Classroom Task Environments and Students' Task-Related Beliefs

Abstract

Students must learn to respond to the task demands imposed by their teachers, and their ability to do so is influenced by certain task-related beliefs. The study described here examined the nature of classroom task environments and their relation to students' task-related beliefs. Students in 19 third- and fourth-grade classrooms completed questionnaires about self-competence, sense of control over outcomes, and intrinsic value of school tasks. These scores were used to identify classrooms where students held more and less desirable patterns of beliefs, and then qualitative descriptions of those classes were examined. 2 dimensions of teachers' practices were associated with more desirable patterns of student beliefs: the extent to which teachers structured information about the environment to render it predictable and comprehensible, and the frequency of opportunities for students to regulate their own task activity. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of beliefs about environmental contingencies as foundational to other important beliefs. Case descriptions of 2 teachers are presented to illustrate the results.