Relevance of Teaching Beliefs and instructional Practices of Practitioner Teachers

Abstract

The study explored the correlation between teaching beliefs and instructional practices of the teachers regarding four aspects, i.e. beliefs and practices on ‘students as self-learners’, ‘teaching strategies’, ‘learning environment’ and ‘assessing learning’. For obtaining data about the teaching beliefs, teachers’ beliefs inventory (TBI) was developed and applied, while for measuring their practices, the teachers’ performance checklist (TPC) was applied. In the next phase, an interview was conducted to explore the reasons for the identified missing relation between teachers’ beliefs and their pedagogical practices during teaching. A representative sample, based on gender and locale was selected from 50 schools with a 106 secondary school teachers being selected from these sites. The findings of the research informed that there was an insignificant correlation between the teachers’ teaching beliefs and practices while interacting in classroom. Moreover, most respondents reported the excess of students in a teaching session during classes.