We framed the activities found in professional development as a form of enactive experience hypothesized by social cognitive theory to influence efficacy beliefs. This enabled us to employ multiple regression to test the relationship between teachers' perceptions of professional development quality and their sense of efficacy for teaching. Data…

Background: Teacher self-efficacy for teaching nutrition can positively impact student dietary behaviors; however, limited curricular resources and professional development can serve as barriers to the provision of nutrition education in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of a food-based, integrative science…

Forty-four elementary grade teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students were surveyed about how they taught writing and their beliefs about writing. Beliefs about writing included their self-efficacy to teach writing, attitude toward writing, and epistemological beliefs about writing. These teachers from fifteen different states in the United…

With increased emphasis on student achievement in schools, teacher education programs are challenged to meet the demand for highly effective teachers. Ensuring that pre-service teachers feel confident in their ability to teach, prompted one Midwestern University to implement an extended student teaching placement. The idea behind this endeavor was…

Several studies have described the characteristics and employment situations of teaching artists in the United States. This study adds to that literature by describing the characteristics of teaching artists working in K-12 school environments, the nature of the classroom roles of such teaching artists, the professional development and supervision…

This paper describes an engineering outreach programme designed to increase the interest of under-represented youth in engineering and to disseminate pre-engineering design challenge materials to K-12 educators and volunteers. Given university students' critical role as facilitators of the outreach programme, researchers conducted a two-year…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the beliefs of physical education teachers on teaching students with disabilities in inclusive classes. Participants were 29 physical education teachers from Ghana (Africa), Japan, the United States, and Puerto Rico. The research paradigm was qualitatively descriptive using a multisite interview design…

This multiple regression study analyzed the percent of variance in teacher efficacy of 106 student teachers and novice teachers in agricultural education in Ohio explained by selected variables related to perceived support (utilizing a mentor, supportive principal behaviors, collective efficacy), teacher preparation quality, and student teaching…

Purpose: Public schools in the USA face increased pressures for more accountability and improved performance. The objective of this study was to wed two previously separated theoretical strands of educational research--economic theory and organizational theory--by using variables from each theory base to develop, compare, and test a series of…

Illiteracy is on the rise in the United States, and the potential negative impact on today's struggling reader is devastating. Now more than ever, preparing pre-service teachers to be effective teachers of literacy is crucial. This study examined the growth in understandings of best practice literacy of eleven pre-service teachers through paired…

Debates over the efficacy of tenure are longstanding but tenure reform is now more prominent in the public eye given recent high-profile legislative battles in states like Ohio and Wisconsin. This focus on tenure also is a natural outgrowth of the large body of research showing that differences between individual teachers can have profound effects…

The purpose of this study was to describe the behaviors and beliefs of secondary general physical education (GPE) teachers relative to inclusion and teaching of students with disabilities. Participants were nine experienced high school GPE teachers from suburban school districts in California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The research method was…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of a content knowledge (CK) workshop on the enacted pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of teachers and in turn the effects on student learning. Method: A quasiexperimental design was used to examine 4 questions: (a) How does student learning differ as a function of PCK? (b) How does…

Teachers (N=125) in Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) completing the Teacher Manageability Scale rated themselves as more effective in behavior management than 182 Ohio teachers. Behaviors difficult to manage included lack of communication, task dependency, negative aggressiveness, cognitive confusion, and inattention. Personal efficacy was the…

In this study, we provide a contemporary examination of the similarities and differences between early childhood general educators (ECEs) and early childhood special educators (ECSEs) within a theoretically driven model that accounted for the associations of beliefs and knowledge with practice. We used structural equation modeling to examine the…