Elementary teachers’ beliefs about multicultural education practices

As the diversity of American schools is increasing, teachers should understand the role culture plays in the classroom and employ teaching practices that accommodate students from diverse cultural backgrounds. However, while more is known about pre-service teachers’ beliefs about multicultural education, less is known about what practices in-service teachers endorse and what factors influence those beliefs about practices. Specifically, the aims of the study were to determine (a) how teachers define culture, (b) what multicultural practices they endorse, and (c) what school-level factors (i.e. racial/ethnic demographics of the school) and teacher-level factors (i.e. multicultural professional development/coursework, grade level taught, comfort level facilitating multicultural discussions, and definitions of culture) are associated with teachers’ endorsement of multicultural practices. A sample of 45 elementary teachers (grades kindergarten to fifth) in three elementary schools completed a custom-developed survey. Findings indicated that teachers defined culture broadly with infrequent mention of specific identities and did not show strong endorsement of recommended multicultural practices. Teachers’ definitions of culture and their school of employment were associated with teachers’ beliefs about practices. Directions for future and implications for targeted professional development will be discussed.     

The discrepancy between teachers’ beliefs and practices: a study of kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong

This study examines the discrepancy between teachers’ beliefs and practices in Hong Kong kindergartens and the factors that influence this discrepancy. Three kindergartens, considered by the Hong Kong Education Bureau to be of varying quality, were chosen from different areas of Hong Kong. Questionnaires about teaching beliefs were administered to 35 teachers from these kindergartens. These quantitative data were supplemented with qualitative data gathered during individual interviews with five of the teachers and the three principals. In addition, a focus group of five early childhood education specialists commented on the videotaped observations of the classroom practices of the five interviewed teachers. The findings showed that all of the teachers endorsed the advocated teaching beliefs, but there was a discrepancy between their beliefs and practices. The most significant factors contributing to the discrepancy were teachers’ professional education and their attitudes towards personal teaching introspection. Teachers were also under pressure from parents’ curriculum requests, demands on the children’s academic abilities and expectations for a strong link to Primary One. Enhanced early childhood education training that helps teachers to be introspective about their own teaching practices and beliefs is recommended. Government support is also required to teach parents what constitutes a high-quality learning environment for young children.     

Early years teachers’ epistemic beliefs and beliefs about children’s moral learning

There is strong political and social interest in values education both internationally and across Australia. Investment in young children is recognised as important for the development of moral values for a cohesive society; however, little is known about early years teachers’ beliefs about moral values teaching and learning. The aim of the current study was to investigate the relationships between Australian early years teachers’ epistemic beliefs and their beliefs about children’s moral learning. Three hundred and seventy-nine teachers completed a survey about their personal epistemic beliefs and their beliefs about children’s moral learning. Results indicated that teachers with more sophisticated epistemic beliefs viewed children as capable of taking responsibility for their own moral learning. Conversely, teachers who held more naïve or simplistic personal epistemic beliefs agreed that children need to learn morals through learning the rules for behaviour. Results are discussed in terms of the implications for moral pedagogy in the classroom and teacher professional development. It is suggested that in conjunction with explicitly reflecting on epistemic beliefs, professional development may need to assist teachers to ascertain how their beliefs might relate to their moral pedagogies in order to make any adjustments.     

Socio-cultural factors of teachers’ conceptions of knowledge: epistemic beliefs of Arab teachers

This research investigates aspects of epistemic beliefs of pre-service and in-service teachers in the United Arab Emirates, and how these beliefs might be related to factors such as teachers’ gender, location (where they live), and the subject they teach (humanities vs. science). A standardized Arabic version of the Epistemic Belief Inventory was administered to a group of 35 pre-service teachers and 52 in-service teachers. The results indicated that in-service teachers had more sophisticated beliefs than pre-service teachers on Certainty of Knowledge, Omniscient Authority, and Innate Ability dimensions. Also, male teachers were found to be less sophisticated than female teachers and teachers from rural areas tended to think in a simpler way than teachers from urban areas. Although there was no main effect of subject, it significantly modified the effects of gender and location. The data showed the multidimensional nature of epistemic beliefs, and were discussed in the context of Arab/Emirati culture.     

Chinese university EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices of classroom writing assessment

This study investigates the extent to which university teachers’ beliefs about classroom writing assessment are congruent with their self-perceived practices in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) contexts, and what factors contribute to belief-practice inconsistencies. Drawing on data from a survey of 136 Chinese university EFL writing teachers and ten teacher interviews, results showed a degree of belief-practice alignment regarding assessment for learning (AfL) practices that make learning explicit, but belief-practice discrepancies were more salient. AfL practices that empower students to take responsibility in writing assessment were perceived to be more important than assessment of learning practices; however, the reverse was found in teachers’ practice. Impacts of micro-level factors including assessment training, teaching experience, student attributes, meso-level school factors, and macro-level assessment culture are discussed, and implications are drawn.     

The romance and the reality between pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the potential benefits of a short-term study abroad programme and their practices

This qualitative study aimed to explore Hong Kong pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the potential benefits of a short-term study abroad programme and their practices. Pre- and post-programme semi-structured interviews and reflective journals were employed to collect data. The findings suggest that the transformation of beliefs into practices plays a critical role in the actualization of possible learning outcomes, such as increasing the use of the target language, fostering pedagogical development, broadening cultural understanding and nurturing personal growth. The programme per se, however, does not guarantee target language enhancement in a short time. Implications for programme coordinators and future research are discussed.     

Teachers’ practices and beliefs about teaching writing: a comprehensive survey of grades 1 to 3 teachers

Reading and Writing - A random sample of 782 grades 1 through 3 Chinese language arts teachers in Taiwan were surveyed about how they taught writing and their beliefs about writing. The underlying...     

Addressing the discontinuity of students’ and teachers’ diversity: a preliminary study of preservice teachers’ beliefs and perceived skills

The authors of the present investigation provide baseline data regarding preservice teachers’ beliefs about addressing the needs of students whose backgrounds and abilities differ from their own. These data provide the guidance for subsequent in-depth longitudinal investigations about the ways in which preservice teachers’ beliefs inform their classroom behaviors toward the aforementioned students, as well as suggestions for teacher educators about program improvements.     

Measuring student teachers’ practices and beliefs about teaching mathematics using the Rasch model

Several attempts have been made to measure and categorize beliefs and practices of mathematics teachers [Swan, M. 2006. “Designing and Using Research Instruments to Describe the Beliefs and Practices of Mathematics Teachers”. Research in Education 75 (1): 58–70]. One of the reasons for measuring both beliefs and practices is to characterize teachers in terms of the relationship between their beliefs and practices. However, the practice-instruments and the beliefs-instruments discussed in the literature are predominately based on differing constructs. Consequently, it is challenging to compare the relationship between beliefs and practices solely based on these instruments. As such, we argue that practice- and beliefs-instruments based on the same construct would be desirable when both beliefs and practices are at stake. This paper presents two Rasch-calibrated instruments that measure the level of teacher-centredness with respect to student teachers’ practices and beliefs about teaching mathematics. From a sample of 160 student teachers, 15 items have been established as being beneficial for measurement, both when the items are translated as practice items and when translated as beliefs items. By studying the invariance between both translations, we conclude that measures from both instruments can be directly compared.     

Irish student teachers’ beliefs about self,learning and teaching: a longitudinal study

This paper explores the beliefs about self-as-teacher, learning and teaching of preservice elementary teachers during a three-year undergraduate programme. Using a qualitative grounded theory analysis, the study examined the initial beliefs or personal theories of 27 preservice teachers during their first Semester. Longitudinal data were gathered from 7 of these students over the three-year duration of their teacher education programme through iterative interviews and reflective journal analysis. The findings demonstrate expansion in preservice teachers’ understandings of the teacher’s role, the value of reflective practice, the differential needs of learners and approaches to pedagogy. Findings point to lacunae in preservice teachers’ capacity for critical reflective practice and demonstrate how classroom management concerns can cause preservice teachers to adopt more cautious and traditional pedagogical approaches, despite their espoused commitment to child-centred principles.     

Accuracy of students' self‐assessment and their beliefs about its utility

The purpose of the two studies presented here was to evaluate the accuracy of students' self‐assessment ability, to examine whether this ability improves over time and to investigate whether self‐assessment is more accurate if students believe that it contributes to improving learning. To that end, the accuracy of the self‐assessments of 3588 first‐year students enrolled in a post‐secondary institution was studied throughout a semester during which each student made approximately 80 self‐assessments about his or her own learning process. These self‐assessments were then compared with multiple judgements by peers and tutors. The overall correlations between the scores of self‐, peer and tutor assessments suggest weak to moderate accuracy of student self‐assessment ability. The findings also reveal an ability effect; students judged as more academically competent were able to self‐assess with higher accuracy than their less competent peers. Comparing the accuracy of student self‐assessment averaged over four consecutive periods indicates that the accuracy does not improve over time. In a second study, a questionnaire aimed at eliciting student's beliefs about the effects of self‐assessment on their learning was administered to 936 first‐year students. Based on their responses, sub‐groups of students were identified: those who either believed in the usefulness of self‐assessment or did not. Results suggest that there is no significant association between student beliefs about the utility of self‐assessment and the accuracy of their self‐assessments.     

Pre-service teachers’ personal epistemic beliefs and the beliefs they assume their pupils to have

In their workaday life, teachers are faced with multiple complex tasks. How they carry out these tasks is also influenced by their epistemic beliefs and the beliefs they assume their pupils hold. In an empirical study, pre-service teachers’ epistemic beliefs and those they assume of their pupils were investigated in the setting of teacher education for vocational schools in Germany. Results of the empirical study point at significant inconsistencies between pre-service teachers’ beliefs, the beliefs they assume of their pupils and beliefs conducive to the curricular and didactic concept preferred for vocational schools. Partly, these inconsistencies can be explained by pre-service teachers’ learning experiences in school and university. It seems important that the education of teachers in vocational education aims at scaffolding pre-service teachers in developing beliefs that are conducive for their future profession.     

Pre-service teachers’ epistemic perspectives about philosophy in the classroom: it is not a bunch of ‘hippie stuff’

Using epistemic perspectives as a theoretical framework, this study investigated Australian pre-service teachers’ perspectives about knowing, knowledge and children’s learning, as they engaged in a semester-long unit on philosophy in the classroom. During the field experience component of the unit, pre-service teachers were required to teach at least one philosophy lesson. Pre-service teachers completed the Personal Epistemological Beliefs Survey at the beginning and end of the unit. They were also interviewed in focus groups at the end of the semester to investigate their views about children’s learning. Paired sample t-tests were used to explore changes in epistemic beliefs over time. Significant differences were found for only some individual items on the survey. However, when interviewed, pre-service teachers indicated that field experiences helped them consider children as competent ‘thinkers’ who were capable of engaging in philosophy in the classroom. They reported predominantly student-centred perspectives of children’s learning, although a process of adjudication (exploring disagreements and evidence for responses) was lacking in these responses.     

Improving preservice teachers’ scientific argumentative writing through epistemic practices: a learning progression approach

Improving preservice teachers’ argumentative competence is a social and educational imperative. This study focuses on the contribution of a sequence of learning tasks, designed as epistemic practices and following a learning progression approach, to enhancing student teachers’ scientific argumentative writing. The participants were 47 preservice primary teachers who enrolled in a Developmental Psychology course, and one lecturer. Preservice teachers progressively acquired the vast majority of aspects involved in scientific argumentative writing. The most important difficulties experienced by the preservice teachers revolved around intertextuality and the creation of theses. Key conclusions on this teacher education experience are presented in the final section of the paper.     

What does the teacher do?: Constructivist pedagogies and prospective teachers’ beliefs about the role of a teacher

The constructivist pedagogies that are increasingly part of teacher education course work and expectations emerge from an intellectual world where knowledge is seen as created rather than received, mediated by discourse rather than transferred by teacher talk, explored and transformed rather than remembered as a uniform set of positivistic ideas. Increasingly, teacher educators ask new teachers to learn how to elicit and then use students’ existing ideas as a basis for helping them construct new, more reasoned, more accurate or more disciplined understandings. While the role a teacher plays in developing or shaping students’ thinking via constructivist pedagogies is obvious to teacher educators who advocate such strategies, the case of Taylor, a prospective English teacher, suggests that the role a teacher plays when using these strategies may not be at all clear to prospective teachers. Rather than understanding constructivist pedagogies as techniques for thinking with learners, for teaching them, Tayor saw these strategies as ends in themselves. Faced with models of constructivist pedagogies, Taylor concluded that the teacher's role ends when she has activated learners, invited them to talk, successfully engaged their participation. This article describes how she reached this conclusion and explores the ways in which constructivist pedagogies can lead prospective teachers to project a thin vision of their role as a teacher.     

Variation in the development of teachers’ understandings of assessment and their assessment practices in higher education

This paper reports a study into the development of staff understanding of assessment and assessment practice. Eight teachers from two universities constructed an initial concept map about assessment that was discussed in a one-to-one semi-structured interview. A year later, a new map was created and the interview focused on change in thinking and practice. Multiple models of assessment were evident in the participants’ understandings at the same time and change was characterised by subtle evolution in thinking. Development in practice was more significant and often associated with the foregrounding of assessment for learning. Vignettes are used to illustrate the variation in nature and scale of development. Interplay between this development of practice and understanding was multidirectional and external context played an important role. The approach offers detailed insight into the relationship between assessment thinking and practice and demonstrates that both research and academic development need to go beyond conventional approaches to conceptualising the development of academics and take account of the finer grained complexities of assessment thinking and practices.     

The "tipping point" for educational research: The role of pre-service science teachers’ epistemic beliefs in evaluating the professional utility of educational research

Teachers’ engagement with and in educational research has become an aspiration in many countries. However, this has been counterbalanced with decades of research on the perennial theory-practice divide. This study provides new perspectives by considering the role of epistemic beliefs in pre-service science teachers’ (PSSTs’) acceptance or rejection of “Education Studies” from their Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Individual case profiles demonstrate how PSSTs compare knowledge in science with knowledge in education. Certain belief profiles can be seen to present barriers to evaluating education research as valuable. Thus, we argue for epistemic development and support with boundary crossing in ITE.