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Educational Research Volume38 Number 1 Spring 1996

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A review of research on teacher


beliefs and practices
Zhihui Fang, Division of Literacy and Language, Department of Curriculum
and Instruction, 1442 Liberal Arts and Education Building, School of Education,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906, USA

Summary
During the past 15 years or so, teacher education research has made significant
strides in studying the complex relationships between teacher beliefs and practices.
This new line of research has generated important findings that are of practical
implications for teacher education. This article reviews this small body of research
and, in so doing, elucidates the two competing theses (i.e. 'consistency' vs
'inconsistency') that are recurring in the literature on the relationships between
teacher beliefs and practices. It begins with an overview of traditional research on
teaching in general, followed by a discussion of teacher cognition under which
teacher beliefs/theories are subsumed. After introducing the notion of 'the Missing
Paradigm' in the mainstream teacher education research, the article examines the
theoretical frameworks underlying teacher beliefs and practices research. Next it
provides a synthesis of recent research on teacher beliefs and practices, addressing
critical issues germane to the research findings. After a brief discussion of several
critical methodological issues, the article outlines six possible directions for future
research.
Keywords: teacher education, teacher beliefs and practices, educational research
methodology, literacy research, teacher's thought processes, teacher cognition,
teacher decision-making

Introduction
Influenced by the advances in cognitive psychology, the popularity of ethnographic
and qualitative methodology, and the conception of teaching as a thoughtful
profession, teacher education researchers have, in the past decade or so, demon
strated an unprecedented interest in and enthusiasm about certain aspects of teacher
cognition and their relationship to sound pedagogical practices in the classroom
(Ashton, 1990; Fang, 1995). This signals that research on teaching and learning has
shifted from a unidirectional emphasis on correlates of observable teacher behaviour
with student achievement to a focus on teachers' thinking, beliefs, planning and
decision-making processes. This new line of research has generated important
findings that are of practical implications for teacher education. The purpose of this
paper is to review recent teacher education research on teacher beliefs and practices.
In so doing, I hope to elucidate the recurring themes of 'consistency' vs
'inconsistency' between teacher beliefs and practices in this limited body of

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literature. I also discuss pertinent methodological issues and outline several possible
directions for future teacher education research.

A historical glimpse of research on teaching


According to Clark and Peterson (1986), the process of teaching involves two major
domains: (1) teachers' thought processes (i.e. teacher cognition), and (2) teachers'
actions and their observable effects. Teachers' thought processes occur inside
teachers' heads and are unobservable. The phenomena involved in the teacher action
domain include teacher behaviour, student behaviour and student achievement
scores, all readily measurable and more easily subjected to empirical research
methods than the phenomena involved in the teacher's thought domain. Centring on
teachers' actions and their observable effects, traditional research on teaching
examined how teacher behaviour influences student achievement. Its major goal was
to determine the criteria for excellence in teaching by estimating the effects of
teachers' actions or teaching performances on student learning (Beattie, 1995;
McDonald and Elias, 1976). As such, it has been classified under the rubric of
'teaching effectiveness', 'process-product studies' or 'teaching behavior' (Brophy
and Good, 1986; Shulman, 1986a, 1986b). The basic tenet of the research was
described by Anderson, Evertson and Brody (1979) as 'to define relationships
between what teachers do in the classroom (the process of teaching) and what
happens to their students (the products oflearning)' (p. 193). One such product that
has received much attention is achievement in the basic skills. Research in this
tradition assumes that more knowledge of such relationships will lead to enhanced
instruction, that is, once effective instruction is described,. then supposedly
programmes can be designed to promote those effective practices.
Process-product research was concerned primarily with the relationship between
teachers' classroom behaviour, students' classroom behaviour and student achievements. It was often conducted under laboratory or contrived conditions and data
were collected using categorical observation scales (Beattie, 1995). It typically
assumed that causality is unidirectional, with teachers' classroom behaviour
affecting students' classroom behaviour, which ultimately affects students' achievement (e.g. Doyle, 1977; Dunkin and Biddle, 1974). Further, the research assumed
that the relationship between teachers' actions and their observable effects is linear
and unidirectional. Data analysis was relatively decontextualized and objectified in a
search for positive, generalizable principles which can be used to formulate teaching
and learning theories. Statistical procedures used in these studies were often
correlations and analysis of variance. Recently, however, researchers have begun to
represent the direction of causality (i.e. teachers' actions and their observable effects
on student learning) as cyclical or circular, suggesting that teacher behaviour affects
students' behaviour, which in turn affects teacher behaviour and, ultimately,
students' academic performance (Brophy and Good, 1986).
With the advent of cognitive psychology and diversification of research paradigms
(Fang, 1995), researchers have become increasingly interested in teachers' thinking.
Since Philip Jackson's (1968) initial attempt in Life in Classrooms to describe and
understand the mental constructs and processes that underlie teacher behaviour, the
study of teacher cognition is receiving added attention in the literature on teaching in
general and on the subject area of reading/literacy in particular. Searching to find out
what teachers thought as opposed to how they behaved, the research focus has
shifted from studies on teacher behaviour to an investigation of teachers' thought

Review: teacher beliefs and practices

49

processes. This new line of research is purported to enhance our understanding of


how and why the process of teaching looks and works the way it does (Clark and
Peterson, 1986). Its underlying assumptions are twofold: first, teachers are
professionals who make reasonable judgements and decisions within a complex and
uncertain community, school and classroom environments; and second, teachers'
thoughts, judgements and decisions guide their classroom behaviour (Stern and
Shavelson, 1983).

Towards defining teachers' thought processes


Teachers' thought processes have been categorized into three fundamental types: (1)
teacher planning, (2) teachers' interactive thoughts and decisions and (3) teachers'
theories and beliefs (Clark and Peterson, 1986). These categories derived from
Jackson's (1968) conceptual distinction between the preactive, interactive and
postactive phases of teaching. They reflect more of the researchers' conceptualization of the domain of teacher cognition than an empirically derived categorization of
the domain. The first category represents a temporal distinction between whether
the thought processes occur before (i.e. preactive thoughts) or after (i.e. postactive
thoughts) classroom interactions.
More specifically, teachers' planning includes the thought processes that teachers
engage in prior to classroom interactions, as well as the thought processes or
reflections that they engage in after classroom interactions that guide their thinking
and projections for further classroom interaction. Teachers' theories and beliefs
represent the rich store of general knowledge of objects, people, events and their
characteristic relationships that teachers have that affects their planning and their
interactive thoughts and decision, as well as their classroom behaviour (Nisbett and
Ross, 1980). According to Shulman (1986b ), three dimensions of teachers' general
knowledge are importantly involved in the process of teaching: subject-matter
content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and curricular knowledge.
Subject-matter content knowledge includes both the substantive and the syntactic
structures. Substantive structures are the variety of ways in which the basic concepts
and principles of the discipline are organized to incorporate its facts. Syntactic
structures of a discipline are the grammar in which truth/falsehood and validity/
invalidity are established. Pedagogical knowledge has to do with the dimension of
teaching such as how ideas are best presented and formulated in order to make it
comprehensible to others. Curricular knowledge includes knowledge of alternative
curriculum materials for a given subject/topic within a grade level, as well as
knowledge of the curriculum materials simultaneously under study by his/her
students in other subjects. To these, Beattie (1995) added a fourth dimension,
'personal practical knowledge', which was defined as teachers' experiential knowledge of students' learning styles, interests, needs, strengths and difficulties and a
repertoire of instructional techniques and class management skills. Elbaz (1983)
pointed out that the practical knowledge is, however, 'informed by teachers'
theoretical knowledge of subject matter and of areas such as child development,
learning and social theory' (p. 5).
Theories and beliefs make up an important part of teachers' general knowledge
through which teachers perceive, process and act upon information in the classroom
(Clark and Peterson, 1986; Munby, 1982). They are 'a set of conceptual representations which signify to its holder a reality or given state of affairs of sufficient
validity, truth or trustworthiness to warrant reliance upon it as a guide to personal

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thought and action' (Harvey, 1986, p. 660). A teacher's beliefs are shaped by many
factors. Among them are the influence of discipline subculture, the quality of
preservice experience in the classroom and the opportunity for reflection on the
preservice experience (Bean and Zulich, 1992; Brousseau, Book and Byers, 1988;
Cherland, 1989; Richards, Gipe and Thompson, 1987). In practice, these beliefs can
take many forms. They can be embodied, among others, in the teacher's
expectations of his/her students' performance or in the teacher's theories about a
particular subject area's learning and teaching. Regardless of the forms they take, a
teacher's beliefs or philosophy can affect teaching and learning in one way or the
other. For example, studies have shown that a teacher's expectations can have
significant impacts on students' behaviour and academic performance (see Good,
1987, for review). On the other hand, a teacher's implicit theory about the nature of
knowledge acquisition can also affect his/her behaviours and, ultimately, his/her
students' learning (e.g. Anders and Evans, 1994; Hollingsworth, 1989; Schommer.,
1994; Stoddert, 1994).

The missing paradigm


Prior to the mid-l 970s and early 1980s, most of the studies on teachers' thought
processes focused on how teachers manage their classrooms, organize activities,
allocate time and turns, make structure assignments, ascribe praise and blame,
formulate the levels of their questions, plan lessons and judge general student
understanding (McDonald and Elias, 1976; Shulman, 1986a). Their emphasis has
been upon teachers' decision-making, with little reference to the knowledge of
subject-matter upon which these decisions are based (Meloth et al., 1989). What is
missing in this new line of research are issues with respect to teachers such as:
'Where do teacher explanations come from?' 'How do teachers decide what to teach,
how to represent it, how to question students about it and how to deal with problems
of misunderstanding?' These neglected domains constitute what Shulman (1986b)
referred to as 'the missing paradigm' in the research on teaching. Although the
cognitive psychology of learning has focused almost exclusively on such questions in
recent years, it is invariably from the learner's perspective, rather than the teacher's
(Shulman, 1986a, 1986b ). In a most recent review of the relationship between
teacher thoughts and actions, Clark and Peterson (1986) stated that understanding
teachers' thoughts and actions should give us a better understanding of how these
two components interact to increase or inhibit students' academic performance. Yet
almost no mention is made of teachers' concepts of subject-matter or the role these
concepts may play in planning, interactive decision-making and student learning
(Meloth et al., 1989).
Brophy and Good (1974) stated that a better understanding of teachers' belief
system or conceptual base will significantly contribute to enhancing educational
effectiveness. Heeding this assertion, researchers have in the recent past devoted
increased attention to teachers' beliefs and their effects on teaching and learning.
This emerging, albeit small, body of research is the focus of this review.

Theoretical frameworks
According to Sedlak (1987), many people including educators hold a simplistic
'bright-person' model of teaching. They see instruction as the delivery of

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information and the decoding of that information as the responsibility of students.


Thus the 'teacher's responsibility basically ends when they have told students what
they must remember to know and do' (ibid., p. 320). That is, teachers are viewed as
masters of subject-matter content knowledge. The issue of how to translate this
knowledge for students seems to rest outside the scope of teachers' responsibility.
Others (e.g. Jackson, 1986; Lortie, 1975) have suggested that many teachers
proceed on impulse and intuition in teaching, relying on personal experience rather
than on reflective thought and professional education. In reality, O'Brien and
Stewart (1990) also found that many preservice teachers expressed the feeling that
much of content reading instruction, or for that matter teaching in general, is
common sense and common practice. Pinnegar and Carter ( 1990) cited a high school
English teacher as saying:
A lot of teaching is intuition and instinct, if you allow the intuition to come forth
and operate. But then a lot of other stuff which is doing it wrong and doing it a
different way until you find something that works ... A lot of intuitive things
that you do - and questioning and answering - take a lot of experience to know
responses: a lot of verbal and non-verbal responses in the classroom and how to
handle the kids differently (p. 21).
However, there has been substantive evidence to the contrary. According to the
National Institute of Education's (1975) report, teachers' behaviour is 'directed in no
small measure by what they think' (p. 5). Similarly, Paris, Wasik and Turner (1991)
noted that different views of reading and teachers' expectations for students'
learning are apparent in the classroom. For example, teachers who regard reading as
rules for decoding and interpreting text emphasize mastery and application of
phonic rules and promote activities in which children read silently for comprehension (Richards, Gipe and Thompson, 1987), whereas others who stress creative,
aesthetic and strategic aspects of reading emphasize diverse reading experience such
as storytelling, writing, drama and sharing of ideas (Nist and Mealey, 1991;
Sturtevant and Spor, 1990; Winograd and Johnston, 1987). Along the same vein,
Eccles and Wigfield (1985) reported that teachers who believe that all children can
learn will promote literacy development, while those who believe that lack of ability
is a stable state will produce a debilitating environment. In partial summary,
classroom teachers possess theoretical orientations that in effect organize and trigger
their instructional behaviours (Duffy and Anderson, 1984; Borko, Shavelson and
Stern, 1981).
Educators are now beginning to realize that teachers (preservice, beginning or
experienced) do hold implicit theories about students, the subjects they teach and
their teaching responsibilities, and that these implicit theories influence teachers'
reactions to teacher education and to their teaching practice (Ashton, 1990). Putman
and Duffy (1984) indicated that teacher practice does not rely solely on impulse, but
is directed towards certain preplanned outcomes. Others have argued that teachers'
beliefs act as a filter through which a host of instructional judgements and decisions
are made (Nisbett and Ross, 1980; Shavelson, 1983; Shavelson and Stern, 1981). In
Deford's (1985) words, 'Knowledge ... forms a system of beliefs and attitudes
which direct perceptions and behaviors' (pp. 352-3). As Blanton and Moorman
(1987) concluded, there is 'clear relationship between [teachers'] knowledge and
instructional behaviors'. An accurate portrayal of this relationship will, it follows,
contribute to a more complete picture of teachers' cognitive activity (Johnson, 1992)
and, ultimately, improve teaching effectiveness (Casey et al., 1988).

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Research synthesis: consistency vs inconsistency


The most significant contributions to our understanding of the relationship between
teachers' beliefs and practices have, in recent years, taken place in the field of
reading/literacy. Harste and Burke (1977) defined reading teachers' theoretical
beliefs as the philosophical principles, or belief systems, that guide teachers'
expectations about student behaviour and the decisions they make during reading
lessons. Attempts to characterize reading teachers' beliefs have used the theoretically derived notions of how reading takes place such as top-down (i.e. readerbased), bottom-up (i.e. text-based) and interactive/transactional (Kinzer, 1988;
Kinzer and Carrick, 1986; Konopak, Wilson and Readence, 1994; Leu and Kinzer,
1991; Mitchell, Konopak and Readence, 1991; Wilson, Konopak and Readence,
1991), as well as the methodological divisions of phonics, skills and whole-language
approaches to reading instruction (Deford, 1985; Duffy and Anderson, 1982).
Reading research has examined how teachers' personal beliefs about teaching and
learning affect their decision-making and behaviours. A substantial number of such
studies support the notion that teachers do possess theoretical beliefs towards
reading and that such beliefs tend to shape the nature of their instructional practices
(Blanton and Moorman, 1987; Brophy and Good, 1974; Haste and Burk, 1977;
Kami! and Pearson, 1977; Leu and Misulis, 1986; Longberger, 1992; Mangano and
Allen, 1986; Rupley and Logan, 1984). For example, Rupley and Logan (1984)
reported that elementary teachers' beliefs about reading affected their instructional
decision-making. Working with teachers from Grades 4, 5 and 6, Richardson et al.
(1991) found that teachers' beliefs relate to their classroom practice. Specifically,
they reported that teachers who believed that the subskills of reading must be
learned before the meaning of text can be determined generally used a skills/word
approach. On the other hand, those who believed that learning to read is
accomplished by reading employed a literary structuralist approach. Those who
adopted the whole-language philosophy used authentic literature as a vehicle
through which students construct meaning. These findings support Haste and
Burke's (1977) claim that 'teachers are theoretical in their instructional approach to
reading' (p. 32).
The consistency thesis between beliefs and practices has also been supported by
limited research in other areas of literacy instruction. For example, Mangano and
Allen ( 1986) found that teachers approach language arts instruction differently
depending on their beliefs about writing. Not only were instructional practices
found to be consistent with teachers' theoretical beliefs, but the interactions between
teachers and students were found to differ according to teachers' theoretical beliefs
about writing instruction. Johnson's study (1992) indicated that the majority of
English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers possess clearly defined theoretical
beliefs which consistently reflect one particular methodological approach. Further,
the study showed that ESL teachers who possess clearly defined theoretical beliefs
provide literacy instruction which is consistent with their theoretical orientation and
that teachers with different dominant theoretical orientations provide strikingly
different literacy instruction for non-native speakers of English. In the early
childhood context, Wing (1989) found that preschool teachers' theoretical beliefs
about literacy development not only influenced their instructional practices, but also
shaped preschool children's perceptions of the nature and uses of reading and
writing. These findings were further confirmed by Fang (in preparation) who
investigated a fourth-grade language arts teacher's belief about literacy and its effects
on her pupils' perception of literacy (i.e. reading and writing) processes.

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Taken together, this small body of research substantiates Kamil and Pearson's
( 1979) claim that every teacher operates with at least an implicit model of reading. It
also supports the notion that teachers' thinking about their roles and the beliefs and
values they hold help shape their pedagogy. Specifically, it indicates that teachers
teach in accordance with their theoretical beliefs. It further suggests that teachers'
theoretical beliefs not only shape the nature of classroom interactions, but have a
critical impact on students' perceptions of literacy processes as well.
Other studies have, however, led to mixed results. In a study that identified and
compared elementary preservice and inservice teachers' beliefs and instructional
decision-making, Kinzer (1988) showed that although both preservice teachers and
inservice teachers shared similar theoretical orientations towards how reading takes
place and develops, the inservice teachers tended to be more inconsistent in their
choice of instructional lessons. These results were reinforced by a later replication
(Readence, Konopak and Wilson, 1991) which indicated that, as far as elementary
and secondary teachers are concerned, the relationship between beliefs and
instructional practices varies from very consistent to very inconsistent. This echoes
Duffy and Anderson's (1984) report that, although there is some congruence
between teacher practices and their belief systems about reading, the relationship is
not altogether strong.
Many of these studies (e.g. Johnson, 1992; Kinzer, 1988; Readance, Konopak
and Wilson, 1991) focused on hypothetical written tasks and did not include actual
classroom observations of the teachers in action (i.e. actual teaching). It must be
noted that teachers' written responses in these studies may reflect what should be
done rather than what is actually done in class. Recently a number of studies have
attempted to overcome these limitations by using multiple measures including
classroom observation, stimulated recalls, think-aloud protocols and focused
interviews, whereby teachers' beliefs and practices were examined in actual
classroom contexts. Findings from these studies have generally supported the
inconsistency thesis. Wilson, Konopak and Readence (1991) examined in-depth,
through interviews, classroom observations and written responses, an English
teacher's beliefs about reading and her instructional decision-making as she planned
instruction and during actual teaching. These researchers reported that although the
teacher's reader-based beliefs were largely consistent with her choice of hypothetical
lesson plans, the relationship between the teacher's beliefs and her actual
instructional practices lacked consistency. Subsequent in-depth research on two
Chapter 1 teachers (Davis, Konopak and Readence, 1993) and one secondary social
studies teacher (Konopak, Wilson and Readence, 1994) revealed comparable
results.
The inconsistency between teachers' beliefs and their practices is not unexpected.
Earlier researchers have noted that the complexities of classroom life can constrain
teachers' abilities to attend to their beliefs and provide instruction which aligns with
their theoretical beliefs (Duffy, 1982; Duffy and Anderson, 1984; Duffy and Ball,
1986; Paris, Wasik and Turner, 1991; Roehler and Duffy, 1991). This suggests that
contextual factors can have powerful influences on teachers' beliefs and, in effect,
affect their classroom practice. Duffy and Anderson (1984) found that, although
reading teachers were able to articulate their beliefs about reading outside the
classroom, their actual instructional practices were governed by the nature of
instruction and classroom life. For example, it was found that many teachers base
instructional decisions on classroom realities such as mutual teacher-student
respect, classroom management and routine, the amount of assistance needed by
low- or high-ability students, the way students learn, social and emotional

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characteristics and textbooks (Ashton, 1990). Pinnegar and Carter (1990) who
compared theories in educational psychology textbooks with teachers' implicit
theories suggested that one reason prospective teachers' theories are resistant to
influencing their instruction is that they represent a moral vision of teaching that
conflicts with the technical theories presented in textbooks and teacher education
programmes. On the other hand, Kilgore, Ross and Zbikowski (1990) suggested
that administrator and collegial attitudes can support or diminish the effectiveness of
beginning teachers by influencing their beliefs about themselves and their students.
This proposition is further supported by Mealey (1992, 1994), who suggested that
non-professionalization of remedial programme instructors in higher education in
general, and in research-oriented universities in particular, have affected teacher
morale and undermined undergraduate preparation. It is also confirmed by
Sapon-Shevin (1990), who found that district evaluation and grouping policies can
affect teachers' self-perceptions, expectations for students and classroom practices.
As Davis and her associates (1993) noted, individual teachers' agendas, school
climate, resources and beliefs shaped their understanding of the instructional task
that they faced each day. More specifically, these authors indicated that teachers'
instructional decision-making was influenced by the principal's and cooperating/
mentoring teacher's discretionary decision-making and their perceived need to
follow state and local district mandates. They further suggested that the differences
in the degree of inconsistency between beliefs and practices could also stem from
varying psychological, social and environmental realities of the participants'
respective schools that either created an opportunity for or constrained teachers
from implementing their beliefs in their instructional decision-making.
It is in this context that Margaret Lampert, a former elementary mathematics
teacher, aptly portrayed the teacher as a dilemma manager, a broker of contradictory
interests, who 'builds a working identity that is constructively ambiguous' (1985,
p. 190). Because classroom teachers are often faced with making choices among
dichotomous choices such as to promote equality or excellence, to build curriculum
around children's interests or around subject-matter, to foster independence and
creativity or maintain standards and expect everyone to meet them (ibid.), to help
students become 'learners' or 'knowers' (Gayle, 1992), to adopt an explicit and
skills-based approach or a process-oriented approach to instruction (Deplit, 1988;
Martin, 1989), to foster productive skills and generalized abilities or to instil subject
area content knowledge (Fang, 1994; Perfetti, 1989), and to centre the discourse of
classroom on technique or on substance in this computer-assisted instruction era
(Apple, 1988), they have to come up with coping strategies, by calling upon the
conflicted 'self' as a tool of her trade and building a working identity that is
constructively ambiguous, in order to combat these pedagogical dilemmas. This
identity crisis is vividly depicted in Taubman's 'Achieving the right distance' (1992),
in which teachers, confronted with 'a world of classroom hubbub, troubled kids,
poor pay, too much work, and too little love' (p. 233), are perplexed regarding how
to achieve 'the right distance' in teacher-student interactions. Montero-Sieburth
and Perez ( 1987) described a similar situation in which Puerto-Rican bilingual
teachers negotiated between the dominant culture's requirements and minority
students' predicaments and aspirations. Furthermore, many teacher education
programmes seem to have played a part in entrenching these current dilemmas.
According to Cherland (1989), teacher educators (i.e. university professors) often
create in student teachers a sentiment of dissatisfaction with the instructional
practice they see in school. Cooperating teachers, in turn, undermine the work of the
teacher educators. This leaves many student teachers bewildered as to whose theory

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(the cooperating teacher's or the university professor's) they should embrace and
be committed to application.
In the light of these dilemmas, it is not difficult to imagine why Hoffman and
Kugle (1992) found no significant relationship between teachers' beliefs about
reading and their verbal feedback during reading instruction. Teachers' theoretical
beliefs are situational and are transferred into instructional practices only in relation to the complexities of the classroom. Duffy (1982) has described life in the
classroom as a place where teachers are consumed with maintaining a productive
flow of activities while faced with a variety of implicit and explicit mandates that
define and limit their instructional options. In such environments, Duffy suggested, it is difficult for teachers 'to remember that they are supposed to be cognitive information processors who make differential instructional decisions on the
basis of rationally developed hypotheses' (p. 361).
Another source of inconsistency reported in these studies may be attributed to
the measures used in the research. Central to this is the issue of construct validity.
Most of these studies used researcher-determined statements or categories, which
may be different from those of the participants involved in the studies. For instance, the distinctions among the so-called text-based, reader-based and interactive approaches are not clear-cut and thus are not by themselves mutually
exclusive. This may put the subjects in a position of choosing either one statement
or the other as belonging to a particular instructional approach or learningteaching theory, when such dichotomies do not in fact exist in their belief systems.
Further, different teachers might have different conceptions of, for example, what
the buzz-word 'whole language' means to them (McIntyre and Freppon, 1994;
Newman, 1991) because of its somewhat fuzzy and elusive nature, at least in most
teachers' minds. It is possible that one who adopts what she considers to be a
whole-language approach to teaching may believe in the importance of readers'
schemata or prior knowledge in comprehension to the relative exclusion of readers'
linguistic skills such as phonics. On the other hand, another teacher may consider
whole-language approach to be the one that emphasizes both readers' linguistic
knowledge and culturally relevant knowledge. It is true, albeit surprising, that in a
recent graduate literacy seminar course a number of inservice teachers who received their undergraduate degree from small state universities confessed that they
had, until recently, never heard of such terms as 'whole language' and 'portfolio
assessment'.
Furthermore, the instructional techniques utilized in the classroom are not
mutually exclusive (Diller, 1978). Asking participants to choose one lesson plan as
opposed to others is imposing the researcher's categories on them who do not normally do so. For example, a true whole-language programme does not exclude
phonics (McIntyre and Freppon, 1994). Similarly, skill-based approaches do not
solely espouse mimicry and drill, but also advocate instruction in the culture of the
language, as well as some simulated social contexts within which language patterns
are practised (Johnson, 1992). Trying to avoid this inherent difficulty, Johnson
(ibid.) attempted to characterize teachers' classroom practice by examining when
and how often certain teacher behaviours occur. These behaviours were then categorized into corresponding instructional practices. Such an approach is reminiscent of behaviourism and traditional teacher education research where teaching
and learning were reduced into countable behaviours. Recently, however, these
problems have, in part, been avoided by in-depth case studies using multiple
measures and triangulation that examine more closely teachers' thought processes
in the actual classroom settings.

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Methodological issues
The recognition that teachers' thought processes influence the judgements,
decisions and, eventually, practices has given rise to various forms of self-report
procedures that focus on how teachers search for, select and represent information in
memory (Armour-Thomas, 1989). These methods purportedly produce data on
mental processes by using more or less direct probes of teachers' thoughts,
judgements and decisions. A major methodological problem with self-reported data,
though, concerns the extent to which these methods yield reliable and valid
information about teachers' beliefs. This section summarizes the most commonly
employed methods for eliciting teachers' cognitive processes. These tools are policy
capturing, repertory grid technique and process tracing (e.g. think-aloud, stimulated recall and journal keeping). An extensive and in-depth discussion of these
methods is available in Shavelson, Webb and Burstein (1986).

Policy capturing
As a method borrowed from laboratory psychology, policy capturing uses simulated
cases or vignettes of students, curriculum materials or teaching episodes to study
teachers' judgement processes. In a typical case, certain features or cues are
highlighted in segments of the material, and the teacher is asked to make judgements
about each feature. These judgements are then recorded on a Likert scale and later
transformed into linear regression equations whereby the relative weighing the
teacher assigns to the features in the segments is described. The resulting multiple
regression equation is interpreted as a model of the teacher's policy about the features
from which judgements are given. The major reliability question with this procedure
concerns the consistency with which generalizations can be made from a particular
score based on a sample judgement or decision task to a broader domain that the
sample judgement is supposed to represent (Armour-Thomas, 1989). Possible
sources of error associated with teacher judgements include: observer/experimenter
drift, error of leniency, halo-effect, personal bias, reliability decay, contamination
and error of central tendency (Borg and Gall, 1989). According to Payne ( 1982), these
sources of error can be classified into three types: variation of teacher judgement on the
same vignette on different occasions; inconsistencies in judgement due to slight
changes in the wording on equivalent vignettes; and variation in teacher judgement
due to changes in judgement strategy, fatigue or boredom.
In addition, there are other ecological validity problems associated with policycapturing procedures (Armour-Thomas, 1989). First, the data reflect a simulation of
teachers' judgements about selected variables relevant to teaching and may not be an
isomorphic representation of teachers' actual thought processes. That is, the
regression equation might be a useful technique for predicting key variables that
affect teachers' judgements, but may be limited in describing precisely teachers'
cognitive processes in a decision-making situation. Secondly, many of the policycapturing studies were conducted in laboratory settings and thus may not provide a
valid portrayal of teachers' judgements and decision-making in a real-life classroom
(Lave, 1989). The classroom is a highly dynamic and interactive environment where
unexpected cues can spontaneously trigger teachers' decisions and judgements, and
these decisions may be very different from those made in an artificial setting. As
Shavelson, Webb and Burstein (1986) have pointed out, 'Teachers' classroom
decisions usually are not "once and for all". Rather, they are made incrementally and
adjusted on the basis of subsequent information' (p. 77).

Review: teacher beliefs and practices

57

Repertory grid technique


The repertory grid technique recently has been quite often used in the studies of
teachers' beliefs and practices (e.g. Johnson, 1992; Kinzer, 1988; Wilson, Konopak
and Readence, 1991). This technique was developed to discover the personal
constructs that influence individual behaviour. Typically, an individual is presented
with a series of statements or scenarios about the domain of interest to the
investigator. The subject is asked to indicate which statement(s) or scenario(s) best
characterize( s) or correspond( s) to his/her beliefs about a particular subject-matter in
question. The resulting groupings and their associated rationales are then labelled as
'constructs' by the investigator. The constructs and their component elements are
then arrayed in a grid format to show the relationships among constructs (Clark and
Peterson, 1986). One problem with this method is that it produces data which
represent hypothetical situations. That is, the written responses collected via this
method reflect what would be done rather than what is actually done in actual
instructional settings.

Process tracing
Process tracing is an umbrella term used to describe a variety of verbal report
methods in which teachers are asked to make decisions and judgements about an
instructional task. Four most commonly used procedures are think-aloud, retrospective interview, stimulated recall and journal keeping. In a typical think-aloud
procedure, a teacher is asked to verbalize his/her thoughts while actually doing an
instructional task. The retrospective interview elicits the teacher's thought processes
at or after the completion of an instruction task. The stimulated recall elicits
teacher's verbalizations whiles/he looks at a replay of herself/himself performing a
task. In journal keeping the teacher is required to keep a written record of whats/he
thought and did in the process of teaching from planning to actual classroom
instruction. Each method produces typewritten protocols of the teacher's verbiage
which is then used to characterize his/her thought processes or to infer the mental
operations the teacher used to make judgements and solve problems (ArmourThomas, 1989).
Process tracing procedures pose some measurement challenges for researchers
mainly because of the introspective nature of the self-reported data. At a theoretical
level, there are different conceptions with regard to the validity of process tracing
data (Armour-Thomas, 1989). For example, Nisbett and Wilson (1977) have harshly
criticized the use of verbal reports as legitimate data. They contended that there may
be little or no introspective access to high-order cognitiv:.e processes. They further
argued that verbal reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories or
judgements about the extent to which a stimulus of interest is a plausible cause of a
given response. They identified three possible explanations of why individuals
experience difficulty when they attempt to report on their cognitive processes:
unawareness of the existence of a stimulus, unawareness of the existence of a
response and unawareness of the fact that the stimulus influences the response in a
meaningful way.
Nisbett and Wilson's positions have been challenged, however. Bloom ( 1953), for
instance, insisted that 'the inference that the recall of one's own private, conscious
thoughts approximates the recall of the overt, observable events has led to the
anticipation that the accuracy of the recall of conscious thought is high enough for
most studies ... if interviews are made within a short time after the event' (p. 162).

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Ericcson and Simon ( 1980) claimed that the time of verbal reports, the form of the
information being processed, the demands placed on the information and the
breadth of the event reported are relevant factors in judging the legitimacy of
process-tracing data. According to their information-processing model, newly
acquired information is stored in the short-term memory and readily available for
immediate retrieval and further processing. In contrast, information stored in the
long-term memory is not directly available for processing; and the data retrieved
retrospectively may be incomplete, reconstructed, even invented. Furthermore, the
quantity and quality of information retrieved may depend on the adequacy of search.
According to Armour-Thomas (1989), in generalizing these ideas to processtracing methods, it may be hypothesized that think-aloud probes elicit reasonably
valid information from short-term memory since it is directly available and is
believed to be closely connected to ongoing cognitive processes. In contrast,
retrospective interviews and stimulated recall procedures place greater constraints
on the person's efforts to retrieve information from long-term memory, particularly
if the probes are unrelated to ongoing cognitive processes. Under such conditions,
the individual is forced to search for information not readily available and as such
may have to reconstruct or invent the missing information. Shavelson, Webb and
Burstein (1986) pointed out that the greater the constraints placed on an individual
by methods that probe for specific information, the greater the risk for interrupting
ongoing cognitive activities. This may, in turn, lead to distortion of the structure and
course of events, production of incomplete data and increase in processing time.
More recently, Baldwin and Vaughn (1993) reacted to a call for methodological
rigidity by arguing that adherence to one methodology and a rigidity of thought are
something that the education profession can ill-afford. They suggested that what is
more important is the issue of relevance, that is: 'How relevant are the questions
being investigated to the problems in school?' While acknowledging the theoretical
possibility of methodological perfection, they contended that such a remote
possibility cannot be pursued at the sacrifice of abandoning the notion of relevance.
As Neilson (1993) pointed out, 'The recognition that openness, plurality, diversity,
and differences are not threats to be controlled, but opportunities to make significant
differences' (p. 353).

Directions for future research


Although research on teachers' implicit knowledge or theoretical beliefs is on the
increase in the past five years (Baldwin et al., 1990), it is still in its infancy (Bean and
Zulich, 1992). As Anderson and Mitchener (1994) noted, 'The big advances in
understanding about student learning have not been matched by equivalent
advances in understanding about teaching. How to teach under real-world
conditions in such a manner as to foster this kind oflearning is not well understood as
learning per se' (p. 36). Sustained efforts are therefore needed because inquiry into
this topic is, according to Munby (1982), central to a more complete and useful
understanding of thought processes in teaching. In Armour-Thomas' swords (1989),
the investigation of teachers' thought processes is an exciting new area in research on
teaching, in that 'the field promises to yield information that may revolutionize the
way we traditionally conceived the teaching-learning process' (p. 35). Researchers
may need to direct their attention to the following areas.
First and foremost, although the growing body of research on teachers' thought
processes continues to question whether teachers are able to provide instruction

Review: teacher beliefs and practices

59

which is consistent with their theoretical beliefs, few have explicitly addressed a
practically more important concern, that is how teachers can apply their theoretical
beliefs within the constraints imposed by the complexities of the classroom life.
Rather than simply providing teachers with more theories, educators must help
teachers understand how to cope with the complexities of classroom life and how to
apply theory within the constraints imposed by those realities. As Duffy and Anderson ( 1984) noted,
The issue is not whether teachers should possess theoretical knowledge .
They should. Instead, the issue is how teachers can apply theoretical knowledge
in real classrooms where the relationship between theory and practice is complex and where numerous constraints and pressures influence teacher thinking
(p. 103).

In this connection, narrative studies of the construction and reconstruction of teachers' personal practical knowledge is especially helpful. As Beattie (1995) observed,
involvement in narrative inquiry 'allows for the critical, emancipatory, selfempowering experiences' and can 'provide new ways for thinking about pre-service
and in-service education for teachers and for school improvement and educational
reform' (p. 65).
Secondly, the focus of this emerging body of research has been on the elementary
and, more recently, secondary levels. Few studies have extended this research to the
post-secondary level. As Professor William Kyle Jr (1994), current editorof]ournal
of Research in Science Teaching, acutely pointed out, while much has been written
regarding our understanding of teaching and learning as it applies to K-12 learners,
there is an unfortunate dearth of teacher education research at the college level.
Future research should therefore further explore this territory.
Thirdly, while research continues to question teachers' beliefs about certain subject areas, little attention has been paid to their beliefs about particular components
of a subject area. For example, whereas many studies have investigated reading
teachers' beliefs about what reading is and how it develops, few have examined
teachers' beliefs about particular components of reading such as vocabulary development (Konopak and Williams, 1994), reading strategies (Davinroy etal., 1994) or
text (Chambliss, 1994; Cox, 1989; Gillingham, Kulikowich and Young, 1994;
Thompson, Wade and Watkins, 1994). As Konopak and Williams (1994) pointed
out, while the nature of vocabulary learning changes as subjects become more diversified and specialized, there is a decline in vocabulary instruction as students advance
in school. Further, while there is an expectation that students will become increasingly independent, this learning is made problematic by factors such as students'
reading ability, limitations in text information and incidental learning conditions.
Fourthly, given the consistency thesis reported in some of the studies reviewed
above, it may be beneficial to investigate whether inservice teachers' beliefs or theories are aligned with successful learning and teaching. As for preservice teachers, the
question then is: 'How can teacher educators equip them with a coherent, sound
teaching and learning theory?' Rather than feeding them with a plethora of theories,
teacher educators should perhaps make more conscious efforts to help them realize
what theory, or combination of theories, is most effective in enhancing student
learning. Once they are equipped with sound learning and teaching theories, teacher
educators will then need to look for ways (i.e. pedagogical knowledge) that will help
them translate their beliefs and theories into effective instructional practice, so that
the outcome of student learning is maximized.

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Fifthly, while most studies were concerned with the subject areas of reading per se,
few (e.g. Muth, 1993) have incorporated reading in a content area such as maths and
science (i.e. biology, chemistry or physics). O'Brien and Stewart (1990) pointed out
that content reading is not universally embraced by content teachers and that many
of them often resist the tenets and pedagogy associated with content reading instruction. The need for investigation in science education becomes more acute, given the
National Science Board's (1989) and National Science Foundation's (1987) reports
that US students are lacking behind their peers in other industrialized nations in
standardized test scores. At the national level, for example, Dini (1992) reported that
the final average grade of students ranged from a high 'D' to 'C', with nearly 40 per
cent of the students earning a final grade of 'D', 'F' or 'W' (withdraw). These statistics suggest a sense of urgency and sombre challenge for further research on science/maths teacher education, particularly at the college level.
Finally, and equally importantly, it is apparent from this review that in studying
teacher cognition, research has depended on various paper-pencil instruments,
stimulated recall, think-aloud protocols or focused interviews in order to capture beliefs about literacy and classroom instruction. While important in determining beliefs, such methods do not really address the personal experiences of teachers and
their influence on shaping these beliefs. Given the social constructivist view of literacy as context-dependent and responsive to factors within a particular sociocultural
environment, beliefs and subsequent practices will vary according to the interpretative needs of an individual (Duchein et al., 1994). Future research may use alternative methods such as life history (Langness and Frank, 1981), narrative (Beattie,
1995) or autobiography (Pinar, 1988) to examine teachers' thought processes. These
methods focus on the participants' own narratives (i.e. the so-called 'emic' perspective) and are a good basis to reflect on and envision the intricate interrelationships
between personal experiences and intentions for preservice and inservice classroom
teachers (Duchein et al., 1994). Such studies should lead to improved understanding
of the complex and interrelated processes of personal experiences, beliefs and practices. More importantly, they have 'the potential to bring new meaning to teacher
education and to the continuous experiences of change, of growth and of professional
development in a teacher's life' (Beattie, 1995, p. 65).

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