Teachers’ literacy-related knowledge and self-perceptions in relation to preparation and experience

Abstract

After rating their own literacy-related knowledge in three areas (knowledge about reading/reading development, phonemic awareness/phonics, and morpheme awareness/structural analysis), graduate teacher-education students completed five tasks intended to measure their actual disciplinary knowledge in these areas. Teachers with high levels of prior background (i.e., course preparation and experience) rated themselves as significantly more knowledgeable than did low-background teachers in all areas; high-background participants also significantly outperformed low-background participants on all tasks. However, even high-background teachers scored well below ceiling on the tasks. Regression analyses indicated that teachers' self-perceptions and knowledge were positively influenced by both level of preparation and teaching experience, although the influences on teachers' knowledge differed by task. Teachers had some accurate perceptions of their own knowledge, especially in the area of phonics. Results suggest that differentiating levels of preparation may be useful in studying teacher knowledge, and also support the notion of a substantial gap between research on reading and teacher preparation in reading.

Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge And Strengthening Phonological Representations Among Efl Teacher Trainees

“…Teacher educators in certain research settings exhibit sometimes-deficient knowledge about linguistic constructs, which is referred to as the 'Peter Effect' in the literature (Malatesha Joshi, Binks, Hougen, Dahlgren, OckerDean, & Smith, 2009;Binks-Cantrell, Washburn, Joshi, & Hougen, 2012). Many teachers in the field and in training are also inadequately prepared and perform below minimum standards (Spear-Swerling, Brucker & Alfano, 2005) revealing a lack of understanding concerning the basic language constructs needed to teach reading (Bos, Mather, Dickson, Podhajski & Chard, 2001;Moats, 1994;. While empirical research to date suggests a general association between teacher knowledge, teacher practice and student reading growth (Moats & Foorman, 2003), only a small number of studies have linked thus far the specific relationship between these constructs (McCutchen, Abbott, Green, Beretva, Cox, Potter, & Gray, 2002;McCutchen, Green, Abbott & Sanders, 2009;Podhajski, Mather, Nathan, & Sammons, 2009) so to characterize, inform and advance teacher education preparedness.…”

Teachers’ subject competence in digital times

“…Davis and Simmt 2006;De Nobile 2007;Spear-Swerling, Brucker and Alfano 2005). The emphasis on the teachers' subject theoretical knowledge, as a prerequisite for the profession, is noticeable when it comes to recruiting students with disciplinary skills to the teaching profession and making those teachers with disciplinary skills stay in the profession.…”

Actual Disciplinary Knowledge, Perceived Disciplinary Knowledge, Teaching Experience and Teacher’s Training for Reading Instruction: A Study with Primary Portuguese and American Teachers // Conhecimento disciplinar efectivo, conhecimento percebido...

“…Nevertheless, in the last ten years, several studies in the area of reading instruction have examined teachers' disciplinary knowledge and teachers' perceived knowledge (e.g., Spear-Swerling, Brucker, & Alfano, 2005;Walsh et al, 2006). Cunningham et al (2004) found that their subjects were able to accurately calibrate their knowledge in the area of children's literature but not in the domains of phoneme awareness and phonics.…”