Lay Theories and Possible Selves: Preservice Teachers' Beliefs About K–12 Teachers and Their Future Practice

• In Event: 67.034 - Teachers' Perspectives, Understandings, and Possible Selves

Abstract

There is a wealth of literature exploring teacher beliefs and their relationships to teacher outcomes. Less research explores the beliefs of pre-service teachers (PSTs) and how those beliefs impact learning and practice. Guided by self-efficacy and possible selves theory, we explored the way PSTs’ beliefs about current K-12 teachers were related to their beliefs about future practice and self-efficacy. Using data taken from 241 PSTs from three universities in the Western United States, we conducted a K-means cluster analysis based on participants’ beliefs about current K-12 teachers and found four distinct groups. An ANOVA and post hoc Bonferroni test showed that the different belief clusters had significantly different beliefs about their future practice and their self-efficacy.

Authors

• Peter Bjorklund, University of California - San Diego

• Patricia Benitez Hemans, University of California - San Diego

• Alan J. Daly, University of California - San Diego