Absolute Confidence!

At a computer software course,the participants were given an awkward question to answer:“If youhad just boarded an airliner and discovered that your team of programmers had been responsible for theflight control software,how many of you would disembark immediately?”     

The Confidence Trick

积极的态度改变一切。在英语学习中,积极的学习态度和自信心是必备的。作为教师的你,怎样鼓励学生张口说英语,怎样培养他们的自信心是一门精细的学问。     

Middle School Science Teachers’ Confidence and Pedagogical Practice of New Literacies

Due to the rapid advancements of information and communication technologies (ICTs), educational researchers argue that multimodal and new literacies should become common practices in schools. As new ICTs emerge and evolve, students need the new literacies skills and practices to successfully participate fully in the civic life of a global community. Are teachers prepared to integrate ICTs in the classroom to develop students’ new literacies skills? The purpose of this study is to suggest a new literacies framework that guides ICTs integration and supports scientific inquiry, as well as investigate middle school teachers’ confidence to practice new literacies in science classrooms. The study adopted mixed-methodology design, surveyed 32 middle school science teachers’ ICTs and new literacies skills, and randomly observed 15 teachers’ new literacies practices in the classrooms. The results revealed that even though teachers have high confidence in using ICTs, the meaningful technology integration and new literacies practices were scarcely observed in their classroom practices.     

Confidence is Everything” – Perspectives of Teachers and Students on Learning Mathematics

This paper problematises confidence as a frequently used explanation for performance in the mathematics classroom. I report on an interview-based study of how some English Advanced level (16+) students who have chosen to study mathematics, and their teachers, speak about confidence with respect to the learning of mathematics. I outline what constitutes confident learners for these teachers and, differently, for their students and what the students feel teachers could do to improve the students confident state. I discuss the implications of this for the education of prospective teachers of mathematics.     

A Survey Study of Early Childhood Teachers’ Beliefs and Confidence about Teaching Early Math

This study reports on results from the Early Mathematics Beliefs and Confidence Survey, administered to 346 preschool teachers in a large public school system in the Midwest. Survey results depict a much more positive view of teachers’ beliefs and confidence in early math teaching than previously reported. Results also suggest that teacher confidence varies with specific types of math knowledge and teaching abilities, and assessing math learning is a specific area where teachers lack confidence. Examining confidence in their math abilities and in teaching early math, results indicate that teachers are more confident teaching math and remain confident in teaching even when confidence in their abilities is low. Implications of results for early math professional development are discussed.     

Confidence: A better predictor of academic achievement than self-efficacy,self-concept and anxiety?

In this paper we report the results from a study that assessed confidence together with scales measuring self-belief – i.e., self-efficacy, different kinds of self-concepts, and anxiety – among the 15-year old students from Singapore. A distinct confidence factor was identified in the domains of mathematics (N = 1940) and English (N = 1786). Our results show that confidence is: a) a robust individual differences dimension; b) that can be combined with accuracy information to obtain bias scores that may be useful for group comparisons and for identification of misconceptions about particular topics. Confidence as studied in our work to date has been c) the best predictor of achievement in both mathematics and English; d) is related to both cognitive and self-belief measures; and e) it captures much of the predictive variance of other self-beliefs that are, in turn, among the best known predictors of achievement.     

Effects of Strategy Training and Incentives on Students’ Performance,Confidence, and Calibration

This study examined the effect of strategy instruction and incentives on performance, confidence, and calibration accuracy. Individuals (N = 107) in randomly assigned treatment groups received a multicomponent strategy instruction intervention, financial incentives for high performance, or both. The authors predicted that incentives would improve performance, while strategy instruction would improve performance, confidence, and calibration accuracy as a result of better monitoring and self-regulation of learning. The authors compared pre- and posttest items and 20 new posttest-only items. They found significant effects for strategy training on performance, confidence, and calibration accuracy, as well as the interaction between strategy training and time on calibration accuracy. Incentives improved performance and calibration accuracy, either directly, or through an interaction with strategy training. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Development of Self-Efficacy and Confidence to Teach Science: A Case Study

This study examines the self-efficacy of one preservice elementary school teacher (Kasey) during and after her participation in Science in Childhood Education—a 16-week, elementary preservice science methods course. The case study of this teacher is situated in the context of the class as a whole. This is accomplished through interviewing the one teacher and examining artifacts and observations of the entire class. The results of these experiences are studied to determine what changes have taken place in the participants’ self-efficacy in science teaching as well as the one preservice teacher in greater detail. Because self efficacy is influential to student learning, the results of this study have significant implications for the design of elementary teacher education programs and the support of elementary teachers in teaching science.     

Toward a Realization of Teaching Principles in Oral English Class:Helping Student Set up Confidence in Speaking English

Speaking is a productive skill which is completely living in the en-couragement of communicative efficiency.Comparatively Chinesestudents are quiet and shy.One of the reasons is that they don't haveadvantage in speaking.They are afraid of making mistakes.Secondly     

Confidence versus Performance as an Indicator of the Presence of Alternative Conceptions and Inadequate Problem‐Solving Skills in Mechanics

This study investigated the use of performance–confidence relationships to signal the presence of alternative conceptions and inadequate problem‐solving skills in mechanics. A group of 33 students entering physics at a South African university participated in the project. The test instrument consisted of 20 items derived from existing standardised tests from literature, each of which was followed by a self‐reported measure of confidence of students in the correctness of their answers. Data collected for this study included students’ responses to multiple‐choice questions and open‐ended explanations for their chosen answers. Fixed response physics and confidence data were logarithmically transformed according to the Rasch model to linear measures of performance and confidence. The free response explanations were carefully analysed for accuracy of conceptual understanding. Comparison of these results with raw score data and transformed measures of performance and confidence allowed a re‐evaluation of the model developed by Hasan, Bagayoko, and Kelley in 1999 for the detection of alternative conceptions in mechanics. Application of this model to raw score data leads to inaccurate conclusions. However, application of the Hasan hypothesis to transformed measures of performance and confidence resulted in the accurate identification of items plagued by alternative conceptions. This approach also holds promise for the differentiation between over‐confidence due to alternative conceptions or due to inadequate problem‐solving skills. It could become a valuable tool for instructional design in mechanics.