Training Preservice Teachers to Improve Their Knowledge, Attitudes, and Self-Efficacy for Working With LGBTQ Students

• In Event: 81.033 - MTCC Roundtable Session 38
  In Roundtable Session: 81.033-12 - Queering Educational Practice: Building Capacity for LGBTQ-Affirming Classrooms

Abstract

Pre-service teachers often lack training in working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students. This study tested whether participating in LGBTQ-focused service-based learning increased pre-service teachers’ knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy for working with LGBTQ students more than those who received didactic LGBTQ training and those in a control group. A nonrandomized pretest-posttest study design with eighty-eight participants tested these differences. At posttest, the service-based learning group had significantly higher active-empathic listening and self-efficacy for working with LGBTQ students than the control group. Overall, LGBTQ-focused service-based learning may better prepare pre-service teachers to work with LGBTQ students.

Authors

• Robert W.S. Coulter, University of Pittsburgh

• Sharon Colvin, University of Pittsburgh

• Thomas Akiva, University of Pittsburgh