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

Abstract

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.

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

“…Perhaps because of this, many teachers fail to see the relevance of theories to their classrooms [26]. 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].…”

“…Theories enable teachers to choose, manipulate, and modify their vocabulary instructional practices according to students' need and characteristics of words. Despite this, most teachers are not consciously aware of the theoretical basis of their instructional practices [26].…”

Smart but evil? Student-teachers perception of educational researchers’ epistemic trustworthiness.

“…Upon reading each text, the participants additionally responded to some text-specific questions for purposes of another study (Merk, Rosman, Ruess, Syring, & Schneider, 2017). After having read all four texts, participants responded to an item battery containing the treatment check and the epistemic trustworthiness inventory.…”

“…Epistemic beliefs. We used a domain-specific adaptation of the German FREE questionnaire (FREE; Krettenauer, 2005;Merk, Rosman, et al, 2017), an instrument based on Kuhn and Weinstock's (2002) no one can really know which factors contribute to school achievement"; evaluativism: "Even though the experts disagree, both may present more or less good reasons for their conceptions"). Krettenauer (2005) suggests computing a so-called d-index (d = eval − 0.5*mult − 0.5*abs) for each issue/scenario.…”

“…Both instruments are described in the Methods section for Study 1 and are provided at full length in Appendix 2, where all other instruments can be found as well. Additionally, we will measure topic-specific multiplism by means of the "topicspecific multiplism" scale (four-point Likert scale), which was developed by de-contextualizing the FREE's multiplism items (Merk, Schneider, Syring, & Bohl, 2016) and has demonstrated good psychometric properties in several studies (Merk, Kelava, et al, 2017;Merk, Rosman, et al, 2017) Statistical Analyses Psychometric Properties. The psychometric properties of the only between-person measurement (FREE) will be evaluated just like in Study 1.…”