Session Information
Contribution
Teachers who believe that outcomes are contingent on their own actions experience a sense of control, competence, or agency (Bandura, 1997; Little, 1998). Research shows, that teachers' sense of agency (cf. self-efficacy) is related to job-satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, positive affect, feelings of empowerment, and that agentic teachers are able to create a learning environment in which students can thrive academically and socially (Pelletier, Séguin-Lévesque, & Legault, 2002; Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). Models of teacher development have proposed somewhat different numbers of stages and foci during each stage (Brookhart & Freeman, 1992; Burn et al., 2003; Conway & Clark, 2003; Fuller & Bown, 1975), describing (a) a shift from self-focus to task-focus, (b) from task-focus to student-focus increased focus on variability among students and antecedents of such variation, and (c) an increased sense of fluid, seemingly effortless teacher performance. To the best of our knowledge, the extent to which individual differences in perceived agency beliefs and motivation might be related to self-perceptions in class has not been investigated. Consequently, the aims of the present study are to investigate the relationship between student teachers' agency beliefs, motivation and self-perceptions in class, during their teaching practicum.As a part of a longitudinal follow-up of student teachers during a one-year Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) course in England (i.e., pre-service secondary school teachers), 89 student teachers responded to a revised version of the Teacher's Control, Agency and Means-Ends (TCAM) Questionnaire (Malmberg, Wanner, Nordmyr & Little, 2004; Malmberg, 2006), at the end of the first term. They completed scales of agency beliefs (emotional support/proximity, organisation/structure), and motivation (intrinsic, altruistic and extrinsic). They also completed scales based on a novel operationalisation of the original Fuller and Bown stages focusing on self-perception in class: self-focus, task-focus, student-focus, and seemingly effortless teaching. All scales had adequate factor structure and internal consistencies.Inspection of mean-level differences in self-perception, showed that student teachers focused most on task, next most on students, thereafter on themselves and least on effortless teaching. The four focus scales were uncorrelated with each other. Initial correlational analysis showed that student teachers who were more agentic with regard to emotional support were more student focused. The more they thought they had the capacity to organize and structure their teaching, the more they focused on tasks, students and effortless teaching. More altruistically motivated student teachers were more task and student-focused, while more extrinsically motivated student teachers were more task and self-focused.Overall, we found relationships between agency beliefs, motivation and self-perception in class. The ways in which teacher educators can focus on exploration of sources of motivation and features that promote student teachers' agency beliefs would be valuable to explore.Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy. The exercise of control. New York: W. H. Freeman.Brookhart, S. M., & Freeman, D. J. (1992). Characteristics of entering teacher candidates. Review of Educational Research, 62, 37-60. Burn, K., Hagger, H., & Mutton, T., & Everton, T. (2003). The complex development of student-teachers' thinking. Teachers and teaching: theory and practice, 9, 309-331.Conway, P. F., & Clark, C. M. (2003). The journey inward and outward: a re-examination of Fuller's concerns-based model of teacher development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19, 465-482.Little, T. D. (1998). Sociocultural influences on the development of children's action-control beliefs. In J. Heckhausen & C. Dweck (Eds.), Motivation and self-regulation across the life span (pp. 281-315). New York: Cambridge University Press. Malmberg, L-E. (2006). Goal-orientation and teacher motivation among teacher applicants and student teachers. Journal of Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 58-76.Malmberg, L-E., Wanner, B., Nordmyr, A-M., & Little, T. (2004). The Teachers' Control, Agency, and Means-ends Belief Questionnaire (TCAM): reliability and validity. (Publication No 7). Vasa: Åbo Akademi University. Pelletier, L. G., Séguin-Lévesque, C., & Legault, L. (2002). Pressure from above and pressure from below as determinants of teachers' motivation and teaching behaviors. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 186-196.Tschannen-Moran, M., Woolfolk Hoy, A., & Hoy, W. K. (1998). Teacher efficacy: its meaning and measure. Review of Educational Research, 68, 202-248.National (UK) or international journal
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