An Exploration of Causal Attributions of Teacher Educators: A Single Case Study
In this study, an academic’s who has been employed in a foundation-supported university teaching barriers and accompanied attributional reasoning were examined in the context of his belief system with regards to learning, teaching and knowledge. This study is a basic naturalistic inquiry. By means of qualitative data gathering and analysis, it was aimed at estimating how the relation between teaching barriers and attributional reasoning was influenced being held pedagogical-epistemological belief system of the academic. Qualitative data was collected through two different semi-structured interview protocols and gathered data was analysed with an inductive and interpretivist manner. The scholar’s beliefs system’s divergences (teacher-centred vs. learner-centred) allowed to explore the presumable relation of barrier-attribution in the context of pedagogical-epistemological belief system. It was detected that the academic held a more teacher-centred pedagogical belief system. In this context, it was also detected that the academics was liable to make attributions to overly external, non-controllable and stable factors in illuminating her barrier-attribution relation. Major outcomes of the study are evaluated by means of psychological (i.e., attribution theory) and instructional (pedagogical-epistemological beliefs) lenses and suggestions are offered in the context of higher education.
___
- Anderson, R. D. (1996). Study of curriculum reform. Washington: U.S.
Government Printing Office.
Anderson, R. D. (2002). Reforming science teaching: what research says
about inquiry?
Journal of Science Teacher Education, 13(1), 1-12.
Arksey, H. & Knight, P. (1999) Interviewing for social scientists, London:
Sage.
Bibou-Nakou, I., Kiosseoglou, G., & Stogiannidou, A. (2000). Elementary
teachers’
perceptions regarding school behavior problems: Implications for school
psychological services. Psychology in the Schools, 37, 123-134.
Brophy, J.E., & Rohrkemper, M.M. (1981). The influence of problem
ownership on teachers’ perceptions of and strategies for coping with
problem students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 295-311.
Brophy, J. (1996). Teaching problem students. New York: Guilford.
Clark, M. (1997). Teacher response to learning disability: A test of
attributional principles. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 30, 69-79.
Colburn, A. (2000). An Inquiry Primer. Science Scope, Special Issue, 42-
44.
Conway, A. (1989). Teachers’ explanation for children with learning
difficulties: An analysis of written reports. Early Child Development
and Care, 53, 53-61.
Darley, J. M., & Fazio, R. H. (1980). Expectancy confirmation processes
arising in the social interaction sequence. American Psychologist,
35, 867-881.
Davis, B., & Sumara, D. J. (1997). Cognition, complexity and teacher
education. Harvard
Educational Review, 67, 105-125.
Georgiou, S., Christou, C., Stravrinides, P., & Panaoura, G. (2002).
Teacher attributions of student failure and teacher behaviour toward
the failing student. Psychology in the Schools, 39, 583-595.
Gilbert, D. T., & Malone, P. S. (1995). The correspondence bias.
Psychological Bulletin,
117(1), 21-38.
Guba, E.G. (1981). Criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of naturalistic
inquiries, Educational Communication and Technology Journal, 29,
75–91.
Gosling, P. (1994). The attribution of success and failure: the subject/
object contrast.
European Journal of Psychology of Education, 9, 69-83.
Hashweh, M. (1996) Effects of science teachers’ beliefs in teaching,
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 33(1), 47-63.
Hashweh, M. (2005) Teacher pedagogical constructions: a reconfiguration
of pedagogical
content knowledge. Teachers and Teaching, 11(3), 273-292.
Ho, I. (2004). A comparison of Australian and Chinese teachers’ attributions
for student
problem behaviour. Educational Psychology, 24, 375-391.
Hockey, J., Robinson, V. & Meah, A., Cross-Generational Investigation
of the Making of Heterosexual Relationships, 1912-2003 [computer
file]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], October
2005. SN: 5190, http://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-5190-1.
Humphrey, R. (1985). How work roles influence perception: Structural
cognitive processes and organizational behavior. American
Sociological Review, 50(2), 242-252.
Johnson, C. C. (2006). Effective Professional Development and Change in
Practice: Barriers Science Teachers Encounter and Implications for
Reform. School Science and Mathematics, 106(3), 150-161.
Jones, E. (1979). The rocky road from acts to dispositions. American
Psychologist, 34, 107-117.
Kagan, D. (1992). Implications of research on teacher beliefs. Educational
Psychologist, 27, 65-90.
Kennedy, M. M. (2010). Teacher assessment and the quest for teacher
quality: A handbook. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kielborn, T.L., & Gilmer, P.J. (Eds.) (1999). Meaningful science: Teachers
doing inquiry
teaching science. Tallahassee, FL: SERVE.
Kulinna, P. H. (2007). Teachers’ attributions and strategies for student
misbehavior.
Journal of Classroom Interaction, 42(2), 21-30.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage.
Matteucci, M. C. (2007). Teachers facing school failure: the social
valorization of effort in the school context. Social Psychology of
Education, 10, 29-53.
Mavropoulou, S., & Padeliadu, S. (2002). Teachers’ causal attributions for
behavior problems in relation to perceptions of control. Educational
Psychology, 22, 191-202.
Medway, F. J. (1979). Causal attributions for school-related problems:
Teacher perceptions and teacher feedback. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 71, 809-818.
Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications
in education:
Revised and expanded from case study research in education. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Ministry of National Education [MNE] (2004a) Mufredat Gelistirme
Sureci: Program Gelistirme Modeli Cercevesinde Yapilan Calismalar
(Curriculum Development Process: Activities Conducted around the
Curriculum Development Model). Ankara, Turkey: MNE.
Ministry of National Education [MoNE] (2004b) Tebligler Dergisi (Official
Bulletin of MoNE), 67(2562), Ankara, Turkey: MoNE.
Ministry of National Education [MoNE] (2004c) Tebligler Dergisi (Official
Bulletin of MoNE), 67(2563), Ankara, Turkey: MoNE.
Ministry of National Education [MoNE] (2004d) Tebligler Dergisi (Official
Bulletin of MoNE), 67(2566), Ankara, Turkey: MoNE.
Newman, W. J., Abell, S. K., Hubbard, P. D., McDonald, J., Otaala, J., &
Martini, M. (2004). Dilemmas of Teaching Inquiry in Elementary
Science Methods. Journal of Science Teacher Education 15(4), 257-
279.
Pajares, M.F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning
up a messy
construct. Review of Educational Research, 62, 307-332.
Peterson, P. L., & Barger, S. A. (1985). Attribution theory and teacher
expectancy. In J. B.
Dusek (Ed.), Teacher expectancies (pp. 159-184). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
Pintrich, P. R. & Schunk, D. H. (2002). Motivation in Education, Teacher
and Classroom
Influences. Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey,
07458.
Poulou, M., & Norwich, B. (2000). Teachers’ casual attributions, cognitive,
emotional and behavioral responses to students with emotional and
behavior difficulties. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 70,
559-581.
Reyna, C., & Weiner, B. (2001). Justice and utility in the classroom:
an attributional analysis of the goals of teachers’ punishment and
intervention strategies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(2),
309-319.
Reyna, C. (2008). Ian is intelligent but Leshaun is lazy: antecedents and
consequences of
attributional stereotypes in the classroom. European Journal of Psychology
of Education, 23(4), 439-458.
Roehrig, G., & Luft, J. (2004). Constraints experienced by beginning
secondary science
teachers in implementing scientific inquiry lessons. International Journal
of Science Education, 26(1), 3-24.
Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings:
Distortions in the
attribution process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social
psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173-220). New York: Academic Press.
Rossman, G.B. & Rallis, S.F. (1998). Learning in the field: An introduction
to qualitative research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Soodak, L. C., & Podell, D. M. (1994). Teachers’ thinking about difficultto-
teach students. Journal of Educational Research, 88, 44-51.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998) (2nd ed.). Basics of qualitative research:
Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tollefson, N., & J. S. Chen (1988). Consequences of Teachers’ Attributions
for Student
Failure. Teaching and Teacher Education 4 (3), 259-265.
Weiner, B., & Kukla, A. (1970). An attributional analysis of achievement
motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 15, 1-20.
Weiner, B. (1972). Theories of motivation. Chicago: Markham.
Weiner, B. (1985). An attributional theory of achievement motivation and
emotion.
Psychological Review, 92, 548-573.
Weiner, B., Amirkhan, J., Folkes, V. S., & Verette, J. A. (1987). An
attributional analysis of excuse giving: Studies of a naïve theory of
emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 316-324.
Weiner, B. (1994). Integrating social and personal theories of achievement
striving. Review of Educational Research, 64, 557-573.
Weiner, B. (2010). The development of an attribution-based theory of
motivation: a history of ideas. Educational Psychologist, 45, 28-36.
Welch,W. Y., Klopfer, L. E., Aikenhead, G. L., & Robinson, J. T. (1981).
The role of inquiry in science education: Analysis and foundations.
Science Education, 65, 33-50