Preservice Teachers' Content Knowledge and Self-Efficacy for Teaching Reading

Abstract

This mixed methods study examined preservice teachers' growth in content knowledge and self-efficacy for teaching reading as they participated in a literacy course/reading clinic practicum with those not enrolled in the experience. Groups were compared on three measures using a pretestposttest design. Additionally, five preservice teachers from the treatment group were interviewed at three points during the semester. Quantitative measures documented that both groups began the semester with moderately high self-efficacy and low content knowledge, but the treatment group ended the semester with more significant gains in knowledge and self-efficacy. Content knowledge and self-efficacy were highly correlated at the end of the semester, indicating that as preservice teachers gained knowledge, they also gained self-efficacy. Qualitative interviews provided insights into the factors that facilitated the growth.

Assessing General Education and Special Education Majors’ Self‐Efficacy for Teaching Reading

“…All potential participants were invited to complete an online survey that included demographic questions and 27 items related to teaching reading. The 0 to 100 percent scale was replicated from the work of Leader‐Janssen and Rankin‐Erickson (). A total of 110 students responded, for a response rate of 53 percent, meeting the 50 percent minimum response rate suggested by Dillman, Smyth, and Christian ().…”

“…The current scale—the Teaching Reading Efficacy Scale (TRES)—was modified and built from the prior work of Leader‐Janssen and Rankin‐Erickson (), and from their Teacher Efficacy for the Teaching of Reading (TESTR) scale. The TESTR scale was developed as the first and only instrument to target preservice teachers’ self‐efficacy toward teaching reading.…”

“…They also reviewed recommendations from groups such as the National Reading Panel () and the International Dyslexia Association (Brady & Moats, ) to construct their scale targeting the following areas: early reading skills, late decoding skills, comprehension, metacognitive processes, assessment, and motivation. Each area was addressed with four to six items, and Cronbach's alpha for the instrument was reported as .98 (Leader‐Janssen & Rankin‐Erickson, ). The researchers indicated that they conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and one factor emerged, a factor that they defined as self‐efficacy.…”

“…Their combined experience includes nearly 40 years in teaching children to read and training teachers to do the same, chairing a reading education department, and directing a reading clinic at the university level. All authors reviewed the measure developed by Leader‐Janssen and Rankin‐Erickson () and made modifications based on prior experience and theory about what constitutes teaching reading. First, prior experience and knowledge of teaching reading suggested that the items needed slight modifications that better reflected the knowledge and skills needed by expert teachers of reading.…”

“…Finally, no model fit indices were reported from the EFA, and no follow‐up confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was undertaken to establish the internal construct validity of the instrument. The work by Leader‐Janssen and Rankin‐Erickson () established an important baseline from which to design a measure to assess efficacy for teaching reading, but further analysis was necessary and undertaken in the current study.…”