Teaching for creativity in writing requires not only knowledge, skills and understanding, but the emotional capacity to tolerate uncertainty, take risks and engage artistically. This paper reflects upon one strand of a research project which is examining the relationship between teachers' development as writers at their own level and their…

The focus of this study was elementary preservice teachers' development as effective teachers of science and mathematics as influenced by their participation in elementary science and mathematics methods courses. Preservice teachers' reports of factors that influenced their perception of their teaching abilities were analyzed according to…

The current study explores the relationship between perceived teacher efficacy and specific practices of family involvement exhibited by 110 elementary school teachers from a large urban school district. Bandura's construct of self-efficacy provided the theoretical framework for examining teacher efficacy. The study investigated the predictive…

This study addresses the issue of illusion of incompetence among elementary school children. The first objective is to examine whether teachers are able to recognize children with an illusion of incompetence. The second objective is to see whether teachers' appraisal of the behaviours and psychological characteristics of these children differ from…

This paper presents the results of a case study involving Taiwanese elementary teachers who teach science at the elementary grade school level. It advocates the position that a teacher's personal science efficacy belief influences his or her science teaching outcome expectations. It also points to an important metamorphosis that is taking place…

This study examined the influence of participation in school-based professional study group activities on both general and personal teaching efficacy. It also examined teachers' perceptions of changes that occurred in their teaching performance as a result of participation in the study group sessions. Participants were elementary teachers who…

Children's physical inactivity is becoming an important health concern, and it has been suggested by professionals that school programs can be important in the effort to increase activity levels. Physical education specialists cannot achieve the goal of significantly increasing children's activity in isolation, and it is apparent that whole school…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the sense of Teacher Efficacy (TE) belief held by Singapore teachers for teaching primary social studies. Teacher Efficacy, which comprises Personal Teaching Efficacy (PTE) and General Teaching Efficacy (GTE), was measured. A group of 116 primary school teachers attending a social studies in-service…

This article reports on an investigation of the teaching of music by non-music specialists in the primary school. In particular, it examines attitudes to teaching music, factors affecting teachers' confidence, the relationship between confidence and training, support for music teaching, teaching experience and musical background. The…

The present study contributes to knowledge of the construct validity of the short form of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (and by extension, given their similar content and psychometric properties, to the long form). The authors' research involves: (1) examining the psychometric properties of the TSES on a large sample of elementary, middle,…

If elementary science education is to be improved, elementary teachers must be willing to devote more time and energy to the curriculum. Increased self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs were predicted antecedents to the behavior change. This study was designed to provide a valid and reliable measure of the teacher self-efficacy of preservice…

This paper presents the results of a case study involving Taiwanese elementary teachers who teach science at the elementary grade school level. It advocates the position that a teacher's personal science efficacy belief influences his or her science teaching outcome expectations. It promotes the position that the success Taiwan has experienced in…

This paper examines the effectiveness of a universal school-based prevention program designed to increase coping resources in preadolescents through the modeling and teaching of optimistic thinking skills in response to real and hypothetical events. Six classroom teachers implemented the program in grades five and six within the regular school…

This study examined the effectiveness of an inservice elementary health education training. Pretesting and posttesting of teachers who did and did not participate indicated that intervention participants scored significantly higher on efficacy and outcome expectations subscales, taught more hours of health, and put more effort into specific health…

To explore dimensions of teacher efficacy, researchers analyzed the responses of 310 teachers to a Teacher Efficacy Scale. Results indicated that teacher efficacy comprises three uncorrelated factors (personal efficacy, outcome efficacy, and teaching efficacy), underscoring the need for continuing exploration of the dimensions of this construct.…