Personal Epistemologies and Learning to Teach

Bondy, Elizabeth; Ross, Dorene D.; Adams, Alyson; Nowak, Rhonda; Brownell, Mary T.; Hoppey, David; Kuhel, Karen; McCallum, Cynthia; Stafford, Lynne

doi:10.1177/088840640703000202

Cited by 20 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The marked change in the participants' willingness to augment school practices as an NQT might suggest that the students had previously felt inhibited to change practice in schools. It also may indicate that the participants were still influenced by the beliefs about teaching reading they held on entry to the course and that, in common with previous research, these remained a persistent influence even after school experiences during ITE (Bondy et al, ; Mutton et al, ; Twiselton, ). However, it was clear that although The NQTs took the opportunity to augment practice they did not verbally challenge the prevailing reading pedagogy even when they found it lacking.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Becoming a teacher of early reading: charting the knowledge and practices of pre‐service and newly qualified teachers

Hendry

2019

Literacy

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Education policy in England requires student teachers to demonstrate effective teaching of early reading, including systematic synthetic phonics, in order to qualify to teach. Although there is a range of literature about initial teacher education, little is documented about how pre-service or 'student' teachers develop specific knowledge and practices for teaching early reading and how they apply these in their first term as newly qualified teachers (NQTs). This research used a primarily qualitative longitudinal, collective case study design involving seven lower primary (3-7 years) postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) students enrolled at one university in the East Midlands of England. Semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and documentary analysis with the students and their teacher mentors were used to gather data from entry onto the course to the participants' first term as qualified teachers. A thematic analysis was applied in conjunction with deductive observation codes developed from a previous study. Findings indicate a broad continuum of progression in student and newly qualified teacher knowledge and practice for teaching early reading which could be used to inform university organisation, mentoring and school participation. They highlight the influence of school cultures on the experiences of student and pre-service teachers.

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Section: Findings and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 58%

Becoming a teacher of early reading: charting the knowledge and practices of pre‐service and newly qualified teachers

Hendry

2019

Literacy

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“…Students’ beliefs of what ought to be learnt: Many pre-service teacher entrants expect to be provided with precise knowledge about what is working best in classroom instruction [ 20 ]. For example, they wish to acquire specific teaching tools and strategies that can be directly put into practice without adjustment or modification [ 38 , 39 ]. Correspondingly, Sjølie found pre-service teachers to prefer topics that are highly connected to instructional practices as opposed to the more general topics (e.g., school history) [ 37 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-service teachers’ perceived value of general pedagogical knowledge for practice: Relations with epistemic beliefs and source beliefs

et al. 2017

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Pre-service teachers tend to devalue general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) as a valid source for deriving successful teaching practices. The present study investigated beliefs about knowledge sources and epistemic beliefs as predictors for students’ perceived value of GPK. Three pre-registered hypotheses were tested. We expected beliefs that GPK originates from scientific sources to entail a devaluation of GPK (Hypothesis 1). Concerning epistemic beliefs, we expected absolute beliefs to positively, and multiplistic beliefs to negatively predict pre-service teachers’ perceived practical value of GPK (Hypothesis 2). Finally, we expected relationships between epistemic beliefs and pre-service teachers’ perceived practical value of GPK to be confounded by epistemic trustworthiness, perceived topic-specific consistency and topic-specific familiarity (Hypothesis 3). In a study using a split plot design, 365 pre-service teachers were presented with four texts on different educational research topics. For each topic, three text versions were constructed. Even though they were invariant in content, these versions varied in a way that the results were allegedly generated by a practitioner, an expert or by means of a scientific study. Unexpectedly, results showed that research findings allegedly generated by means of a scientific study were associated with a higher perceived value of (topic-specific) GPK for practice (Hypothesis 1). As expected, the perceived value of GPK for practice was predicted by topic-specific multiplism and domain-specific absolutism (Hypothesis 2). These predictive effects were confounded by expertise evaluations of the source and the consistency of prior beliefs with the presented research results (Hypothesis 3). In summary, our results suggest that source beliefs might not be responsible for the devaluation of GPK, but that beliefs on the nature and structure of GPK (i.e., epistemic beliefs) might play an even more important role in this respect. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

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“…Most teachers are equipped with a plethora of prior knowledge about teaching and learning, and are less likely to accept theories that do not match their prior knowledge [27,28]. Furthermore, teachers are mostly interested in learning explicit teaching strategies that can be directly put into practice [27,29,30], and they tend to value and appreciate the testimonies and suggestions of their fellow teachers more than recommendations from theorists, researchers, or even teacher educators [27][28][29]31]. This is compounded by the fact that the many demands placed on teachers limit their free time, making it less likely that it will be spent identifying the theoretical basis of instructional practices.…”

Section: Attitudes Towards Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is compounded by the fact that the many demands placed on teachers limit their free time, making it less likely that it will be spent identifying the theoretical basis of instructional practices. Similarly, some educators believe that those who are distanced from the daily reality of teaching, such as researchers, are not in a position to offer educational insights, and thus receive research with skepticism [27][28][29]31]. In this content analysis study, we seek to determine the salient theories that underlie vocabulary instructional practices and strategies recommended in two practitioner-oriented journals.…”

Section: Attitudes Towards Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vocabulary Instruction: A Critical Analysis of Theories, Research, and Practice

Moody

Kuo

et al. 2018

Education Sciences

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Much is known about the impact of vocabulary instruction on reading skills, word knowledge, and reading comprehension. However, knowledge of the underlying theories that guide vocabulary instruction and their potential impact on teachers’ performance and/or students’ achievement has not been investigated. In this content analysis, articles published in The Reading Teacher and Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy between 2007 and 2017 were dissected to identify and code embedded word-learning strategies, grade levels addressed, target student populations, and desired outcomes (receptive or productive vocabulary). Our primary goal was to examine the embedded word-learning strategies within the articles, and to identify the theories on which they were built. Findings showed that a combination of theories guided most strategy recommendations: Social constructivism and sociocultural theories, schema and psycholinguistic theories, motivation theory, and dual coding theory. We also parallel-coded our findings with a recent review of literature on vocabulary instruction by Wright and Cervetti (2017), and found that they corresponded with the original coding. Follow-up quantitative studies can use the salient theories detected in this content analysis to investigate whether knowledge of underlying theories has an impact on teachers’ performance and student vocabulary and reading comprehension achievement.

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Personal Epistemologies and Learning to Teach

Cited by 20 publications

References 15 publications

Becoming a teacher of early reading: charting the knowledge and practices of pre‐service and newly qualified teachers

Becoming a teacher of early reading: charting the knowledge and practices of pre‐service and newly qualified teachers

Pre-service teachers’ perceived value of general pedagogical knowledge for practice: Relations with epistemic beliefs and source beliefs

Vocabulary Instruction: A Critical Analysis of Theories, Research, and Practice

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