Diversity is now an essential matter in US public schools. For the first time in America's history, students of color will constitute a majority of the public school enrollment; on the other hand, most early childhood and elementary teachers remain monolingual, white, middle-class females (Hussar & Bailey, 2019). The demographic mismatch between students and teachers presents a critical concern for teacher preparation programs (Banks et al., 2005; Gay, 2018; Muñiz, 2019). Therefore, this study proposed that understanding the relationship between pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs and their culturally responsive classroom management self-efficacy illustrated factors that may improve their teaching concept toward diversity. The study also evaluated whether early childhood (PreK-3) pre-service teachers held different personal epistemologies of teaching and culturally responsive classroom management self-efficacy beliefs than elementary (K-5) pre-service teachers. Lastly, the study explored factors that may contribute to pre-service teachers' personal epistemological beliefs of teaching and their self-efficacious beliefs about culturally responsive classroom management. The study used the explanatory sequential mixed-methods design that contained two phases. In Phase I, 111 pre-service teachers completed two surveys: the teachers' Personal Epistemologies of Teaching Scale (PT-PETS) and the Culturally Responsive Classroom Management Self-Efficacy scale (CRCMSE). In Phase II, six pre-service teachers participated in semi-structured interviews. The results indicated no significant linear correlation between pre-service teachers' sophisticated personal epistemological beliefs and their confidence in employing culturally responsive classroom management. In addition, the integration of the quantitative and the qualitative data demonstrated that pre-service teachers held sophisticated personal epistemological beliefs of teaching. They also showed different confidence levels about applying culturally responsive classroom management. A two-way ANOVA revealed that only semester level significantly affected the PT-PETS scores, where pre-service teachers in the seventh semester performed better than those in the fifth semester. The current study illustrated various positive and negative factors that may influence pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs of teaching and their self-efficacious beliefs in culturally responsive classroom management, which may provide insight for teacher preparation programs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-5600 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| Creators | Ahmed, Tahani |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright by the authors. |
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