Preservice early childhood educators' pedagogical beliefs
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Authors
Di Santo, Aurelia
Timmons, Kristy
Lenis, Angelike
Date
2017
Type
journal article
Language
en
Keyword
Preservice Early Childhood Educators
Alternative Title
Abstract
Preservice early childhood educators begin postsecondary programs with established beliefs about children, children’s learning, and their roles as future educators. The present study examined 26 first-year students’ beliefs about children, classroom practice, and guiding children’s behavior. Participants completed the Teacher Beliefs Q-Sort (Rimm-Kaufman, Storm, Sawyer, Pianta, & La Paro, 2006) at three time points over the course of their first year of studies. We compared responses across the three time points to explore whether the students’ beliefs changed over time. Findings are presented under three main themes: 1) beliefs about children; 2) beliefs about classroom practice; and 3) beliefs about behavior management. Overall, findings reveal that for all three themes, at each time point, practices that are most characteristic of the participants’ beliefs are child-centered, whereas beliefs that are least characteristic of their beliefs are teacher-directed. To support students’ application of theory to practice, they should be given opportunities during their studies to voice, explore, and critically examine their beliefs in relation to philosophies and teaching approaches.
Description
Final version of the article available here: https://doi.org/10.1080/10901027.2017.1347588
Citation
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education on August 17, 2017, available online: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10901027.2017.1347588
Publisher
Taylor & Francis