ERIC Number: ED472815
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 2002-Oct
Pages: 14
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Evaluating the Diverse Constructivist Beliefs of Early Childhood, Elementary, and Middle School Education Majors.
Aldrich, Jennifer E.; Thomas, Kelli R.
This study evaluated the tendency toward positive beliefs about constructivism for teacher candidates at one university's teacher education program, identifying differences in the beliefs about constructivist learning between early childhood, elementary, and middle school teacher candidates who had taken early childhood methods courses and those who had not. Student teachers responded to 27 prompts written to represent personal beliefs about the importance of various items to early childhood education (e.g., differences in student interest, differences in student development, active exploration, informal conversation with adults, social skill development, isolating curricular areas, and working alone). Results indicated that respondents in all of the teacher groups had tendencies toward positive beliefs about constructivism. For seven items that indicated a tendency toward constructivism, most of the mean responses suggested that teacher candidates placed the value of an item as very or extremely important to early childhood education. The item with the lowest means of the seven addressed student-directed learning. (SM)
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-Western Educational Research Association (Columbia, OH, October 18, 2002).