From mind to action: The relationship between teacher self-efficacy and instructional practice in science

Author(s):

Nani Teig(presenting / submitting)Ronny Scherer Trude Nilsen

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

09. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement

Format:

Paper

Session Information

09 SES 14, Relating Teacher Beliefs and Practices to Student Outcomes

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-25

15:30-17:00

Room:

W3.11

Chair:

Eva Myrberg

Contribution

Teachers’ self-efficacy matters for science education. In fact, the existing body of research suggests that teachers’ beliefs about their teaching abilities influence their general instructional practices in the classroom (e.g. Holzberger, Philipp, & Kunter, 2013). Although this relationship has been analysed in numerous studies, little attention has been paid to investigating the extent to which it differs across different types of instructional methods. Moreover, only limited empirical evidence based on representative large-scale data has been devoted to the domain of science.

Inquiry-based and general teaching practice

Instructional strategies used in science lessons might differ from those that can be applied in other domains. For instance, inquiry-based science instruction—an instructional approach that focuses on discovery learning and hands-on investigation—is considered the method of choice in science classrooms (Stohr-Hunt, 1996). However, generic pedagogical practices that are similar across domains, such as classroom discussion or management, can also contribute to student learning. For example, general instructions can be useful for teaching students about topics with which they have had prior hands-on experience (Olson & Loucks-Horsley, 2000). Although a conceptual overlap seems to exist between inquiry-based and general teaching practice in science, few studies have investigated the commonalities and differences between these two teaching constructs. Inquiry-based and general teaching practice might reflect separate but related constructs that aim to enhance student performance.

Hypothesis 1: Inquiry-based and general teaching practice are distinct but correlated constructs.

Teacher self-efficacy in science teaching

Previous studies revealed that teachers’ beliefs about their abilities to teach science are key factors in determining the choice of instructional practices (e.g. de Laat & Watters, 1995; Lumpe, Haney, & Czerniak, 2000). Consequently, confident science teachers may provide students with more cognitively challenging activities than low-efficacious teachers. Considering the earlier findings, our current study explored the relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy in science teaching and their teaching approaches, specifically their instructions in inquiry-based and general teaching practice.

Hypothesis 2: Teachers’ self-efficacy in science teaching positively predicts their implementation of both inquiry-based and general science teaching.

There is also a need for greater understanding about the kinds of contextual variables that influence the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and different instructional practices. Previous research has been devoted to examining teacher context (e.g. intrinsic needs satisfaction; Holzberger, Philipp, & Kunter, 2014) and school context (e.g. school facilities; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2007) that interact with this relationship. Nevertheless, limited attention has been given to contextual variables that describe the classroom context, such as students’ achievement, motivation, and the socioeconomic status, that is aggregated to the classroom. In this study, we focused on the roles these classroom contextual variables play for the relation between teachers’ self-efficacy and instructional practices in science.

Hypothesis 3: The relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy in science teaching and the implementation of inquiry-based and general science teaching is independent from classroom achievement, motivation, and socioeconomic status.

Method

Data We explored the Norwegian data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 for 8th grade students. The study sample comprised 4382 students and 211 science teachers. We analysed teacher and student background questionnaires. Measures Teacher instructional practices. Teachers’ instructional practices were divided into inquiry-based and general teaching practices. Teachers were asked to indicate the frequency with which they used different teaching activities in their classrooms. Inquiry-based teaching practice was measured by six items that reflect hands-on activities (e.g., design or plan experiments or investigations), and general teaching practice was measured by three items (e.g., encourage classroom discussion among students). Teacher self-efficacy in science teaching. To measure this construct, we chose ten items in which teachers were asked to characterize their level of confidence in different activities in science teaching and learning (e.g., explaining science concepts or principles by doing science experiments). Student motivation. To measure students’ motivation, we chose four items in which students were asked to indicate how much they agreed with different statements about learning science (e.g., I enjoy learning science). Student achievement. Science achievement was measured using five plausible values that were incorporated into the model to produce an average of the values and adjusted standard errors. Student socioeconomic status. To represent students’ socioeconomic status, we created a latent variable from three items in the student questionnaire: students’ ratings of the number of books at home, their mother and fathers’ highest education background. Analyses Our analyses comprised multilevel structural equation models that took into account the hierarchical structure of the data (i.e., students are nested within classrooms). The expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm was used to handle the missing data, and a robust maximum likelihood estimator (MLR) was used to address the non-normality and non-independence of the data. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis was performed to verify the factor structure of all the measures. Measures that were based on student ratings (i.e., motivation and socioeconomic status) were aggregated to the classroom level, and the doubly-latent modelling approach was chosen to describe these contextual data (Morin, Marsh, Nagengast, & Scalas, 2014). To analyse the latent interaction terms, latent moderated structural (LMS) equations approach was used to overcome the non-normality of the product term (Klein & Moosbrugger, 2000). All analyses were performed in Mplus 7.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2015).

Expected Outcomes

Hypothesis 1. We compared a one-factor and two-factor model of inquiry-based and general teaching practice. Model fit indices of the confirmatory analysis showed that the two-factor model with correlated latent variables fitted the data better, RMSEA=0.014, CFI=0.958, TLI=0.935, SRMRbetween=0.043. The preliminary findings showed a positive correlation between inquiry-based and general teaching practice (ρ=.50, p<.001), indicating that inquiry-based and general teaching practice represent distinct but correlated constructs of teachers’ instructional practice. Hypothesis 2. Our preliminary findings showed that teacher self-efficacy in science teaching positively predicted the implementation of inquiry-based teaching practice (β=.30, p<.05) and general teaching practice (β=.36, p<.01). These results indicated that the more competent teachers perceived themselves in science teaching, the more frequent they performed inquiry-based and general instructional practices, and vice versa. Hypothesis 3. Using the LMS approach, we tested the effects of student achievement, motivation, and socioeconomic status at the classroom level on moderating the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and the implementation of inquiry-based and general science teaching separately. The resultant interaction effects between teachers’ self-efficacy and classroom achievement were neither significant for general instruction (B=0.08, p=.78) nor inquiry-based teaching (B=0.23, p=.38). Along the same lines, the interaction effects were insignificant for classroom motivation (general instruction: B=-0.44, p=.59; inquiry: B=-0.10, p=.90) and socioeconomic status (general instruction: B=-0.16, p=.62; inquiry: B=-0.30, p=.38). The positive relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy in science teaching and their instructions in inquiry-based and general teaching was not affected by students’ achievement, motivation, and socioeconomic status. We will discuss each finding in this study with respect to their implications for science education research.

References

de Laat, J., & Watters, J. J. (1995). Science teaching self-efficacy in a primary school: A case study. Research in Science Education, 25(4), 453-464. doi:10.1007/bf02357387 Holzberger, D., Philipp, A., & Kunter, M. (2013). How teachers’ self-efficacy is related to instructional quality: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(3), 774-786. doi:10.1037/a0032198 Holzberger, D., Philipp, A., & Kunter, M. (2014). Predicting teachers’ instructional behaviors: The interplay between self-efficacy and intrinsic needs. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 39(2), 100-111. Klein, A., & Moosbrugger, H. (2000). Maximum likelihood estimation of latent interaction effects with the LMS method. Psychometrika, 65(4), 457-474. doi:10.1007/bf02296338 Lumpe, A. T., Haney, J. J., & Czerniak, C. M. (2000). Assessing teachers' beliefs about their science teaching context. Journal of research in science teaching, 37(3), 275-292. Morin, A. J. S., Marsh, H. W., Nagengast, B., & Scalas, L. F. (2014). Doubly Latent Multilevel Analyses of Classroom Climate: An Illustration. The Journal of Experimental Education, 82(2), 143-167. doi:10.1080/00220973.2013.769412 Muthén, B., & Muthén, L. (1998-2015). MPlus (Version 7.3). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén. Olson, S., & Loucks-Horsley, S. (2000). Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A guide for teaching and learning: National Academies Press. Stohr-Hunt, P. M. (1996). An analysis of frequency of hands-on experience and science achievement. Journal of research in science teaching, 33(1), 101-109. Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, A. W. (2007). The differential antecedents of self-efficacy beliefs of novice and experienced teachers. Teaching and teacher Education, 23(6), 944-956.

Author Information

Nani Teig (presenting / submitting)

University of Oslo

OSLO

Ronny Scherer

Centre for Educational Measurement, University of Oslo, Norway

Trude Nilsen

University of Oslo

Department of Teacher Education and School Research

oslo

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