Abstract The study aims to develop the Teacher Belief Scale. The subjects were 533 junior high school teachers in Kaohsiung, receiving the Teacher Belief Scale from March to June in 2009. There were four subscales in the scale, including the Teacher Role Identification Subscale, the Creative Teaching Behavior Subscale, the Student-centered Education Subscale, and the Multiple Learning Subscale. The results showed (1) Cronbach¡¦s £\ for the subscales ranged from .629 to .790, with an overall Cronbach¡¦s £\ of .810; (2) the male teachers got higher scores than the females in the Creative Teaching Behavior Subscale; (3) teachers who graduated from general universities got higher scores than those from normal universities in the Creative Teaching Behavior Subscale; (4) teachers with administrative position got higher scores than homeroom teachers and teachers with other service in overall Teacher Belief Scale; (5) teachers with administrative position got higher scores than homeroom teachers and teachers with other service in the Teacher Role Identification Subscale; (6) in the Creative Teaching Behavior subscale, teachers with administrative position got higher scores than homeroom teachers and full-time teachers; (7) in teaching experience, analyzed through Scheffe post-hoc comparison, only scores of teachers with 1-4 year experience were significantly higher than those of teachers with 5-9 year experience in the Student-centered Education Subscale; (8) there were no significant difference in teachers¡¦ teaching subjects analyzed through Scheffe post-hoc comparison.

This thesis presents an investigation into the beliefs held by practising teachers of L1 (first language) English in English secondary schools about the value of teaching grammar. Through case studies, it also relates beliefs to pedagogical practice. The study was conducted in two phases. The participants in the first phase were thirty-one teachers, all of whom were taking part in the ESRC-funded Grammar for Writing? project (grant number RES-062-23-0775). Participants taught three writing schemes to their year eight class over the course of a year, and were observed and interviewed once during each scheme. The interviews elicited their beliefs about the teaching of writing in general and about teaching sentence level grammar in particular. The interview data were inductively analysed to explore the participants’ espoused beliefs. The case-study participants in the second phase were three volunteers from the original cohort. These teachers were each observed for a period of three weeks, teaching their own writing schemes to key stage three classes. Stimulated recall interviews were used to capture their reflections on their teaching practices, and think-aloud protocols were used to capture their thinking as they assessed writing samples. Phase one and two data were analysed to explore some of the different ways in which teachers practise grammar teaching, along with the matches, mismatches and tensions between their practice and their espoused beliefs. The findings are presented using a model which explores teachers’ conceptual, affective and evaluative beliefs about grammar, along with episodic influences. The study is significant in offering an up-to-date picture of teachers’ beliefs and practice in this highly-contested aspect of English, as well as in offering insights into the relationships between conceptual, affective and evaluative aspects of belief, and into some of the causes reported by teachers for mismatches and tensions between beliefs and practices.

The Relationships between Belief Change and its Influential Factors for Student Teachers in Junior High Schools Yuan-yu Chu Abstract The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between belief change and its influential factors for student teachers in junior high schools. The participants included 163 student teachers and 163 corresponding mentors in public junior high schools of South Taiwan. The employed instruments were Teacher Belief Appraisal, Professional Growth Scale for Junior High School Teachers, Intrapersonal Intelligence Appraisal, and The Questionnaire of Perceiving Teaching Environment. The employed analysis methods were descriptive statistics, Hotelling¡¦s T2, multivariate analysis of variance, repeat measure analysis, discriminant analysis, multivariate analysis of covariance, and multiple stepwise regression. The findings of this study revealed that (a) the student teachers¡¦ beliefs were toward open orientation on the whole, but their degree of openness varied in the four aspects of teacher beliefs; (b) gender did not have significant effects on the student teachers¡¦ beliefs at the beginning of their practice teaching; (c) teacher preparation systems, teaching areas, size of schools had significant effects on the student teachers¡¦ beliefs at the beginning of their practice teaching; (d) overall speaking, the student teachers¡¦ beliefs were quite stable through their practice teaching period; (e) the mentors¡¦ beliefs had positive effects on their student teachers¡¦ belief change; (f) the student teachers¡¦ professional growth motivation and teaching environment had positive effects on their beliefs at the beginning of practice teaching; (g) the student teachers¡¦ professional growth motivation and their mentors¡¦ beliefs had positive effects on their beliefs at the end of practice teaching. Finally, some suggestions were proposed for teacher preparation institutions, schools of practice teaching, student teachers, and future studies.

The purposes of this study were (a) to examine early elementary grade teachers' developmentally appropriate beliefs and their teaching practices in public schools in Bangkok, (b) to explore the functioning of developmentally appropriate practice in the two chosen early elementary schools, and (c) to determine the factors that influence the teachers' implementation of developmentally appropriate practice in the selected early elementary schools. This study was a mixed-methods investigation, integrating two main phases: Phase One (survey method) and Phase Two (case studies). In the first phase, 335 early elementary grade teachers from 35 public schools in Bangkok were examined for their developmentally appropriate beliefs and teaching practices. Three surveys modified from Buchanan, Burts, Bidner, White, and Charlesworth (1998)--Teacher Demographic Questionnaire, Teacher Belief Scale (TBS), and Instructional Activity Scale (IAS)--were administered to the participating teachers. As the scores of the completed surveys were computed, two schools demonstrating the highest mean on Teacher Belief Scale (TBS) were chosen for the further case studies. In Phase Two, ten early elementary grade teachers from two selected schools were investigated. A case study design was employed to research the participating teachers' implementation of developmentally appropriate practice. Data sources included teacher interviews, classroom observations, and related document analyses. All collected data were coded and categorized in order to analyze the emergent themes and findings. Among the 335 teachers from 35 schools, the findings revealed that there was a significant difference of the teachers' developmentally appropriate beliefs; however, the results of data analyses showed that no significant difference of the teachers' developmentally appropriate teaching practices was found. The findings also suggested that there was a low positive correlation between the teachers' self-reported developmentally appropriate beliefs and teaching practices. The scores of the teachers' developmentally appropriate beliefs and teaching practices are varied across the classroom characteristics (i.e., grade levels taught, class size, and number of children with special needs) and the teacher characteristics (i.e., educational levels, majors/areas of expertise, years of graduation, and years of teaching experience). In the case studies, the observed teaching practices of the teachers from the two selected schools were not consistent with their reported developmentally appropriate beliefs and teaching practices. The teachers reported their partial application of developmentally appropriate practice. The factors that both supported and delayed the implementation included: the class-size of the classroom (number of students), parental involvement, and administrative systems. Also, the supporting factors were teachers' professional attitudes and the fact that teachers taught in self-contained classrooms, whereas the teachers' workload, the children's lack of readiness, and the limited school physical environment were noted as delaying factors. Recommendations for further research and practices are detailed.

In recent years, Video-based Synchronous Computer Mediated Communication (VSCMC) has been applied in EFL education for young Chinese learners. VSCMC teaching, as distinctive from face-to-face teaching, brings numerous planning challenges for teachers using technology. Research has shown that teacher beliefs significantly affect lesson planning for technology integration. However, teacher beliefs towards VSCMC specifically have been insufficiently studied in the field of EFL education for young learners. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore how teacher beliefs influence lesson planning regarding VSCMC teaching. Six participants in the Chinese context were interviewed in the study. The results indicated that teachers had transitional pedagogical beliefs, strong self-efficacy beliefs, and a complex set of value beliefs towards VSCMC teaching. Accordingly, these beliefs motivated them to teach in VSCMC settings in particular ways and influenced their lesson planning processes in terms of determining learning objectives, designing course content, and choosing teaching methods.

Teacher quality has been identified as the most crucial factor in raising student achievement. In order for teachers—and consequently their students—to be successful, teachers must participate in life-long career development. For this reason, a great deal of time and resources are spent on professional development. However, professional development for teachers is not always effective. This study was aimed at identifying those elements that led to success in professional development conducted in one rural Utah school district. The study operated within the theoretical framework of Appreciative Inquiry, which consists of collecting evidence by interviewing successful participants to gather stories that reveal what works best in an organization. For this study, four elementary teachers in the district were identified as having made positive changes in their classrooms as a result of participation in the professional development. These teachers were interviewed and their stories were recorded. Then, their stories were analyzed and the following common themes emerged: validation, modeling with children, "doable" practices, reanimation of previously learned content and desire to learn more. These themes were then categorized into two sections that represent instructional strategies used by the presenter and teacher behaviors that were influenced by the identified instructional strategies. While research has identified many elements of quality professional development programs, these additional elements that emerged deserve further investigation. Results may provide useful information when designing professional development that will encourage teachers to take up promoted practices.

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This study was an investigation of Japanese high school teachers' (N=139) beliefs and practices regarding communicative language teaching (CLT). Four research questions were posited concerning the beliefs that Japanese high school teachers hold regarding CLT, how Japanese high school teachers use CLT in the classroom, how Japanese teachers' beliefs and practices differ between academic and vocational high schools, and how the beliefs of Japanese high school teachers, their classroom practices, their learning experience, pre- and in-service training, perceived teaching efficacy, and contextual factors relate to and influence each other regarding the use of CLT. In order to provide answers to these questions, a survey, classroom observations, and interviews were conducted. Before conducting the quantitative analyses, the questionnaire data were analyzed using the Rasch rating-scale model to confirm the validity and reliability of the questionnaire and to transform the raw scores into equal interval measures. Regarding the first and second research questions, the descriptive statistics showed that despite holding positive beliefs about CLT, the respondents to the survey did not frequently use communicative activities. With respect to the third research question, a MANOVA indicated that the types of schools (academic and vocational) did not significantly influence the survey respondents' beliefs and practices regarding CLT. Concerning the fourth research question, the Pearson correlation coefficients showed relatively strong correlations between (a) Classroom Practices and Student-related Communicative Conditions (r = .56) and (b) L2 Self-confidence and CLT Self-efficacy (r = .55). Also, the best fitting path model indicated that (a) Student-related Communicative Conditions impacted Classroom Practices, (b) Positive CLT Beliefs indirectly influenced Classroom Practices via CLT Self-efficacy, and (c) Exam-related Expectations affected most of the indicator variables and Classroom Practices. Related to this, qualitative results indicated that the respondents' learning experience, in-service training, and contextual factors influenced their beliefs and practices. / CITE/Language Arts

Depuis peu la question de la pédagogie universitaire en général, et du développement professionnel pédagogique (DPP) des universitaires en particulier est une question d’actualité en France. Toutefois ce concept reste polysémique et protéiforme. Qui plus est, d’aucuns attribuent à la France une spécificité à propos de ce DPP.Cette recherche appréhende le concept par le prisme de trois dimensions : les pratiques pédagogiques que déclarent mettre en œuvre les universitaires, leurs conceptions à propos de ce qui constitue un « bon » et un « mauvais » cours et enfin les attentes et besoins qu’ils expriment pour se développer pédagogiquement. Ce travail se réalise via un dispositif méthodologique mixte qui combine démarches qualitative et quantitative, et interroge des enseignants universitaires de disciplines et années d’expériences variées. Tant à propos de leurs pratiques, que de leurs conceptions ou encore de leurs attentes et besoins, les répondants ne forment pas un groupe homogène et leur DPP s’avère pouvoir être abordé sous différents aspects. Nos résultats font le constat que les pratiques d’enseignement et les conceptions sont encore très majoritairement inscrites dans un modèle magistral et transmissif. Mais avec une prise en compte de l’apprenant. Ce qui conduit les enseignants à identifier un besoin de soutien au DPP, mais une difficulté à identifier ce qui pourrait concourir à le satisfaire. Ce DPP apparaît comme un processus solitaire qui s’exerce dans un « isolement pédagogique ».Nous revenons sur la possibilité d’une spécificité française. Laquelle ne peut être démontrée si on analyse uniquement l’axe «enseignants». Ce qui conduit à envisager des perspectives d’analyse situationnelle. / Recently, teaching and learning in higher education, Faculty and educational development (FED) in particular, have become topical issues in France. However, the concepts are polysemic and protean. Moreover, some argue that there is a French specificity about FED. This research approaches the FED concept from three angles: teaching practices, faculty beliefs on what constitutes "good" or "bad" teaching, and their stated expectations and needs for professional development. This work was carried out with a mixed methodology combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, based on a survey of 174 academics of the same university, distributed across disciplines and various lengths of teaching experience. On the three accounts of practices, beliefs or expectations and needs, the population of respondents is heterogeneous and their FED may be approached in different ways. Our results point out that their teaching practices and views still predominately refer to the transmission model of teaching, blended with a consideration for the learner. This leads them to identify a need for support towards FED, but with a difficulty to identify what might contribute to satisfy it. FED appears as a solitary process that takes place in a "pedagogical isolation." When contemplating a possible French specificity, we concluded that it could not be established from the only perspective of academics. This leads to consider the prospects of a contextual analysis.

No description available.