This preliminary study provides a snap shot of the novice teachers' perceptions of their self-efficacy and how it relates to their pedagogy at the beginning of their ongoing professional development training. Oral and written expressions about their pedagogy provide substantive insight to their thoughts and actions regarding teacher efficacy. The…

This study presents the results of qualitative interviews of teachers who completed the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification process. Teachers (N=25) were asked a series of questions about how the NBPTS process impacted their teaching. The findings revealed that the themes of reflection, assessment, and…

Student ratings of the overall effectiveness of their instructor were recorded from 75 sections of college algebra freshman classes at California State University, Long Beach. These ratings were appraised in relation to seven independent variables, including number of students per class, number of rows per class, mean student grade, instructor,…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the sequential method of teaching art skills (Brookes, 1986) could improve the success of intermediate grade school art students. Students were required to draw pictures of still life. A between groups pre-posttest crossover design was used to compare and evaluate the quality of perspective drawings…

This exploratory study sought to examine the perceptions of pre-service elementary school teachers about the purpose of schooling. Eighty students in a junior-level elementary education course at a medium-sized university in the southeastern United States were given a questionnaire to complete, asking for their perspectives on the priority of…

This study used the classroom management framework conceptualized by Wolfgang and Glickman (1980, 1986) to explain the various dimensions of classroom management. This framework defines three broad areas, instructional management, people management, and behavior management. It appears that the lengthened student teaching experience does not impact…

The purpose of this study was to clarify our understanding of the structure of parents' beliefs about kindergarten readiness, and the relationship between those beliefs and parenting practices. Based upon the results of data analyses using the National Household Education Survey (NHES: 93), social-interaction skills were reported as being more…

Previous studies have compared the accuracy of parent, teacher, and clinician ratings of children behavior, especially in diagnostic analysis. However, many have questioned the validity of the tests and the value of each rater. While some research has found differences among raters, few had looked at samples of non-referred children. We wanted to…

In the spring of 2003, a survey was conducted to examine the differences in perceptions of academic rigor and engagement between faculty and undergraduate students at a small, liberal arts university in the Midwest. Although a sample bias in the student responses (students with higher GPAs had a higher tendency to respond) precluded a number of…

Studies have shown that stand-alone technology courses, such as those taught in most teacher education programs, only develop basic computer literacy skills and do not prepare educators to use instructional technology in the classroom. A 14-item questionnaire assessed instructional technology use for classroom management and instructional…

This qualitative study investigates what problem solving strategies interns learn from their clinical teachers during their internships. Twenty-four interns who completed their internship in the elementary grades shared what problem solving strategies had the greatest impact upon them in learning how to deal with problems during their internship.…

This study, assumes the significance of socioeconomic status (SES) or input factors in explaining achievement, and considers the impact of other "process" variables, that is, factors over which schools have some control. Using the Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) data, it examines these variables to determine the elements that can…

The teaching and learning of statistics has impacted the curriculum in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Because of this growing movement to expand and include statistics into all levels of education, there is also a considerable interest in how to teach statistics. For statistics concepts that tend to be very difficult or…

The researcher in this study theorized that preservice elementary teachers who had taken a semester-long mathematics course emphasizing a constructivist approach to instruction would realize a decreased level of math anxiety and gains in perceived teaching efficacy and autonomy over those who had taken a teacher-centered course based on a more…

In a survey on attitudes toward skipping class given to 75 undergraduates at a prominent state university in the Midwest, 84% of 38 respondents answered that they have been or may be inclined to skip a class because of reasons associated with "health": they are tired or just not feeling well. All women (n=20) chose this option, while only 67% of…