Elementary Candidates' Development of Teaching Knowledge and Self-Efficacy Across Reading/Language Arts and Mathematics

• In Event: Preservice Courses, Student Teaching Experiences, and Beginning Teacher Outcomes

Abstract

Objective. Subject matter is a potentially important and understudied source of variation in beginning elementary teacher development. Novice elementary teachers rarely employ the same instructional techniques and activity structures across the curriculum. Graeber, Newton, and Chambliss (2012) and Cohen, Ruzek, and Sandilos (2018) found little consistency in elementary teachers’ instructional practices in English/language arts (E/LA) and mathematics.
Because elementary teachers often teach differently across school subjects, it is important to examine how features of teacher preparation influence their development. This study examined how candidates’ experiences in pre-service courses and student teaching were associated with changes in their teaching knowledge and self-efficacy in both ELA and mathematics over a three-year period.
Perspective. We ground this study in activity theory, which posits that beginning teachers’ development of teaching knowledge and self-efficacy across content areas is a function of their own characteristics, the settings in which they learn to teach, and the conceptual and practical tools to which they are exposed in coursework and fieldwork (Grossman et al., 2000; Leko & Brownell, 2010). We focused on how these outcomes were shaped by novice teachers’ experiences in pre-service courses and student teaching, the definitions of effective teaching emphasized in these settings, and their opportunities to learn (OTL) to work with textbooks, math manipulatives, and other practical tools,
Data Sources and Methods. In 2015-16 and 2016-17, we collected survey data from 394 final-year elementary candidates at five universities in three states. Of these, 175 began working as full-time teachers in grades K-5 soon after graduation and completed surveys for our study as first- and second-year teachers. Each study participant completed a survey that included items on teaching self-efficacy in ELA and mathematics at three time points (final year of teacher preparation, first and second years of teaching) and surveys of their mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and their reading knowledge for teaching (RKT) at two time points (final year of preparation and second year of teaching).
We used multiple regression to study the main outcomes as a function of several independent variables (including individual teacher characteristics and OTL in courses and student teaching) and interactions among these variables. Our primary outcomes were participants’ teaching knowledge and self-efficacy in both subjects.
Findings. Our findings indicate that OTL in content courses most strongly predicted the development of MKT while OTL in methods courses was strongly associated with changes in RKT. In addition, OTL in student teaching strongly predicted beginning teachers’ self-efficacy in both ELA and mathematics.
Significance. Given that elementary teachers are usually prepared as generalists and teach multiple subjects, it is important to investigate how elementary preparation supports their development of teaching knowledge and self-efficacy across the school curriculum. Elementary teachers are equipped with differential resources for teaching ELA and mathematics (Mewborn, 2001; National Research Council, 1998; Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2002), and our findings suggest that preparation programs need to provide OTL across different contexts (i.e., content courses, methods courses, and fieldwork) to support self-efficacy and robust content knowledge across the elementary school curriculum.

Authors

• Julie Jackson Cohen, University of Virginia

• Peter A. Youngs, University of Virginia

• Hong Qian, National Council of State Boards of Nursing

• Dorothea M. Anagnostopoulos, The University of Connecticut

• Corey Drake, Michigan State University