Teacher Beliefs Regarding Students' Culture, Native Language, and Community Life Influencing Instructional Practices

• In Event: Beyond Thematic Coding: Applications of Qualitative Methods to Advance Motivation Studies

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Although prior research has contributed to our understanding about the ways teachers communicate their expectations to students, how students perceive differential teacher behaviors, and their effect on students’ own perceptions of ability and achievement, reliance on quantitative approaches fails to provide an understanding of how teachers’ beliefs about their students relate to their instructional practices and, in turn, how these practices relate to students’ motivation. To demonstrate our use of how qualitative approaches can enhance our understanding of motivation constructs, we describe a study focused on teacher beliefs about how students’ culture, native language, and family/community life relate to their academic achievement.
STUDY PURPOSES
We applied a mixed methods approach in examining the processes by which teacher beliefs about their students influence their instructional practices. Although we are able to infer a great deal about the connections between teachers beliefs and practices from the quantitative data we collected, these data only provide a general picture of these connections in the aggregate. During semi-structured interviews, teachers had the opportunity to elaborate on and contextualize their responses to survey measures of their instructional practices and their students’ achievement data. We utilized teachers’ own telling of their beliefs and rationale to validate quantitative findings and further explore the complexities of the connections between teacher beliefs, their instructional practices, and student achievement motivation.
SAMPLE & PROCEDURES
The sample used for these analyses included ten teachers purposefully selected from the larger study sample (N = 48 teachers). Teachers were selected based on their responses to a measure of their critical awareness (aka critical consciousness, or teachers’ knowledge related to issues of educational equity). Four of the ten teachers in this sample reported high critical awareness and the remaining six reported low critical awareness. Highs/lows were selected in an attempt to capture the potential spectrum of teacher beliefs and related practices.
Each teacher participated in one semi-structured interview. These interviews focused on teacher beliefs related to: (1) which students they believe can be successful and what their specific role is in supporting student success; (2) incorporating Latinx students’ native language, cultural practices, and family/community in their instruction; and (3) the role of assessment (classroom and statewide) in achieving high quality instruction and educational equity.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
A grounded theory approach was used to develop a process theory that attempts to explain the ways in which teacher beliefs inform their practices and, in turn, the ways these practices impact student achievement motivation. Our findings highlight a specific strength of qualitative and mixed methodologies. Though teachers may report incorporating students’ cultural lives into their instructional practices, their rationale for doing so and the ways in which they enact this may not be consistent with the intent of the literature or best practice. Further, the resulting influence on student learning and motivation may be counterproductive to the intent of the literature. Understanding the process by which these factors influence one another provide potential points of intervention in supporting teachers successful implementation of culturally relevant pedagogies.

Authors

• Ruby Inez Vega, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

• Francesca López, University of Arizona