ERIC Number: EJ1404609
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0098-6283
EISSN: EISSN-1532-8023
Confidence in and Valuing of Psychological Findings among Preservice Teachers
Eva Seifried; Cordelia Menz; Birgit Spinath
Teaching of Psychology, v51 n1 p58-70 2024
Background: Teachers' perception of psychology is of importance because they get in contact with psychology as a scientific discipline and should apply (educational) psychological findings. This requires a generally positive attitude toward corresponding findings, which should be fostered during teacher education. Objective: The goal of this study was to examine preservice teachers' perception of findings from psychology in general and educational psychology in particular, thereby differentiating between confidence in and valuing of the same. Method: Two subsamples of n = 937 German preservice teachers and n = 310 psychology majors participated in an online survey. Results: Compared with natural science disciplines or another "harder" psychological subdiscipline, preservice teachers perceived psychology as less scientific, and judged findings from psychology and educational psychology to be less credible but more valuable. While both confidence in and valuing of findings from psychology were higher among psychology majors than among preservice teachers, the opposite was true for educational psychology. However, all differences were rather small. Conclusion: We conclude that preservice teachers' perception of (educational) psychology is not alarmingly poor.
Descriptors: Preservice Teachers, Teacher Attitudes, Psychology, College Students, Foreign Countries, Feedback (Response)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Germany
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A