Exploring Teachers' Knowledge and Beliefs About the Value of Psychological Knowledge for Teaching.

Abstract

To address the need for empirical research examining the role of educational psychology in teacher education, this dissertation explores educators’ psychological knowledge and their beliefs about its value for teaching. Participants consisted of three educator groups affiliated with one teacher education program. Pre-service teachers (n = 30) completed a survey measuring psychological knowledge and beliefs about how teaching can be informed by psychological knowledge in four domains: 1) learning/cognition, 2) individual/group differences, 3) human development and 4) motivation. They completed the survey at the beginning and end of the term, to measure the effects of taking an educational psychology course. To provide context for interpreting these results, two comparison groups took the same survey: 1) in-service teachers (n = 29), and 2) teacher educators who have taught educational psychology courses (n = 10).

The first study examined changes in pre-service teachers’ psychological knowledge and compared them to in-service teachers’ psychological knowledge. Quantitative analysis showed a statistically significant interaction between the status (i.e., pre-service, in-service) and school level on the mean knowledge score. The second study employed Q methodology to examine changes in pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the value of psychological knowledge and compare them to in-service teachers and teacher educators. Across the four domains, important similarities were found among the three educator groups in their identification of teaching practices where psychological knowledge would be particularly helpful: (1) determining and modifying appropriate means to present content and assess students’ understanding of the content for learning; (2) fostering classroom discourse and developing appropriate assessments for individual/group differences; (3) assessing student thinking, using instructional strategies to promote student learning, organizing classrooms to maximize learning, and building relationships with students for human development; and (4) attending and responding to student learning through feedback, promoting group work, building relationships with students and parents, and preparing instruction for motivation. Despite these similarities, there were variations in educator group’s emphasis on the teaching practices they believed would be informed by their psychological knowledge. These findings have implications for understanding the role of educational psychology courses, and for how they can be taught more meaningfully for prospective teachers.