Attention to the beliefs of teachers and teacher candidates should be a focus of educational research and can inform educational practice in ways that prevailing research agendas have not and cannot. The difficulty in studying teachers’ beliefs has been caused by definitional problems, poor conceptualizations, and differing understandings of beliefs and belief structures. This article examines the meaning prominent researchers give to beliefs and how this meaning differs from that of knowledge, provides a definition of belief consistent with the best work in this area, explores the nature of belief structures as outlined by key researchers, and offers a synthesis of findings about the nature of beliefs. The article argues that teachers’ beliefs can and should become an important focus of educational inquiry but that this will require clear conceptualizations, careful examination of key assumptions, consistent understandings and adherence to precise meanings, and proper assessment and investigation of spec...

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Teachers’ Beliefs and Educational Research: Cleaning Up a Messy Construct:

Research in the area of educational technology has often been critiqued for a lack of theoretical grounding. In this article we propose a conceptual framework for educational technology by building on Shulman’s formulation of ‘‘pedagogical content knowledge’’ and extend it to the phenomenon of teachers integrating technology into their pedagogy. This framework is the result of 5 years of work on a program of research focused on teacher professional development and faculty development in higher education. It attempts to capture some of the essential qualities of teacher knowledge required for technology integration in teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted, and situated nature of this knowledge. We argue, briefly, that thoughtful pedagogical uses of technology require the development of a complex, situated form of knowledge that we call Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK). In doing so, we posit the complex roles of, and interplay among, three main components of learning environments: content, pedagogy, and technology. We argue that this model has much to offer to discussions of technology integration at multiple levels: theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological. In this article, we describe the theory behind our framework, provide examples of our teaching approach based upon the framework, and illustrate the methodological contributions that have resulted from this work.

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Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge

This article reports the authors' efforts to develop a practice-based theory of content knowledge for teaching built on Shulman's (1986) notion of pedagogical content knowledge. As the concept of p...

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Content Knowledge for Teaching: What Makes It Special?

The author suggests that we apply recent research knowledge to improve our conceptualization, measures, and methodology for studying the effects of teachers’ professional development on teachers and students. She makes the case that there is a research consensus to support the use of a set of core features and a common conceptual framework in professional development impact studies. She urges us to move away from automatic biases either for or against observation, interviews, or surveys in such studies. She argues that the use of a common conceptual framework would elevate the quality of professional development studies and subsequently the general understanding of how best to shape and implement teacher learning opportunities for the maximum benefit of both teachers and students.

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Improving Impact Studies of Teachers’ Professional Development: Toward Better Conceptualizations and Measures

This study explored whether and how teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching contributes to gains in students’ mathematics achievement. The authors used a linear mixed-model methodology in which first and third graders’ mathematical achievement gains over a year were nested within teachers, who in turn were nested within schools. They found that teachers’ mathematical knowledge was significantly related to student achievement gains in both first and third grades after controlling for key student- and teacher-level covariates. This result, while consonant with findings from the educational production function literature, was obtained via a measure focusing on the specialized mathematical knowledge and skills used in teaching mathematics. This finding provides support for policy initiatives designed to improve students’ mathematics achievement by improving teachers’ mathematical knowledge.

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Effects of Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching on Student Achievement:

Teachers: Beliefs and knowledge.

Images of teaching: Student teachers' early conceptions of classroom practice

Reflective teaching and teacher education

Exploring teachers' thinking

Summary. A growth in research on teachers' ‘interactive’ thoughts and decision-making has led to the use of the research method of stimulated recall. The method has been employed in a number of different forms, but generally involves the replay of videotape or audiotape of a teacher's lesson in order to stimulate a commentary upon the teacher's thought processes at the time. The appropriate use of the method, the variety of ways in which it has been employed and their advantages and disadvantages are considered together with an examination of the status and validity of recalled thoughts and the problems of interpretation. It is concluded that although questions of validity cannot be completely resolved the technique presents a systematic approach to the collection of data potentially useful in research on teaching.

James Calderhead

Papers

Teachers: Beliefs and knowledge.

Images of teaching: Student teachers' early conceptions of classroom practice

Reflective teaching and teacher education

Exploring teachers' thinking

Stimulated recall: a method for research on teaching