Measuring Teachers’ Beliefs: A Comparison of Three Different Approaches

Safrudiannur; Benjamin Rott

doi:10.29333/ejmste/110058

Full Text (PDF)

Safrudiannur ¹ ² ^* , Benjamin Rott ¹

More Detail

¹ University of Cologne, GERMANY² Mulawarman University, INDONESIA^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

The use of Likert scale items for measuring teachers’ beliefs quantitatively is criticized. In this study, two quantitative methods to measure teachers’ beliefs, a Likert scale instrument as well as a new instrument employing rank-then-rate items, are each compared with a qualitative approach at obtaining beliefs, i.e. interviews along with observations. In the first comparison, teachers’ responses to the Likert scale instrument seem to not fit the beliefs interpreted from the qualitative approach, particularly regarding beliefs about teaching and learning. Further analyses show that a tendency to respond according to social desirability as well as unspecific teaching contexts seem to be responsible for these inconsistencies. In the second comparison, since the rank-then-rate instrument also takes students’ abilities as a teaching context into account, we observed a better fit between teachers’ responses to the instrument and the qualitative approach. The results of both comparisons indicate the importance of considering teaching contexts as well as alternatives to Likert scale items because of social desirability in order to have a better prediction about teachers’ beliefs.

Keywords

measuring teachers’ beliefs
Likert scale
social desirability
social context
students’ abilities

License

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, Volume 16, Issue 1, January 2020, Article No: em1796

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/110058

Publication date: 08 Sep 2019

Article Views: 4380

Article Downloads: 3299

Open Access References How to cite this article

References

Alwin, D. F., & Krosnick, J. A. (1985). The Measurement of values in surveys: A comparison of ratings and rankings. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 49(4), 535-552. https://doi.org/10.1086/268949.
Ambrose, R., Clement, L., Philipp, R., & Chauvot, J. (2004). Assessing prospective elementary school teachers’ beliefs about mathematics and mathematics learning: Rationale and development of a constructed-response-format beliefs survey. School Science and Mathematics, 104(2), 56–69. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2004.tb17983.x.
Anderson, J., White, P., & Sullivan, P. (2005). Using a schematic model to represent influences on, and relationships between, teachers’ problem solving beliefs and practices. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 17(2), 9-38. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03217414.
Bai, B., Liu, X., & Kou, Y. (2016). Belief in a just world lowers bribery intention. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 19, 66-75. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12108.
Beswick, K. (2004). The impact of teachers’ perceptions of student characteristics on the enactment of their beliefs. In M. J. Hoines & A. B. Fuglestad (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th annual conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2, pp. 111–118). Bergen: Bergen University College.
Beswick, K. (2005). The beliefs/practice connection in broadly defined contexts. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 17(2), 39-68. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03217415.
Beswick, K. (2018). Systems perspectives on mathematics teachers’ beliefs: Illustrations from beliefs about students. In E. Bergvist, M. Österhom, C. Granberg & L. Sumpter (Eds.). Proceedings of the 42nd Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1, pp. 3-18). Umeå, Sweden: PME.
Brown, A., & Maydeu-Olivares, A. (2012). How IRT can solve problems of ipsative data in forced-choice questionnaires. Psychological Methods, 18(1), 36-52. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030641.
Buehl, M. M., & Beck, J. S. (2015). Beliefs and teachers’ practices. In H. Fives and M. G. Gill (Eds.), International Handbook of Research on Teachers’ Beliefs, (pp. 66-84). New York: Routledge.
Cooney, T. J. (1985). A beginning teacher’s view of problem solving. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 16(5), 324-336. https://doi.org/10.2307/749355.
Cross Francis, D. I. (2015). Dispelling the notion of inconsistencies in teachers’ mathematics beliefs and practices: A 3-year case study. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 18(2), 173-201. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-014-9276-5.
Di Martino, P., & Sabena, C. (2010). Teachers’ beliefs: The problem of inconsistency with practice. In M. Pinto, & T. Kawasaki (Eds.). Proceedings of the 34th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2, pp. 313-320). Belo Horizonte, Brazil: PME.
Ernest, P. (1989a). The impact of beliefs on the teaching of mathematics, in P. Ernest (Ed.), Mathematics teaching: The state of the art (pp. 249-254). London: Falmer Press.
Ernest, P. (1989b). The knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of the mathematics teacher: a model. Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy, 15(1), 13-33. https://doi.org/10.1080/0260747890150102.
Furinghetti, F., & Pehkonen, E. (2002). Rethinking characterisations of beliefs. In G. Leder, E. Pehkonen, & G. Törner (Eds.), Beliefs: A hidden variable in mathematics education? (pp. 39–57). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47958-3_3.
Hannula, M., & Oksanen, S. (2016). The effect of teacher beliefs on student affect and achievement. Paper presented at the conference of the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education, Hamburg, Germany.
Hill, C. E., Thompson, B., & Williams, E. N. (1997). A guide to conducting consensual qualitative research. The Counseling Psychologist, 25(4), 517-572. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000097254001.
Hoyles, C. (1992). Mathematics teaching and mathematics teachers: A meta-case study. For the Learning of Mathematics, 12(3), 32–44.
Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayan Indonesia. (2013). Lampiran Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Indonesia no. 65 tahun 2013: Standar proses untuk satuan pendidikan dasar dan menengah [The attachment of the decree of the Minister of Education and Culture of Indonesia no. 65 year 2013: The process standard for elementary and secondary school]. Retrieved on 16 November 2015 from http://jdih.kemdikbud.go.id/new/public/produkhukum.
Leatham, K. R. (2006). Viewing mathematics teachers’ beliefs as sensible systems. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 9(1), 91-102. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-006-9006-8.
Li, M., & Yu, P. (2010). Study on the inconsistency between a pre-service teacher’s mathematics education beliefs and mathematics teaching practice. Journal of Mathematics Education, 3(2), 40-57.
McCarty, J. A., & Shrum, L. J. (1997). Measuring the importance of positive constructs: A test of alternative rating procedures. Marketing Letters, 8(2), 239-250. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007918705434.
Paulhus, D. L. (1991). Measurement and control of response bias. In J. P. Robinson, P. R. Shaver, & L. S. Wrightsman (Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes (pp. 17–59). San Diego: Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-590241-0.50006-X.
Paulhus, D. L. (2017). Socially desirable responding on self-reports. In V. Zeigler-Hill, T.K. Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences (pp. 1-5). Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8.
Peterson, R. A. (2000). Constructing effective questionnaires. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483349022.
Philipp, R. A. (2007). Mathematics teachers’ beliefs and affect. In F. K. Lester (Ed.), Second handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning: A project of the national council of teachers of mathematics (pp. 257-315). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Raymond, A. M. (1997). Inconsistency between a Beginning Elementary School Teacher’s Mathematics Beliefs and Teaching Practice. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28(5), 550-576. https://doi.org/10.2307/749691.
Rott, B. (2019, in press). Teachers’ behaviors, epistemological beliefs, and their interplay in lessons on the topic of problem solving. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-019-09993-0.
Safrudiannur, & Rott, B. (2017). Teachers’ beliefs and how they correlate with teachers’ practices of problem solving. In B. Kaur, W. K. Ho, T. L: Toh, B. H. & Choy (Eds), Proceedings of the 41st Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Vol. 4 (pp. 121-128). Singapore: PME.
Safrudiannur, & Rott, B. (2018a). The different mathematics performances in PISA 2012 and a curricula comparison: enriching the comparison by an analysis of the role of problem solving in intended learning processes. Mathematics Education Research Journal, online first, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-018-0248-4.
Safrudiannur, & Rott, B. (2018b). Evaluation of a questionnaire for studying teachers’ beliefs on their practice (TBTP). In B. Rott, G. Törner, J. Peters-Dasdemir, A. Möller, & Safrudiannur (Eds.), Views and Beliefs in Mathematics Education: The Role of Beliefs in the Classroom (pp. 227–238). Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01273-1_19.
Schoenfeld, A. H. (2015). What counts, when? Reflection on beliefs, affect, attitude, orientations, habits of mind, grain size, time scale, context, theory, and method. In B. Pepin and B. Roesken-Winter (Eds.), From beliefs to dynamic affect systems in mathematics education (pp. 395–404). Switzerland: Springer International.
Schuessler, K., Hittle, D., & Cardascia, J. (1978). Measuring responding desirably with attitude-opinion items. Social Psychology, 41(3), 224-235. https://doi.org/10.2307/3033559.
Skott, J. (2001). Why belief research raises the right question but provides the wrong type of answer. Paper presented at the 3rd Nordic Conference on Mathematics Education, Kristianstad, Sweden.
Skott, J. (2015). Towards a participatory approach to ‘beliefs’ in mathematics education. In B. Pepin and B. Roesken-Winter (Eds.), From beliefs to dynamic affect systems in mathematics education (pp. 3–23). Switzerland: Springer International. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06808-4_1.
Speer, N. M. (2005). Issues of methods and theory in the study of mathematics teachers’ professed and attributed beliefs. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 58(3), 361-391. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-005-2745-0.
Steenkamp, J., de Jong, M., & Baumgartner, H. (2010). Socially desirable response tendencies in survey research. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(2), 199-214. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.47.2.199.
Thompson, A. G. (1984). The relationship of teachers’ conceptions of mathematics and mathematics teaching to instructional practice. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 15(2), 105–127. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00305892.
Thompson, A. G. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and conceptions: A synthesis of the research. In D. A. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning: A project of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (pp. 127-146). New York, NY, England: Macmillan Publishing Co, Inc.
Van Zoest, L. R., Jones, G. A., & Thornton, C. A. (1994). Beliefs about mathematics teaching held by pre-service teachers. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 6(1), 37–55. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03217261.
Zohar, A., Degani, A., & Vaaknin, E. (2001). Teachers’ beliefs about low-achieving students and higher order thinking. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(4), 469-485. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(01)00007-5.

How to cite this article

APA

Safrudiannur, & Rott, B. (2020). Measuring Teachers’ Beliefs: A Comparison of Three Different Approaches. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 16(1), em1796. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/110058

Vancouver

Safrudiannur, Rott B. Measuring Teachers’ Beliefs: A Comparison of Three Different Approaches. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2020;16(1):em1796. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/110058

AMA

Safrudiannur, Rott B. Measuring Teachers’ Beliefs: A Comparison of Three Different Approaches. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2020;16(1), em1796. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/110058

Chicago

Safrudiannur, and Benjamin Rott. "Measuring Teachers’ Beliefs: A Comparison of Three Different Approaches". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2020 16 no. 1 (2020): em1796. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/110058

Harvard

Safrudiannur, and Rott, B. (2020). Measuring Teachers’ Beliefs: A Comparison of Three Different Approaches. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 16(1), em1796. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/110058

MLA

Safrudiannur et al. "Measuring Teachers’ Beliefs: A Comparison of Three Different Approaches". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 16, no. 1, 2020, em1796. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/110058