Teacher Beliefs about Students

How Beliefs Operate

A review of educational research suggests that the individual teacher's beliefs, attitudes, and perspectives about his or her work guide pedagogy, instructional planning, and classroom practice. Moreover, beliefs also play an important role in the decisions that teachers make about students in general because they guide how the learner is perceived. Beliefs become the lens through which teachers interpret behavior. As a result, if a teacher believes that a student cannot achieve, then the behavior of the student will be interpreted or perceived through that lens, even when the student behaves in ways contrary to the belief. Similarly, if a teacher believes that a program works, even when it fails, the teacher will attend to the aspects of the program that preserve the belief in the program.

Teachers' beliefs operate independently from the cognition associated with developing knowledge and skills. Frank Pajares emphasized the importance of understanding the four characteristic features of teachers' beliefs: (1) existential presumptions, (2) affective and evaluative aspects, (3) alternativity, and (4) episodic nature. Existential presumptions address the origin of one's beliefs and how these are the reflection of individuals' presumptions about certain truths that they deem applicable to everyone. The affective and evaluative aspects of beliefs relate to the experiences that individuals have had and how these have contributed to forming perceptions regarding specific issues. Because they are deeply personal, beliefs can often exist beyond the individual's control or knowledge and become immutable. The alternativity characteristic of beliefs provides ways through which individuals can recreate situations that they perceive to be ideal. For example, pre-service teachers who have a negative schooling experience may describe their beliefs about teaching effectiveness as a reflection of everything contrary to how they experienced learning. Finally, the episodic nature of beliefs influences the ways in which teachers apply their knowledge to specific classroom situations. That is, teachers may have guiding images from past events that they apply to dealing with similar situations. With this in mind, it is essential that teacher preparation programs address teachers' beliefs and take measures to dialogue about previous experience that influences what teachers believe.

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