A Teacher Strategic Mindset Predicts Efficacious and Effective Teaching

• In Event: Predicting Teacher Learning and Mindsets

Abstract

After repeated difficulty, teachers can lose their efficacy to teach effectively. Our research on 516 (high school and college) teachers defined and tested the role of a new mindset that seems to buffer teachers’ efficacy: Teachers who had a “teacher strategic mindset”—an orientation toward construing teaching challenges as opportunities to step back and consider new, potentially better strategies—tended to feel more efficacious and were more likely to report engaging in effective teaching. Moreover, instilling this mindset through a brief, online, no-cost intervention causally increased teachers’ efficacy and intentions to engage in effective teaching—among teachers who believed that their teaching ability could grow. Equipping teachers with a strategic mindset holds important implications in motivating efficacious and effective teaching.

Authors

• Qiao Kang Teo, National University of Singapore
  Presenting Author

• Jessica C. Ng, Republic Poly
  Presenting Author

• Patricia Chen, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author