Relationship Between Novice Teachers’ Beliefs and Their Ways of Teaching

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Locating the Self in Identity as Teacher in Career Choice

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to 1) investigate the influence of an undergraduate teacher preparation program in mathematics and science on teacher candidates’ development of epistemological beliefs and 2) assess the relationship between novice teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics and science and the types of instruction they tend to adopt in the classroom. Data on candidates’ beliefs and their teaching were collected through their responses to the questionnaires and observations by the experienced math and science teachers. Results indicate that candidates became more matured in their epistemological beliefs over a period of one year, although such beliefs predicted their adoption of instructional strategies that required knowledge reception and skill building, but not knowledge representation and knowledge construction.

Authors

• Gaoyin Qian, Lehman College - CUNY

• Liqing Tao, College of Staten Island - CUNY

• Serigne Mbaye Gningue, Lehman College - CUNY