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Teachers' situation-specific mastery experiences: teacher, student group and lesson effects

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Abstract

Following a model on the cyclical nature of teacher (“trait”) self-efficacy and context-, task- and situation-specific (“state”) mastery experiences (TSSME), we investigated the variability and effects of lesson characteristics (e.g. lesson sequence), student group characteristics (e.g. proportion of students receiving free school meals) and teacher characteristics (e.g. teacher experience) on teachers' situation-specific mastery experience. Forty-three teachers reported on 1,055 lessons in 385 student groups using electronic questionnaires in Personal Digital Assistants during a period of 2 weeks. Two domains of TSSME (support of learning and organisation of classrooms) and perception of students (engagement and behaviour) were found. Multilevel models found roughly a quarter of the variance in TSSME between teachers, a quarter between student groups and half between lessons. Student group characteristics differentially predicted TSSME. Perceived student engagement was more predictive of TSSME than perceived student behaviour. More experienced and high-efficacy teachers had higher TSSME. The findings have implications for our understanding of teachers' everyday practice with different student groups.

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Notes

  1. In the literature on control beliefs (Skinner 1996) and action–control beliefs (Little 1998) parallel concepts have been used. Skinner (1996) distinguished between “agent-means beliefs” as the distinct means (e.g. skills, resources, competences) termed agency, capacity and efficacy expectations, while the “means-ends link” refers to whether a certain mean gives rise to a certain outcome termed, e.g. mean-ends, strategy and outcome expectancy beliefs. Actions of agentic persons are considered volitional, goal-oriented and self-regulatory, and they believe they have the capacity, skills, resources and abilities to realise goals (Little 1998).

  2. In these parallel research fields, researchers have conceptualised the emotional, organisational and cognitive domains of teaching using slightly different terminology: autonomy support, structure and teacher involvement (Skinner and Belmont 1993); emotional support, classroom organisation and instructional support (La Paro et al. 2004); personal learning support, classroom management and cognitively challenging elements (Kunter and Baumert 2006); and learner-centred teaching style, orderly classroom management and content-centred teaching style (Opdenakker and Van Damme 2006).

  3. We calculated the explained variance as the proportion of total level-specific error variance (Hox 2002), for example: \( {R}_{\mathrm{level}2}^2=\left(\frac{\sigma_{e\Big|b}^2-{\sigma}_{e\Big|m}^2}{\sigma_{e\Big|b}^2}\right) \), where σ 2 e|b   is the lowest level residual variance for the baseline model and σ 2 e|m   that for the comparison model, giving \( {R}_{\mathrm{level}2}^2=\left(\frac{0.124-0.066}{0.124}=0.468\right) \).

  4. Effect sizes were calculated using recommendations by Marsh et al. (2009): ES = (2 × B × SDpredictor)/ψ, where B is the unstandardised regression coefficient in the MLM, SDpredictor is the standard deviation of the predictor variable at level 2 and ψ the total variance of the dependent variable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Oxford, 15, Norham Gardens, OX2 6PY, Oxford, UK

    Lars-Erik Malmberg & Hazel Hagger

  2. Oxford Health, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, OX4 1XE, UK

    Sophie Webster

Authors
  1. Lars-Erik Malmberg
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  2. Hazel Hagger
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  3. Sophie Webster
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Correspondence to Lars-Erik Malmberg.

Additional information

Lars-Erik Malmberg. Docent, Dr. is a university lecturer in quantitative methods in education at the Department of Education, University of Oxford 15, Norham Gardens, OX2 6PY, UK phone: +00-44-(0)1865-274047 Email: lars-erik.malmberg@education.ox.ac.uk

Current themes of research:

His current research interests are intraperson approaches in educational research, students' action control and self-regulation, and teacher development. His five most important publications in educational psychology are:

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Malmberg, L-E., Hall, J., Martin, A. J., (2013). Academic buoyancy in secondary school: exploring patterns of convergence in mathematics, science, english and physical education. Learning and Individual Differences, 23, 262–266.

Malmberg L-E., Mwaura, P., & Sylva, K. (2011). Effects of a pre-school intervention on cognitive development among East-African pre-school children: a flexibly time-coded growth model. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 26, 124–133.

Malmberg, L-E., Hagger, H., Burn, K., Mutton, T., & Colls, H. (2010). Observed classroom quality during teacher education and two years of professional practice. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102, 916–932.

Malmberg, L-E., & Hagger, H. (2009). Changes in student teachers' agency beliefs during a teacher education year, and relationships with observed classroom quality, and day-to-day experiences. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 677–694.

Malmberg, L-E., Wanner, B., & Little, T. D. (2008). Age and school-type differences in children's beliefs about school performance. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 32, 531–541.

Hazel Hagger. DPhil, Senior Researcher, Department of Education, University of Oxford 15, Norham Gardens, OX2 6PY, UK Email: hazel.hagger@education.ox.ac.uk

Current themes of research:

Hazel is a senior research at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, and a visiting scholar at the Univeristy of Auckland, New Zeeland. Her current research interests are on beginning teachers' own learning. She has published widely in teacher education.

Sophie Webster. (BSc) Assistant Clinical Psychologist/Research Assistant with Psychological Services, Oxford Health, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, OX4 1XE Email: sophie.webster@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk

Current themes of research:

Sophie was the research assistant in the Teaching Every Lesson (TEL) study in 2009. She is currently working on the CBT for Carers of Dementia research project and is collecting the data for the Psychological Service Evaluation (National Audit of Psychological Therapies). Since graduating she has also been working as an Assistant Team Therapist for the Complex Needs Service and helping with the Personality Disorder projects there.

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Malmberg, LE., Hagger, H. & Webster, S. Teachers' situation-specific mastery experiences: teacher, student group and lesson effects. Eur J Psychol Educ 29, 429–451 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-013-0206-1

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