Senior Preservice Teachers’ Self-Efficacy for Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting on Inquiry Instruction

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: Differing Perspectives on and Approaches to Preservice Field Experiences

Abstract

This study re-examined current understandings of how different sources of influences during teacher education and student-teaching informed 145 senior preservice teachers’ self-efficacy for inquiry instruction. Data collected from a survey and focus groups suggested that a high sense of self-efficacy that is not based on sustained mastery and vicarious experiences produces uneven self-competency for planning and enacting inquiry instruction. Furthermore, teaching specific research skills was related to a low sense of self-efficacy, emphasizing the need to provide fully adequate opportunities for preservice teachers to practice inquiry instruction. Teacher-education programs that teach about the inquiry approach implicitly and explicitly contribute to student teachers’ enactment of the different tasks that learners and teachers must perform as part of inquiry-based teaching and learning.

Authors

• Tanya Chichekian, Université de Sherbrooke

• Bruce M. Shore, McGill University