice Early Childhood Education Teachers Using Q-Sort Methodology

The purpose of this study was to assess the beliefs of students and faculty in a 4-year birth–kindergarten teacher preparation program using the Teacher Belief Q-Sort (TBQ). Data were collected over one academic year from a total of 63 students, 35 students at the beginning of their coursework and 28 students at the end of their program, completing their student teaching experience. The faculty (n = 8) in the program completed the TBQ to provide a criterion sort as well as to assess the consistency in philosophy across faculty members who teach preservice teachers. Compilations of rankings are presented to describe beliefs related to children, discipline, and teaching practices held by students who are at different points in their education program. Criterion comparison results indicate that student teachers at the end of their education program report beliefs more similar to faculty beliefs than students at the beginning of their education program. However, findings suggest that the student teaching experience does not appear to significantly alter beliefs about children, discipline and teaching practices. These results are discussed in terms of child-directed versus teacher-directed styles of preservice teachers and implications of assessing beliefs for teacher preparation programs.     

Beliefs and practices of itinerant teachers of deaf and hard of hearing children concerning literacy development

A qualitative case study examined beliefs and practices of itinerant teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students concerning literacy development, the match between these teachers' beliefs and practices, and the impact of itinerant settings. Five itinerant teachers and 15 students participated. Hearing losses were mild to profound. The research addressed 5 areas: sociocultural aspects of literacy development; effects of hearing loss on literacy development; beliefs about teaching and literacy development; practices used to develop literacy; the impact of itinerant settings on literacy development of deaf and hard of hearing learners. Five themes emerged from the data: Itinerant teachers used a variety of practices to develop literacy; itinerant teachers played a supporting role in developing literacy; most of the teachers' beliefs about literacy development were matched in their practices; the itinerant teachers were lifelong learners; the impact of itinerant settings on literacy development took many forms.     

Challenging and Appropriating Discourses of Power: Listening to and Learning from Early Career Early Childhood Teachers of Color

ABSTRACT

The racial mismatch between teachers and students has become a salient issue in efforts to counter the historical failure of children of Color in American (pre)schools. To address this mismatch, scholars have argued for the critical need to recruit and retain teachers of Color. In this article, we propose that to successfully prepare teachers of Color so that they remain committed to the profession, we must learn from their experiences during their preservice preparation and their first years of teaching. Against the backdrop of normative institutional discourses shaping teachers and teaching, we sought to learn from the ways in which six early career early childhood teachers of Color reconciled their preservice teacher education experiences, identities, and beliefs about education with the construction of their identities as teachers. To do so, we asked: How do the discursive spaces of early childhood teaching and teacher education shape the practices, beliefs, and identities of early childhood teachers of Color during their teacher education programs and within their three first years of teaching? Through Critical Narrative Analysis of in-depth interviews, we sought to unveil the discourses that shape and are shaped by the experiences of early career early childhood teachers of Color. Findings indicate that instead of being colonized by institutional discourses and oppressed by others' perceptions, to remain in the profession, these early career early childhood teachers challenged and appropriated institutional discourses, reauthoring them agentively. Implications underscore the responsibility of teacher education programs in preparing teachers of Color to negotiate the ever-so-normative discursive space of early childhood teaching and teacher education, if they are to enter and remain in the profession.     

‘I understood the complexity within diversity’: preparation for partnership with families in early childhood settings

‘Partnership between parents and teachers’ is a taken-for-granted feature of the philosophy and practice of early childhood education. Yet, the literature suggests this rhetoric belies a more complex and problematic reality for teachers. Making connections with the families and communities they will serve may help teacher education students confront understandings of the realities of family lives and assist them to prepare for their professional responsibilities. Teacher education literature suggests that supported field experiences may assist student teachers to examine their beliefs and reflect on their practices with families. This paper reports on the experiences of student teachers who undertook a community placement in order to interact with children and families outside their normal range of teaching practice experience. Three themes of changes in student learning are discussed: (1) beliefs about partnerships; (2) notions of complexities within diversity; and (3) developing relationships with diverse families. The paper argues that the change in placement setting prompted student reflection in relation to these themes and shifts in beliefs, towards more authentic and complex understandings of partnership.     

职前英语教师专业成长的另类途径——一项基于重构职前英语教师信念的行动研究

信念的研究是判断教师教育成效的一项重要指标,是当前教师教育中最有价值的一部分。职前教师信念由于受到先前经验和信念本身特质等因素的影响,不易改变,教师教育应该对职前英语教师的信念进行检视与再建构。在自我反思教学模式下发展起来的教育行动研究是近年来国外教育界探究和实践的一种教学理论,是一种非常适合没有接受过教育研究训练的职前教师的研究方法。开展行动研究有助于职前教师将理论学习与教学实践相结合,在教学实践过程中,充分利用有限的直接经验进行教学反思,不断检视、并重构教师信念,提升教学行为。     

Science teachers' beliefs about curriculum design

Teacher beliefs about curriculum design affect the quality of science education in schools, but science researchers know little about the interrelation of beliefs about alternative curriculum designs. This article describes a quantitative study of secondary science teachers' beliefs about curriculum design. A 33-item Science Curriculum Orientation Inventory (SCOI) was developed to measure five distinct orientations to curriculum: academic, cognitive processes, societycentred, humanistic, and technological. Data were collected from 810 integrated science, chemistry, physics, and biology teachers in Hong Kong. A confirmatory factor analysis of teacher responses to the SCOI indicated that science teachers' beliefs about curriculum design had a hierarchical structure; the five distinct curriculum orientations were positively correlated, forming a second-order curriculum, meta-orientation. Physics teachers were less society-oriented than biology, integrated science and chemistry teachers, and integrated science teachers were more humanistic than physics teachers. Although science teachers' beliefs about any of the five alternative curriculum designs did not vary with their teaching experience, the difference between beliefs about the cognitive processes orientation and the humanistic orientation increased when teachers had gained more teaching experience. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Too Close for Comfort: Real-Time Science Teaching Reflections via Digital Video Editing

This study examined the use of digital video editing as the main venue for fostering reflection. The impact of digital video editing technology on preservice teachers' beliefs included shifts in (a) reflections regarding children's thinking, (b) planning and instruction informed by reflection, and (c) notions of teaching expertise and requisite knowledge. Results were based on an instructional approach emphasizing the exploration of preservice teachers' own planning and teaching as they edited their own video accounts. These findings contrast typical video usage in teacher preparation in which teachers reflect upon the practice of others. Implications for teacher education programs and future research are discussed.     

When tensions between ideology and practice become personal: Unpacking mentorship in early childhood teacher education

University-based teacher education programs are criticized for being too theoretical, disconnected from the everyday realities of schools. To bridge this gap, teacher education programs give students year-long field experiences under the joint tutelage of mentor teachers and university faculty. However, this assumes that mentor teachers will not only be exemplary teachers, but skilled mentors as well. This article explores the tensions between the theoretical and practical work of teaching within mentoring relationships, specifically in spaces where teacher agency is limited by political, social, and cultural factors. The sociocultural, language approaches in many teacher education programs are seen as idealistic when pushed up against skills-based language approaches, advocated in classrooms. Using qualitative methods, this project follows three mentor/mentee pairs as they negotiate their relationships in an urban area in the Southwest United States. While all three pre-service teachers strongly believed that learning was a social practice, constructed through child inquiry and play, they struggled to maintain their ideologies and beliefs during their field experience. Pre-service teachers held firmly to their beliefs about teaching and learning, but holding onto these beliefs were wrought with personal and philosophical tensions. Pre-service teachers found limited agency in their practice and little support in implementing their own practices. Most importantly, unequal power dynamics and communication issues were obstacles towards mutually beneficial mentorship. Thus, preservice programs must address the importance of developing and cultivating the mentor/mentee relationship—a relationship that is pivotal in the construction of preservice teachers’ identities and practices.     

Epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral learning in the early years of school: relationships and complexities

While investment in young children is recognised as important for the development of moral values for a cohesive society, little is known about early years teaching practices that promote learning of moral values. This paper reports on observations and interviews with 11 Australian teachers, focusing on their epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral education with children aged 5–8 years. The analysis revealed three main patterns of thinking about moral education: following others, reflecting on points of view, and informing reflection for action. These patterns suggest a relationship between epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral learning which have implications for teacher professional development concerning experiences in moral education.     

The first year of teaching: It's not what they expected

This paper considers the relationship between teachers' espoused belief and beliefs in action. It focuses on the first year experiences of two beginning teachers — one a graduate of a baccalaureate program; the other a graduate of a master's program — who have been participants in a longitudinal study of evolving beliefs about teaching among preservice and beginning teachers. It contrasts their belief in action with the beliefs about teaching that they articulated over the past 3 years in beliefs questionnaires that they completed at the beginning of each school year. Findings suggest that beginning teachers develop a set of beliefs about teaching and learning in their teacher education programs that is not necessarily related to the set of beliefs about teaching and learning that they developed over the course of their elementary and secondary education. The latter set of beliefs is brought to the fore by the exigencies of the first year of teaching. New teachers, the study shows, are strongly affected by the conditions of the workplace and most particularly by the climate of acceptance established by the school principal. The paper ends with suggestions for preservice faculty and for school personnel receiving beginning teachers.     

The Relationship Between Teacher Beliefs and Practices,and Head Start Classroom Quality

Within early childhood research considerable emphasis has been placed on examining teachers' beliefs about developmentally appropriate practices in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to describe Head Start teacher beliefs and self-reported practices as they relate to classroom quality and examine the potential differences in the beliefs of those teaching in high, average, and low quality classrooms. Scores on two subscales, appropriate and inappropriate, for both self-reported beliefs and practices were used as the dependent variables. Analysis of variance was used to examine differences between the self-reported beliefs and practices of teachers in classrooms of differing quality. The results for both the appropriate beliefs and appropriate activities subscales were statistically nonsignificant. However, the results for the two inappropriate subscales were statistically significant. These results would seem to indicate that teachers in the low quality group tended to respond more favorably to statements about inappropriate beliefs and practices than did those teachers in either the high or average quality classrooms. These findings provide important information about offering professional development opportunities for Head Start teachers that focus on providing theoretical perspectives on children's development and instructional practices aimed at changing beliefs about teaching practices.     

The Influence of Teachers’ Efficacy and Beliefs Regarding Mathematics Instruction in the Early Childhood Classroom

This was a correlational study conducted with a population of prekindergarten educators from a large, metropolitan school district. The purpose was to examine if there were relationships between and among early childhood teachers’ sense of self-efficacy, their beliefs about the importance of mathematics, and their mathematics instructional practices. Examining teachers’ efficacy and beliefs can inform educational practice and help to differentiate between more and less successful instructional practices when teaching mathematics in the early childhood classroom. Data were collected on teacher efficacy and teacher beliefs about the importance of mathematics with two self-report questionnaires. The hypothesis that the teachers higher in efficacy will rate the importance of mathematics higher on the teacher-belief scale than the teachers with lower efficacy was found to be true with this sample, but the correlation was weak. The level of efficacy of the early childhood teachers in this sample confirmed that in assessing their capabilities, they rate themselves high in instructional strategies, classroom management, and student engagement. The early childhood teachers did not rate their belief in mathematics as high as their efficacy. Observations of mathematics instructional practices were conducted with twenty teachers. It was hypothesized that the combination of high teacher efficacy and high teacher mathematics beliefs would show alignment with the presence of standards-based mathematics instructional practices. The results were not statistically significant. No correlation signals a need for more research to explore what other personal or external factors relate to mathematics instructional practices in the early childhood classroom. The research may inform pre kindergarten teachers and teacher educators about effective instructional strategies and knowledge needed to launch early childhood students on a developmentally appropriate pathway to mathematical literacy.     

How teachers’ beliefs about learning and teaching relate to their continuing professional development

Teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) can improve teacher quality and teaching practice, yet teachers differ greatly in the extent to which they engage in CPD. In extensive research into which factors affect teachers’ participation in CPD, the effects of teachers’ beliefs have received limited attention, despite their strong influences on people’s working and learning. Teachers’ beliefs about learning and teaching in particular influence their teaching practices. Does a comparable relationship exist between these beliefs and teachers’ own learning or participation in CPD? To explore this relationship, 260 Dutch secondary school teachers completed a survey that focused on the teachers’ student-oriented and subject matter-oriented beliefs, as well as on teachers’ updating, reflective and collaborative activities. Because teachers’ characteristics reflect both belief dimensions, this study relied on cluster analysis, which revealed three distinct belief profiles. These results indicated that teachers’ beliefs about learning and teaching relate to their participation in CPD: the more a teacher’s profile is student oriented and subject matter oriented, the higher his or her participation in CPD. The results have implications for enhancing teachers’ reflections on their beliefs about learning and teaching, in conjunction with participation in CPD.     

Kindergarten Teachers' Use of Developmentally Appropriate Practices and Attitudes About Authority

This study examined the relationship between kindergarten teachers' use of developmentally appropriate practices and their attitudes toward authority in the classroom. The study found an overall low use of developmentally appropriate practices. Instead, the classrooms exhibited academically oriented, skill-centered programs. However, kindergarten teachers who rated themselves higher in authority sharing as opposed to authority controlling were more likely to use developmentally appropriate teaching strategies as delineated by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Aspects of the teachers' professional experience and education had little relationship to their attitudes about authority in the classroom. The positive relationship between an authority-sharing attitude and developmentally appropriate practices suggests that more importance be placed on developing teachers' and prospective teachers' attitudes about adult/child authority orientation than on simply prescribing overt teacher behavior.     

Pedagogical practices: examining preservice teachers’ perceptions of their abilities

Teachers routinely make decisions regarding the best pedagogical methods for altering students’ understandings about academic content. Such practices are at the root of teaching as persuasion, and have been shown to be related to academic achievement. Yet very little research has investigated the extent to which individuals learning to be teachers (i.e., preservice teachers) feel they are capable of performing the practices underlying teaching as persuasion. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which preservice teachers see themselves as capable of performing persuasive pedagogical practices compared to more general teaching practices as operationalized on well-researched measures of teacher efficacy. Results indicated that undergraduates enrolled in preservice teacher education courses perceived themselves as less capable of performing persuasive pedagogical practices than more generally accepted practices. In addition, preservice teachers perceived they were more capable of altering students’ knowledge about content than at modifying their beliefs about content. Implications for research and practice are forwarded.