# **3.4 The relationship between teacher beliefs and teaching quality**

Teachers were given a 58-question survey on their beliefs related to teaching and learning. It used Likertscale questions to gauge attitudes toward their work, their role in the classroom, and student achievement.

## **3.4.1 Teacher beliefs**

The systematic study of teachers’ conceptions of teaching interests researchers because many consider them to play a significant role in shaping teachers’ characteristic patterns of instructional behavior (Thompson 1992, pp. 130–131). Wilson et al. (2002) noted what appears to be a basic premise of mainstream research into teachers’ beliefs: “Over the last 15 years, there has been a considerable amount of research on teachers’ beliefs based on the assumption that what teachers believe is a significant determiner of what gets taught, how it gets taught, and what gets learned in the classroom” (p. 128). Beliefs act as a filter through which teachers make their decisions rather than just relying on their pedagogical knowledge or curriculum guidelines (Clark and Peterson 1986). Teaching practices shape what happens in the classroom, but beliefs can help explain why they are used.

Beliefs are important to understand from a policy and teachers’ professional development perspective. Cooney et al. (1998) state that “an analysis of belief structures, attention to the intensity with which beliefs are held, and the nature of the evidence that supports beliefs can provide a forum by which our teacher education programs will be better able to address issues of reform” (p. 331). Thompson (1984) focused on the negative consequence of not taking teacher mathematical beliefs into account when stating that “A failure to recognize the role that the teachers’ conceptions might play in shaping their behaviour is likely to result in misguided efforts to improve the quality of instruction in the schools” (Thompson 1984, p. 106). Kagan (1992) argues that beliefs may be the clearest measure of a teacher’s professional growth.

## **3.4.2 Teacher orientations**

A teacher’s system of beliefs may be considered to form what have been termed orientations. Askew et al. (1997) defined three teacher orientations of _transmissionist_ , _connectionist_ , and _discovery_ . Renne (1992) developed a Purpose of Schooling/Knowledge matrix to conceptualize teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning mathematics, which distinguished between _school knowledge–oriented_ (believing that teaching is an act of passing information on to others while learning involves the process of reproducing that information) vs. _child development–oriented_ (more likely to consider children’s needs and characteristics as the primary factors in instructional decision making).

The relationship and relative dominance or conviction among a teacher’s beliefs should be recognized and considered. Thompson (1992) identifies three dimensions that relate to the ways beliefs are organized: their quasi-logical structure (primary vs. derivative), the degree of conviction with which they are held (central vs. peripheral), and their connectedness (clustered vs. isolated).

## **3.4.3 Teacher archetypes**

The survey questions were grouped into three archetypes of teacher views and correlated against the classroom observations.

**1. Transmission** . These teachers believe that the role of the teacher is to act as a transmitter of knowledge, and students are supposed to receive that knowledge passively.

**2. Connection.** Teachers who score highly in terms of connection believe in highlighting relationships within the subject they are teaching, helping students to see the relationship between different lessons. It is a more student-centered approach.

**3. Discovery.** This is the most student-centered approach. Teachers provide a framework for knowledge and students are left to discover the lessons themselves, with the teacher’s guidance and support.

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