A Four Year Follow-Up Study of Teachers’ Beliefs After Participating in a Teacher Enhancement Project

Abstract

Beliefs as a practical indicator offer insight into a person’s previous experience and a “method for indirectly evaluating the instruction he has received” (Pehkonen & Torner, 1999). Using this meaning of beliefs, research was carried out to examine the beliefs teachers hold about their own change process. Four years after participating in a teacher change project designed to provide teachers in grades three through nine with experiences that encourage reflection on teaching and learning and to highlight methods that are consistent with a constructivist theory of learning, 37 teachers participated in a research study that asked them to share their beliefs about the experience. Twenty-nine of the 37 teachers were active in a teacher group that continued the mission of the project. Eight were no longer participating. In both groups, the teachers’ believed three factors were instrumental in their change process: collaboration, colleagues in the project, and modeling of thinking and behaviors advocated. Three factors were believed by both groups to have had very little effect or actually hindered their change: the principal or school administration, colleagues in their school, and their day-to-day working conditions. These beliefs provide useful information in “understanding the nature of teachers’ professional development” (Cooney, 1999) and can help us frame future professional development models.