Teachers’ Beliefs and Educational Research: Cleaning Up a Messy Construct

TLDR

Teachers’ beliefs warrant focused research because they can inform practice beyond current agendas, yet studying them is hampered by definitional problems, poor conceptualizations, and divergent understandings. The article aims to clarify teachers’ beliefs by examining researchers’ definitions, contrasting them with knowledge, proposing a consistent definition, exploring key belief structures, and arguing that clear conceptualizations and precise meanings are essential for making beliefs a central focus of educational inquiry. The authors analyze researchers’ definitions of beliefs, contrast them with knowledge, propose a consistent definition, examine key researchers’ belief structures, and synthesize findings. The study offers implications and future research directions based on its synthesis of belief definitions and structures.

Abstract

Attention to the beliefs of teachers and teacher candidates should be a focus of educational research and can inform educational practice in ways that prevailing research agendas have not and cannot. The difficulty in studying teachers’ beliefs has been caused by definitional problems, poor conceptualizations, and differing understandings of beliefs and belief structures. This article examines the meaning prominent researchers give to beliefs and how this meaning differs from that of knowledge, provides a definition of belief consistent with the best work in this area, explores the nature of belief structures as outlined by key researchers, and offers a synthesis of findings about the nature of beliefs. The article argues that teachers’ beliefs can and should become an important focus of educational inquiry but that this will require clear conceptualizations, careful examination of key assumptions, consistent understandings and adherence to precise meanings, and proper assessment and investigation of specific belief constructs. Implications of findings and directions for future research are offered.