Pedagogical Beliefs of Teachers in Tanzania: Experience of Pre-service and In-service Teachers of University Students
Keywords:
Pedagogical beliefs, pre-service teachers, in-service teachers.Abstract
This study investigated the pedagogical beliefs of pre-service and in-service teachers working toward a degree in education at a university in Tanzania. A total of 702 pre-service and in-service teachers from year one and three participated in the study. The Teaching and Learning Conception Questionnaire [1]; [2] was used to measure student-teachers’ pedagogical beliefs. Factor analysis of data from the Teaching and Learning Conception Questionnaire resulted in a two-factor solution very similar to that found by other researchers [1]; [3], with the factors representing a traditional conception and a constructivist conception. Student-teachers had a mean of 4.24 on the constructive conception whereas a mean of 3.20 on traditional conception, on a five-point scale where 1 = ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 = ‘strongly agree.’ MANOVA found significant main effects of year of study, F(1, 606) = 22.11, p = .001, ?2= .04, and Teacher type, F(1, 606) = 8.67, p = .001, ?2 = .01, for the traditional conception. Third year students were closer to neutral in their beliefs about the traditional conception than first year students, and in-service teachers closer to neutral than pre-service teachers. For the constructivist conception, there was a significant interaction of teacher type and year of study for constructivist conception, F (1, 606) = 10.68, p = .001, ?2 = .02. In year one, in-service teachers held more strongly to the constructivist conception than pre-service teachers, but in year three, there was no difference between these groups.
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