Saudi science teachers’ perceptions of the cultural factors influencing elementary students’ science learning

Cultural Studies of Science Education - This mixed-methods research study explored Saudi Arabian elementary science teachers’ perceptions about and conceptualizations of cultural factors...     

Exploring the characteristics of ‘teachers for excellence’: teachers’ own perceptions

This article is concerned first with identifying teacher characteristics connected with excellence. It then analyses the results of a survey conducted among primary school teachers in one local authority area in Scotland. Teachers responded to a questionnaire which asked them to rate in importance 44 characteristics of excellence. The findings suggest that teachers have a clear view of excellence. They consistently described excellence in terms of personal qualities and interpersonal skills. Teachers gave high ratings to qualities which demonstrated their expectations of positive classroom ethos and positive relationships with students. Practitioners consistently rated characteristics related to classroom ‘relationships in action’ as essential characteristics for excellent teachers. These findings suggest a new emphasis on interpersonal skills in continuing professional development for teachers who are increasingly expected to develop students’ dispositions relating to openness to new thinking; self‐respect and a commitment to responsible participation in social, cultural, economic and political life.     

Correction to: Saudi science teachers’ perceptions of the cultural factors influencing elementary students’ science learning

Cultural Studies of Science Education - In the Original Publication of the article, second author’s name was misspelt.     

An exploration of EFL teachers’ attributions

The present study investigated English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ attributions of success and failure. It also set out to investigate whether these attributions vary by teachers’ age, teaching experience, gender and educational level. To do so, 200 EFL teachers were selected according to convenience sampling among EFL teachers teaching English in Language Institutes in Mashhad and Tehran, two cities in Iran. The participants completed the language teacher attribution scale measuring four attributions: teaching competency (TC), teacher effort (TE), student effort (SE) and institution supervision (IS). The present study yielded mixed results regarding English language teachers’ attributions of success and failure events. It was also found that these attributions vary by their age, teaching experience and educational level, but not by gender. The discussion and implications of the research are further presented with reference to the earlier findings.     

A model of professional development: teachers’ perceptions of their professional development

This research aims to evaluate the manner in which teachers perceive their professional development process. Forty-three teachers from Israeli schools participated in the study. I used a semi-structured interview to understand the teachers’ perceptions about their professional development. The qualitative analysis identified two dimensions that teachers referred to in their professional development stories: the professional development motivation (intrinsic/extrinsic) and types of aspirations (lateral/vertical). Using these dimensions, four ‘professional development patterns’ emerged. Participants’ professional trajectories are described in terms of these patterns: Hierarchically Ambitious, Hierarchically Compelled, the Laterally Ambitious and the Laterally Compelled. This categorisation could serve as an essential tool to help principals and decision-makers analyse teachers’ personal course of professional development. Hence, the categorisation of the teaching staff according to individuals’ professional aspirations could be utilised to design professional development programmes and incentives that would correspond to teachers’ particular needs.     

Teachers’ perceptions of the curricula of the Soviet and post-Soviet eras: A case study of Estonian pre-school teachers

Broadening the role of teachers in curriculum development was among the fundamental objectives of educational reforms in the formerly communist Eastern Europe in the 1990s. The research done so far, however, calls into question the degree to which teachers perceive the relevant changes in curriculum and their new role. This article first describes the context of curricular changes in Eastern Europe and Estonia after the fall of communism. It then analyses Estonian pre-school teachers’ perceptions of national pre-school curricula utilized in two different eras: the late Soviet period and the period from 1999 to date in a sovereign Estonia. Data were gathered via semi-structured interviews. Thirty-one experienced teachers participated in the study. It was concluded that teachers generally apprehend the broadened meaning of the concept of curriculum and their augmented role as reflective curriculum makers and theorists. However, differences emerge between teachers’ perceptions of their new role and their readiness to adopt it. Regarding the reported generality and indefiniteness of the new national curriculum, teachers need more assistance for implementing the autonomy and self-responsibility imposed on them by the curriculum. A balance between self-responsibility and professional advice should be sought by both curriculum makers and teacher educators.     

Work-integrated learning skills: A comparison of teachers’ perceptions about the PGCE with those of student teachers in the Nelson Mandela Metropole

Abstract

The purpose of the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) is to accredit a generalist educator's qualification that caps an undergraduate qualification. As an access requirement, student teachers are required to have appropriate prior learning which leads to general foundational and reflexive competencies. The PGCE qualification focuses mainly on developing practical competencies reflexively grounded in educational theory. Hence, the objective of this study was to investigate the perceptions of student teachers with those of their school mentors about the PGCE as a qualification to develop the students’ work-integrated learning (WIL) skills. The quantitative research method was used in this study. The target population comprised of student teachers who qualified with the PGCE at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and their school-based mentors in the Nelson Mandela Metropole (NMM). Data was obtained by means of two structured questionnaires: one for the student teachers and the other for the mentors. The research design compared the perceptions of student teachers and their mentors regarding the classroom practice and performance of these students. The findings of this study based on these perceptions support the hypothesis that the PGCE at the NMMU contributes to the development of the WIL skills of student teachers in the NMM.     

College students’ perception of e-feedback: a grounded theory perspective

The increasing prominence of technology has given rise to new ways for writing teachers to give feedback electronically. Specifically, this article focuses on electronic written feedback (e-feedback) given to a group of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) community college students. Although previous studies have investigated the effectiveness of different computer-mediated feedback practices (e.g. video feedback, audio feedback, multimodal feedback), there is a dearth of research which examines the effectiveness of e-feedback and lower-ability students’ perception of e-feedback in ESL post-compulsory writing classrooms which adopt a process writing approach. The present study, which aims to shed light on this research gap and inform ESL writing teachers’ feedback practices, investigates how feedback is given and attended to online by 93 students of an international community college in Hong Kong. Adopting grounded theory as the methodology and a tripartite definition of written feedback as the conceptual framework, the present study reports students’ perception of e-feedback on Google Docs from two sources: students’ written reflections and semi-structured, focus group interviews. Implications related to e-feedback practices are discussed.     

As pliant as the bamboo: A grounded theory study of incarcerated Filipino elderly people’s sense of resiliency

The impact of prison upon incarcerated individuals is considerably destructive and may lead to low mental health resiliency. Despite a large body of literature on resiliency, little is known about the process that the elderly go through in developing resiliency in the penal setting—hence, this grounded theory investigation. The overall intent of this investigation is to describe the process by which older male adults develop resiliency while in prison. The study used a grounded theory design. To gather the needed data, a two-part research instrument that included a robotfoto and a semistructured interview was employed. A total of 25 incarcerated Filipino elderly in New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City, Philippines were purposively selected. Field text was subjected to thematic analysis following Corbin and Strauss coding procedure. Interestingly, this study yielded the Maze Theory of Resiliency, which describes the Filipino elderly’s road to achieving resiliency. Initially, they go through the sending up phase in which they feel condemnation and uncertainty. The sending off phase captures the moments in which prisoners show signs of optimism and readiness to experience life in their new environment. Lastly, the sending in phase, prisoners became accustomed to the dynamics of penal environment—thus, achieving their sense of resiliency. The emerged theory from this study could help nurses in the early recognition of psychological deterioration and in providing counseling services to the incarcerated elderly without any prejudice. And at the same time, the theory could help implement nursing interventions appropriate for each stage of resiliency.     

A self-determination theory into the psychological needs of CALL: Probing EFL teachers’ autobiographical narratives

Education and Information Technologies - Addressing psychological needs in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has a critical role in developing learners’ motivation to use...     

Examining social studies teachers’ resistances towards teaching Aboriginal perspectives: the case of Alberta

From 2005–2010 the province of Alberta introduced a social studies program of study mandating that all K–12 teachers use the lens of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit perspectives to help students understand the past as well as key concepts and contemporary issues. This paper offers a systematic examination of a range of data sources, including government reports, surveys, and peer-reviewed journal articles, which have documented teachers’ responses to this curricular mandate. Our analysis revealed a typology of resistances towards this curricular directive that have remained constant over a nearly twenty-year period. Guided by insights from sociocultural theory and the work of Indigenous scholars (e.g.; Marker, 2011), we trace the origins and limitations of these resistances.     

Secondary mathematics cooperating teachers’ perceptions of the purpose of student teaching

This article reports on the results of a survey of 45 secondary mathematics cooperating teachers’ perceptions of the primary purposes of student teaching and their roles in accomplishing those purposes. The most common purposes were interacting with an experienced, practising teacher, having a real classroom experience, and experiencing and learning about classroom management. The most common roles were providing the space for experience, modeling, facilitating reflection, and sharing knowledge. The findings provided insights into the cooperating teachers’ perceptions about both what should be learned through student teaching and how it should be learned. These findings paint a picture of cooperating teachers who do not see themselves as teacher educators—teachers of student teachers. Implications for mathematics teacher educators are discussed.     

Patterns of teachers’ whole-class perceptions and predictive relationships between teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of individual child competence

The stratification or dispersion of first grade teachers’ perceptions of children’s competence was evaluated as a moderator of the predictive relationship between teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of individual children’s competence. Classroom stratification of teachers’ perceptions about child intelligence and about child social difficulties was measured by the dispersion of teacher’s ratings of individual children in their class (N_classrooms=60; N_children=1240). The stratification of teachers’ perceptions was found to be stable across the year. Greater stratification predicted teachers’ perceptions of less child competence and also predicted less change in teachers’ perceptions of individual children over the school year. There was no evidence that teachers who tended to see more stratification among child intelligence were more accurate in their perceptions. In linking teachers’ perceptions to parents’ perceptions, fathers’ perceptions of children’s social difficulties became more congruent with teachers’ perceptions across first grade if children were in high- but not low-stratified classrooms. Implications of this parent- and domain-specific relationship are discussed.     

Student teachers’ perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading: the implications for teacher education

This article reports on research which identified perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading held by trainee teachers and the impact on my provision as a teacher educator. It found that students’ past and present experiences of learning to read and being a reader influenced their perceptions of what reading is and of what it means to teach reading. As a teacher educator, I am not able to give students long experience of seeing children becoming readers, but I am able to give them richer experiences of reading in personally and culturally relevant contexts. This has implications for the nature of subject knowledge required by a student teacher of reading and the curriculum and practice of teacher education.     

Secondary teachers’ knowledge of elementary number theory proofs: the case of general-cover proofs

In light of recent reform recommendations, teachers are expected to turn proofs and proving into an ongoing component of their classroom practice. Two questions emerging from this requirement are: Is the mathematical knowledge of high school teachers sufficient to prove various kinds of statements? Does teachers’ knowledge allow them to determine the validity of an argument made by their students? The results of this study, in which 50 secondary school teachers participated, point to a positive answer to the first question in the framework of elementary number theory (ENT). However, the picture is more complex with respect to the second one. Results indicated that some teachers may over-value the generality of symbolic mode of representation and under-value the generality of verbal ones. Possibly, the verbal representation of an argument is less transparent and more difficult to understand.     

Public perceptions of teachers’ status in Flanders

Schools have increasingly been targeted as appropriate sites for mental health promotion and teachers are considered well placed to identify issues concerning students’ social and emotional well-being. Whilst teachers are now expected to be responsive to a wide range of student needs and circumstances, they receive little in their pre-service and subsequent teacher education to adequately prepare them for such realities. This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated teacher perspectives on student mental health and mental health education, including their sense of self-efficacy in relation to promoting and supporting children’s mental well-being in schools. These findings highlight a complex interplay between teachers’ constructions of ‘mental health’, the importance they place on mental health promotion in schools, issues of teacher confidence, role identity conflict and school culture, as well as teachers’ own sense of mental well-being. The discussion signals a need to pay close attention to the assumptions, values, beliefs and attitudes of teachers in relation to children’s mental health since these are integral to their confidence and skill in supporting children’s social and emotional well-being.