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Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e43

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Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ tate

Beginning teachers who stay: Beliefs about students

Alyson Leah LavigneCurriculum Studies, Roosevelt University, 18 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60613, United States

h i g h l i g h t s

� This is a study of teachers’ beliefs during their first five years in the classroom.� This study examined what beliefs teachers hold about students.� This study examined if teachers’ beliefs about students change across time.� Teachers possess adaptive beliefs about students (e.g., pride, effort).� Teachers develop more positive conceptualizations of students across time.

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 13 April 2013Received in revised form6 December 2013Accepted 9 December 2013

Keywords:Beginning teacher retentionTeacher persistenceTeachers’ beliefsTeacher attrition

E-mail addresses: allavigne@roosevelt.edu, lavigne

0742-051X/$ e see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2013.12.002

a b s t r a c t

Beliefs serve as an adaptation that helps teachers organize their teaching world. Little is known, however,about how beliefs change and serve to help retain and sustain teachers, particularly for beginningteachers who are most likely to leave teaching. This study explores teachers’ beliefs about students in theUS (N ¼ 67) and if these beliefs change during the first five years of teaching. Results indicate thatteachers hold beliefs about students that capture pride and participation. Over time, these beliefsbecome more positive. Implications for teacher education and policy are discussed.

� 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Beliefs that teachers hold about themselves, the schools theywork in and the students they teach, are important. Beliefs andknowledge, often interwoven concepts, contribute to a teacher’slearning and development of expertise (Richardson, 1996). It isthrough beliefs that teachers interpret new knowledge and expe-riences (Pajares, 1992). In turn, beliefs motivate and guide teachers’behaviors and actions (Bandura, 1986; Tolman, 1951), includingtheir decision to remain in the profession of teaching (Coladarci,1992).

There is an extensive theoretical knowledge base on teacherbeliefs (see Calderhead, 1996; Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996),however, there is less practical knowledge on how teachers’ beliefschange over time and to what extent (Eraut, 1994). Preserviceteachers’ beliefs have received substantial attention in the 1980sand 1990s with a particular eye towards the role of teacher edu-cation (Brookhart & Freeman, 1992; Calderhead & Robson, 1991;

alyson@gmail.com.

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Clark, 1988; Florio-Ruane & Lensmire, 1990; Porter & Freeman,1986; Weinstein, 1988; Wilson, 1990). This research continues togarner interest (Mansfield & Volet, 2010; Ogan-Bekiroglu & Akkoc,2009; Sanger & Osguthorpe, 2011; Tanase & Wang, 2010). In morerecent work, researchers have collected longitudinal data on pre-service teachers’ beliefs, following teachers from teacher prepara-tion into the classroom (Caudle & Moran, 2012; Jones, Bryant,Snyder, & Malone, 2012). Few researchers, however, haveexplored how such beliefs develop after a teacher has entered theclassroom and during the formative years (see Johnson, 2004 for anexception).

Beliefs serve as an adaptation (Fang, 1996; Pajares, 1992), andthis finding is particularly apparent for beginning teachers as manyare forced to modify their beliefs because of contextual factors suchas teaching assignment and level of support from colleagues(Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1985). Kagan (1992), in a review of 40studies, found that first-year teachers demonstrate adaptation byusing their developing knowledge and beliefs of pupils and class-rooms to recreate their identity as a teacher. Hence, teachers maysubconsciously rely on underlying mechanisms, such as beliefs, asthey cope with navigate the new and often challenging experiences

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e4332

during their first years of teaching. This strategy may ultimatelyhelp to sustain them (Coladarci, 1992). It is important to note thatcross-culturally, teachers enter the profession with similarmotivationsda desire to work with students (Krecic & Grmek,2005; Montecinos & Nielsen, 1997; Watt & Richardson, 2008).This motive endures as a source of satisfaction once teachers enterthe classroom (Scott, Stone, & Dinham, 2001). Cross-culturally,however, the rates as which teachers remain in the professionvaries substantially. For example, Singapore retains nearly 97% of itsteachers annually (Darling-Hammond & Rothman, 2011). Otherplaces, such as the United States, the UK (Ofsted, 2001), andAustralia (Department of Education, Science and Training, 2003),struggle to retain teachers, particularly beginning teachers. In theUS, the rates are extraordinarily low; only 50% of teachers remain inthe classroom after five years (AEE, 2004; Chang, 2009; Ingersoll &Perda, 2012). These retention rates continue to drop in the US,particularly for first-year teachers where the retention rate hasdecreased 34% from 90.2 in 1998 to 86.8 in 2008 (Ingersoll, Merrill,& Consortium for Policy Research in Education, 2012).

Low retention rates of beginning teachers may have importantimplications for schools and the students they serve. There iscontradictory evidence whether the goal of schools should be toretain all teachers (Ronfeldt, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2013) or only themost effective teachers (The New Teacher Project, 2012). Recentreform efforts in the United States, such as Race to the Top, un-derscore the latter by supporting the elimination of ineffectiveteachers that do not demonstrate improvement in adequate timeand rewarding those teachers deemed highly effective (U.S.Department of Education, 2010). In most cases, these new teacherevaluation models do not take into consideration that teachersimprove in their ability to demonstrate student achievement gainsin the first few years. These gains tend to plateau and stabilizesometime after the second year of teaching, with some studiesindicating stabilization in year three (Henry, Bastian, & Fortner,2011; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005), five (Darling-Hammond,1999) or six (Kersting, Chen, & Stigler, 2012). Despite definitiveevidence of the role of teacher effectiveness in retention, thegrowing number of first year teachers in the United States indicatesthat beginning teachers who leavewill likely to be replaced by first-year teachers (Ingersoll, Merrill, & Consortium for Policy Researchin Education, 2012). Based on the above evidence, these teachersare likely to be less effective. To that end, schools may considertailoring their efforts to retain teachers beyond their third andpotentially fifth or sixth year of teaching when they are most sus-ceptible to leave (and be replaced by a less effective teacher) andhave established themselves in terms of student achievementgains.

Some have noted the importance of societal, cultural, economic,and political factors (e.g., support for beginning teachers, value forteaching as a profession, supply and demand, competitiveness ofthe profession) in explaining the variations in teacher retentionacross countries (Darling-Hammond & Rothman, 2011). Re-searchers who study the general patterns in teacher attrition,mobility, and retention have examined both contextual (e.g., salary,student demographics, certification) and individual-level factorssuch as teacher demographics and burnout (see comprehensivereviews by Borman & Dowling, 2008 and Guarino, Santibañez, &Daley, 2006), pointing out particularly important school-level fac-tors such as administrative support (Boyd et al., 2011). Althoughmany researchers have conducted work that specifically addressesteacher attrition and exit patterns (e.g., DeAngelis & Presley, 2010;Harris & Adams, 2007; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011), few researchershave examined the underlying mechanisms that support retention.Within this body of work, research has primarily focused on themechanisms of support present at the school or district level such

as induction and mentoring (e.g., Bullough, 2005; Hudson, 2012;Ibrahim, 2012).

The aforementioned research contributes to the knowledge onwhy teachers leave. Although research on induction and mentoringoffer some promise, it is unclear if such programs are indeedeffective at retaining beginning teachers (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011;Long et al., 2012), leaving a substantial gap in what is known abouthow best to support beginning teacher retention. Administratorsand educators could learn potentially more by studying the beliefsof teachers who remain during the most turbulent years, despitesometimes less than ideal working conditions or other contextualvariables. This area of research may further illuminate mechanismsthat help these teachers adapt and cope, and, subsequently, bufferthe challenges of the first years of teaching. To that end, in thisstudy I explore how the beliefs of teachers evolve during their firstfive years of teaching. Taking into consideration that cross-culturally teachers enter and remain in teaching because of adesire to work with students, this research focuses particularly onthe beliefs that teachers hold about the students they teach.

2. Theoretical background

This study applies a sociocultural (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978) lens tounderstanding teachers, and embeds teachers’ experiences,development, and identity in communities and classrooms. Inparticular, an emphasis is placed on the importance of teachers’perceptions of, beliefs about, and interactions with the learnersthey teach (Bandura, 1986, 1997). The experiences and beliefs ofbeginning teachers are situated within a larger theoretical frame-work by drawing upon how teachers develop their identity andprogress through their careers.

2.1. Identity development

Teachers’ beliefs do not exist in isolationdbeliefs are integratedinto a teacher’s sense of themself or what Bullough (1997) refers toas “teacher identitydwhat beginning teachers believe aboutteaching and learning as self-as-teacher” (p. 21). Teacher profes-sional identity is a malleable, complex, and often an ill-definedconcept in research (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004). In gen-eral, professional identity refers to a teacher’s concepts of or imageof self, their roles, societal expectations and beliefs about teaching(and related influences); an evolving combination of interwoven‘personal’ and ‘professional’ selves (Beijaard et al., 2004). Day,Kingston, Stobart, and Sammons (2006) have argued for a slightlymodified model that encompasses three, rather than two compo-nents. According to their findings, teachers balance: a personaldimension (life outside of school), a professional dimension (so-cially-embedded expectations of teachers and teachers’ own phi-losophy and beliefs), and a situational dimension (workingenvironment of the teacher). Furthermore, others have argued thatteacher identity is interactive by nature; teachers’ identities emergeout of an interaction between social, cultural and institutional en-vironments (Sleegers & Kelchtermans, 1999), which includes thedaily emotions that teachers experience in classrooms (Zembylas,2003).

The developmental nature of teacher identity is more ambig-uous. Some have found that teachers do not vary in their profes-sional identity profiles by years of experience (Canrinus, Helms-Lorenz, Beijaard, Buitink, & Hofman, 2012), suggesting that whereteachers are in their careers is unrelated to how they identify asteachers. Contrary to these findings, however, Ibarra (1999) foundthat beginning teachers draw upon provisional professional iden-tities before forming a final professional identity that is primarilyconstructed through experience and rehearsal, supporting the

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e43 33

integrative and evolving nature of identity, particularly in the earlyyears. Furthermore, Beijaard (1995) has found that beginningteachers’ professional identity is often perceived as relatively lowupon entry to the profession, and over the course of time teachers’professional identity is rated as less positive. Although teachers’identities at the start of their careers may be less concrete, teachersreinterpret their identities as they move through their careers(Beijaard et al., 2004). One way this happens is when teachers’identities transform with personal life experiences. For example,Day and Kingston (2008) found that significant life experiences,such as starting a family was most likely to occur between teachers’4th e 7th year and 8th e 15th. Subsequently, identities may bemore or less stable at different times for different reasons.

2.2. Career cycle

Teachers’ identity development is also shaped by professionallife experiences. Teachers’ career development is culturallyembedded and situated in a number of contexts, including: policy,personal, time, and work (Day & Kingston, 2008). Furthermore,teachers are likely to have different needs and experiences atdifferent points in their careers. This developmental process beginsto unfold for most teachers with the critical decision to chooseteaching as their career path. Those who choose teaching over-whelmingly do so for intrinsic (e.g., interest in teaching, enjoymentof the subject matter) and altruistic reasons; they have a desire towork with children, want to see children learn and develop, andseek to make a difference in children’s lives. This holds true acrosscultures (Brookhart & Freeman, 1992; Chong & Low, 2009; König &Rothland, 2012; Krecic & Grmek, 2005; Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000;Montecinos & Nielsen, 1997; Moran, Kilpatrick, Abbott, Dallatt, &McClune, 2001; Richardson & Watt, 2006; Sinclair, 2008; Watt &Richardson, 2008), although some variation exists. For example,intrinsic and altruistic reasons for joining teaching are more com-mon in developed countries (e.g., Canada, UK), as some teachersenter teaching with a more global desire to contribute to society ingeneral (Schutz, Crowder, & White, 2001). In less developedcountries (e.g., Zimbabwe, Jamaica), extrinsic factors such as jobsecurity and salary are more prominent (Bastick, 2000).

Initial motives to become a teacher are often the same factorsthat sustain teachers (Scott et al., 2001), hence, some teacherdevelopment theories (e.g., the Life Cycle of the Career Teachermodel) begin the career cycle as early as preservice teaching or thetime spent in training to become teachers (Steffy & Wolfe, 1997;Steffy, Wolfe, Pasch, & Enz, 2000). Drawing from the Life Cycle ofthe Career Teacher and the work of others (Feiman-Nemser &Remillard, 1996; Huberman, 1989a; Katz, 1972), career develop-ment is purported to be a process rather than a linear series ofevents and can be best illustrated by phases that honor the dynamicnature of teachers’ professional development (Sammons et al.,2007).

In applying theory to understanding beginning teachers, his-torically, beginning teachers have been defined as teachers in theirfirst five years of teaching. This cut-off point has primarily beenguided by the work of Katz (1972). According to Katz (1972),teachers focus on survival during their first weeks and months ofteaching and are able to turn their attention towards student in-dividual needs at the conclusion of their first year. Teachers are ableto revise and reflect upon their practices sometime in years three orfour and by year five establish confidence and a sense of compe-tence. Huberman (1989b) has found that teachers who decide toleave the profession do so before their fifth year. Others (Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1996) have suggested that novices establishstates of survival and discovery and then experiment with teachingstrategies. For example, Huberman (1989a) has identified two

phases relevant to the first five years of teaching. The first, survivaland discovery, begins at career entry. Although teachers may feeljoy at the thought of having their own classroom, they are simul-taneously overwhelmed with managing the complexity of teach-ing. According to Huberman, this first phase lasts three or fouryears. The second phase is stabilization. During stabilizationteachers feel greater efficacy in their ability to teach, they begin tomaster the curriculum, and start to refine and adjust their practices.More advanced and expert teachers master practices and developflexibility in later career phases. Together, these theories indicatethat beginning teachers initially seek to survive or “just get by” asillustrated by Manuel (2003), then move on to master the curric-ulum, and eventually experiment with and refine their teachingpractices and strategies.

In general, these phases are echoed by expert-novice re-searchers who have found that teachers early in their careers focuson concerns related to self, and superficial and trivial details of theclassroom, but often fail to identify student issues or behaviors(Borko & Livingston, 1989). In time, teachers place a greateremphasis on student understanding and achievement (Glaser &Chi, 1988; Odell, Huling, & Sweeny, 1999), and develop a betterunderstanding of the importance of student-to-teacher andstudent-to-student interactions (Sabers, Cushing, & Berliner, 1991).

3. Beginning teachers: experiences and beliefs

The abovementioned theories alone might help explain whybeginning teachers leave at such high ratesdthe first years areexciting, yet demanding as teachers struggle to define who they are,their roles, and their practices. Empirical findings generally supportthese theories. Below I summarize research from two relevant areas:1) beginning teachers’ experiences, and2)beginning teachers’beliefs.In describing beginning teachers’ experiences, I integrate research onwhat factors help sustain teachers during the first five years.

3.1. Beginning teachers’ experiences

Teachers in their first five years of teaching encounter a numberof challenges. For example, researchers have found that approxi-mately 20% of new teachers are given no direction in regards tocurriculum (Kauffman, Johnson, Kardos, Liu, & Peske, 2002).Beginning teachers experience more excessive student-to-teacherratio classrooms, conflicts with pupils, feelings of inadequacy, andassignments outside of their specialization (Manaserro et al., 2006).Furthermore, new teachers note that they struggle with adequatelydifferentiating instruction and meeting the needs of exceptionalstudents. One avenue for beginning teachers to alleviate thesestruggles is to seek out assistance from others; however, beginningteachers who feel the need to constantly seek out colleagues forguidance report increased feelings of stress and anxiety (Fantilli &McDougall, 2009). It is unclear if help seeking reflects an inabilityto teach or teach well, especially since first- and second-yearteachers report they feel an expectation to be experts and inde-pendent (Kardos & Johnson, 2007). This may particularly true forindividualistic societies which emphasize self-sufficiency and in-dependence. In addition to these hurdles, new teachers experiencefeelings of disillusionment and worries about an inability to copewith the day-to-day pressures (Gold, 1996). Subsequently, manybeginning teachers experience high levels of stress (Manuel, 2003)and feel overwhelmedda variable that undermines retention(McCarthy & Guiney, 2004).

3.1.1. RetentionBeginning teacher retention poses a problem in many countries

across the globe. Teachers leave the profession early and at high

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e4334

rates, an issue that the United States, the UK (Dolton & Van derKlaauw, 1995, 1999; Ofsted, 2001; 60% remain by year five), andAustralia (Department of Education, Science and Training, 2003;75% remain by year five) struggle with. In the United States, therates are extraordinarily high. For example, after the first year, 84e86% of new teachers return. In some districts in the United States,only 60% return by year three (Weiss, 1999), and by year five only50% remain (Liu & Ramsey, 2008). It is often difficult to establish towhat extent teachers leave the profession (and never return) orsimplymove to other districts. This is because of varying definitionsof what constitutes attrition, how mobility is measured (leaving adistrict as opposed to leaving a school or grade), or becauseteachers are not tracked over time. Nevertheless, attrition is costlyto the teacher preparation programs that spend their time andresources preparing teachers that may only be in the profession fora short time. Further, both mobility and attrition can be equallycostly to schools and districts that spend up to $17,872 replacing asingle teacher (National Commission on Teaching and America’sFuture [NCTAF], 2007). Furthermore, the cost is potentially morethan just financial. According to Ronfeldt et al. (2013), all teacherturnover, both teachers who leave and move within the profession,has been found to harm student achievement. This is even moreconcerning given that in the United States, retention rates continueto decline (Ingersoll, Merrill, & CPRE, 2012).

3.1.1.1. School-level variables. Despite these challenges there aresome teachers who continue in the profession, and the schoolenvironment has been found to play an important role. Accordingto self-reports from beginning teachers, leadership that promotescollaboration, team teaching, and extended time to work withmentors, are just a few of the supports that help retain teachers(Fantilli & McDougall, 2009). Administrative support, teacher au-tonomy and decision-making power, and supportive relationshipswith colleagues are positively related to beginning teacher reten-tion (Boyd et al., 2011).

As a result of the research and policy concerns related tobeginning teacher retention, induction and mentoring programsspecifically designed for early career teachers have gained popu-larity. Mentoring has been found to alleviate beginning teacherburnout, particularly for special education teachers (Schlichte,Yssel, & Merbler, 2005), and help beginning teachers put their ex-periences into perspective, while simultaneously boosting moraleand job satisfaction (Bullough, 2005; Johnson, Berg, & Donaldson,2005; Marabel & Raimondi, 2007). Smith and Ingersoll (2004)found that the more support teachers receive, the greater proba-bility of retention, with basic induction plus collaboration and extraresources resulting in the greatest outcome. Unfortunately, only asmall number (1%) of teachers in the US receive the highest level ofsupport. In England, Wales, New Zealand, and Japan, extra re-sources such as reduced teaching load are more common (Howe,2006). Currently in the US approximately half of all states fundand require new teachers to participate in induction andmentoringprograms (Goldrick, Osta, Barlin, & Burn, 2012).

Despite more recent reviews of research that indicates mixedfindings regarding the effectiveness of mentoring and inductionprograms for new teachers (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Long et al.,2012), self-report studies continue to defend such programs andother forms of support. For example, beginning teachers in urbanhigh-poverty schools indicate state scholarship programs, prepa-ration in academic and practical aspects of teaching, training in thereflective process of teaching, and support from their cohort andprofessional organizations support their career persistence(Freedman & Appleman, 2008). In other self-report research, earlycareer teachers indicate their retention would be supported byincluding more programs that offer teaching load relief in the first

year, meaningful professional development, rich resources fromteaching associations (such as mentors), and more substantialconnections between preparation programs (Manuel, 2003).

3.1.1.2. Individual-level variables. Beyond contextual factors, thereare a number of individual-level factors that have been found tohelp teachers persist in their careers. For this brief review, I focus onpsychological constructs that are malleable or developmentalrather than demographic characteristics. Of the former, job satis-faction, motivation, feelings of belongingness, emotional exhaus-tion, affect, self-efficacy, commitment, resilience, and burnout(Johnson et al., 2010; Le Cornu, 2013; Leung & Lee, 2006; Moe,Pazzaglia, & Ronconi, 2010; Pearce & Morrison, 2011; Skaalvik &Skaalvik, 2010; Zembylas & Papanastasiou, 2004) tend to be themost frequently studied.

One factor that is known to support teacher retention iscommitment (Haun & Martin, 2004; Tsui & Cheng, 1999). Teachercommitment has been defined as a psychological attachment to theprofession of teaching (Chapman, 1982). Teachers who arecommitted have an enduring belief that they can make a differencein students’ lives (Sammons et al., 2007). This is closely related tomotivations to teach which primarily highlight student learningand development (Scott et al., 2001). The rewards that teachersreceive from teaching (both intrinsic and extrinsic) are related tojob satisfaction; a variable closely associated with attrition(Zembylas & Papanastasiou, 2004). Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2011)found that teachers’ sense of belonging may serve as a barrier tothe exhaustion that teachers experience, and is positively related totheir motivation to remain in the profession. This is importantgiven findings that indicate emotional exhaustion is central toburnout (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996), and predicts intentionsof remaining in the profession (Leung & Lee, 2006; Skaalvik &Skaalvik, 2010). Most importantly, feelings of belonging andemotional exhaustion mediate school context variables (Skaalvik &Skaalvik, 2011), which underscore the value of individual factors inretaining and sustaining teachers.

Research on teacher resilience has important implications inunderstanding how to retain teachers in the early years. In Johnsonet al.’s (2010) work, five ‘Conditions of Resilience’ emerged from astudy of 60 beginning teachers: relationships; school culture;teacher identity; teachers’ work; and policies and practice. Onedimension, relationships, is particular relevant to the current study.In an extended analysis of Johnson et al.’s study findings, Le Cornu(2013) found that relationships help early career teachers build asense of belonging by feeling connected to their school. Profes-sional support within these relationships helps teachers when suchsupport acknowledged them as novice professionals with valuablecontributions. Furthermore, ‘relationships’ served as a form ofresilience for the teachers in this study because teacherestudentrelationships were found to have a significant impact on teacherself-efficacy and developing teacher identity. These findings un-derscore the importance of students as a crucial factor in the studyof early career development and related issues (e.g., retention).These findings also highlight the dynamic and interactional natureof individual-level factors, such that individual-level factors evolveand adapt in ways responsive to and in interaction with relationaldimensions and contextual conditions. It is important to note,however, that regardless of the relationships that help sustainteachers, early career teachers need to be in a position to be sus-tained and be active in bi-directional relationships in order for‘relationships’ (a condition of resilience) to function in an adaptiveway (Le Cornu, 2013).

In summarizing the above research, beginning teachers leavethe profession at high rates more so in some countries than others.There has been an extensive focus on how induction andmentoring

1 Grades 9e12 teachers were only present in Cohort 3 of the study. Thus, Cohorts4 and 5 only included first-year, Grades K-8 teachers.

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e43 35

can support beginning teachers with conflicting results (Ingersoll &Strong, 2011). Research on individual-level factors, particularlyresilience, is promising and suggests that dispositional and psy-chological factors may be the key to sustaining teachers, despite (orin addition to) school conditions or societal and cultural influences.To that end, beliefs may be an innovative way of exploring the roleof individual factors and simultaneously offer new and importantinsight about howbeginning teachers who remain in the professioncope and adapt.

3.2. Beginning teachers’ beliefs

Beliefs are those propositions accepted true by the individual(Green, 1971). In the context of the classroom, beliefs that teachershold about themselves, the schools they work in, and the studentsthey teach are important. Beliefs usually fall within larger, moreloosely organized belief systems that have been created throughevents and knowledge. Beliefs help teachers interpret classroomlife, and identify goals and problems (Nespor, 1987), and play a roleinmotivating or predicting behavior (Bandura,1986; Tolman,1951).Hence, beliefs offer significant promise for exploring the underlyingmechanisms that may be related to teachers’ decisions to persist inthe profession.

In general, beliefs are fairly stable. In research with teachers, thisis true over the course of a single year (Stipek, Givvin, Salmon, &MacGyvers, 2001) and over the course of a teacher’s career(Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007), suggesting that beliefsare difficult to change. Beliefs, though, can change and often changewith experience and as teachers are socialized within the context ofschooling (Hoy & Woolfolk, 1990). To what extent teachers’ beliefschange is related to initial beliefs that most teachers bring withthem as they enter their teacher education programs (John, 1991).

There are a variety of beliefs that teachers hold (see Calderhead,1996; Hoy, Davis, & Pape, 2006; Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996 forcomprehensive reviews). For example, teachers hold beliefs aboutthemselvesdwhat it means to be a teacher (e.g., Davis, Hartshorne,Hayes, & Ring, 2003), and their belief in their ability to teach well(self efficacy; Woolfolk Hoy & Burke-Spero, 2005). Researchershave explored teachers’ beliefs about how and what they teach,such as: content and related reforms (see Ross, McDougall, &Hogabaum-Gray, 2002 for a review), and assessment and feed-back (e.g., Pajares & Graham, 1998). Researchers have also exploredbeliefs that teachers hold (both global and specific) that are relatedto their students, such as beliefs about the age group of the studentsthey teach (e.g., Urdan, Midgley, & Wood, 1995), student charac-teristics (Bibou-Nakou, Kiosseoglou, & Stogiannidou, 2000), anddiversity (e.g., Pohan & Aguilar, 2001).

In this abovementioned work, researchers that have examinedteachers’ beliefs about students have primarily focused on beliefsabout ability, gender, or race, whereas, few have focused onteachers’ beliefs about learners, such as students’ motivation, ap-proaches to learning, affect towards school, and other related dis-positions. The most representative work has focused on teachers’beliefs about the nature of intelligence as fixed or malleable (e.g.,Butler, 2000). Furthermore, although research on beliefs (andchange in beliefs) of inservice teachers received significant atten-tion in the 1990s, it has primarily focused on beliefs related toparticular content (see Richardson, 1996 for a review), not beliefsabout learners. According to Richardson (1996), research onteachers’ beliefs may be more beneficial if focused on inservicerather than preservice teachers as studies have shown teachers toreadjust their beliefs more substantially as they begin to interactwith students.

In sum, there is a need to better understand the beliefs teachershold about students, the main reason teachers list for entering and

remaining in the classroom (Neild, Useem, Travers, & Lesnick, 2003;Shann, 2001). This may be particularly illuminating for beginningteachers who are at the greatest risk of leaving the profession. Withbeliefs as an adaptation in mind, the present study examines thebeliefs of teachers who have remained in the profession for 3e5years (N¼ 67), andwas guided by the following research questions:

1. What beliefs do teachers hold about students in the first year ofteaching (Time 1)?

2. Do teachers’ beliefs about students change across time (Time 1as compared to Time 2)?

4. Method

4.1. Study overview

This study was part of a larger project, the First Year TeacherObservation Project (FYTOP; Good et al., 2006). The initial goals ofFYTOPwere to examine the teaching practices of first-year teachersin Grades K-12 in the southwestern United States. In Year 3, theproject was modified to reflect new and important areas ofresearch. A longitudinal aspect was added in Years 3, 4, and 5 tofollow first-year teachers (Year 3: N ¼ 139; Year 4: N ¼ 88; Year 5:N ¼ 87) into their second and third years of teaching. Teachingpractices, student achievement, teacher beliefs, and teacherretention data were collected. First-year teachers who startedparticipation in FYTOP in Years 3, 4, and 5 (Cohorts 3, 4, and 5) wererecruited to participate in this follow-up study in the spring of 2009(Lavigne, 2010).

4.2. Procedures

Recruitment was based on teaching status during the 2008e2009 year. In the fall of 2008, data were collected to determinewhich of the 315 teachers from Cohorts 3, 4, and 5 were stillteaching.1 One hundred and thirty-six teachers (across 8 districts)were successfully located as still teaching in the 2008e2009 schoolyear.

Following University ethics committee approval of the research,participating FYTOP districts were notified of continued datacollection with participating teachers. In May 2009, the 136teachers were recruited via email to participate in a follow-upstudy examining their current beliefs about students. Teachersreceived a packet in the mail containing a stamped and addressedreturn envelope, a consent form, and three surveys assessing intentto stay in the profession and beliefs about students.

4.3. Participants

Sixty-seven of the 133 successfully contacted teachers (50.4%)participated in the follow-up study. A majority of the 67 partici-pants were female (89.6%), and had received their teaching certif-icate through a traditional teacher education program (70.1%). Theparticipants were distributed across a wide range of school-levelSES, as measured by Free-Reduced Lunch Percentages (range:4.15e96.98%, M ¼ 55.15, SD ¼ 30.87). These 67 teachers weredistributed across three cohorts (Cohort 3: n¼ 28, Cohort 4: n¼ 29,Cohort 5: n ¼ 10). Although all three cohorts had moderateresponse rates ranging from 41.7 to 53.7% (Asch, Jedrziewski, &Christakis, 1997; Shih & Fan, 2009), Cohort 5 was underrepre-sented in the final sample. This was partially due to the unusually

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e4336

small recruitment pool for Cohort 5 as a result of low retentionrates.

4.4. Data collection

Research questions include data from two data collection timepoints. Time 1 data (initial beliefs) were collected in the fall of thefirst year of teaching for three cohorts of teachers: Cohort 3 (first-year teachers in 2004e2005), Cohort 4 (first-year teachers in2005e2006), and Cohort 5 (first-year teachers in 2006e2007).Time 2 data (current beliefs) were collected in the spring of 2009, astandard time point for all teachers (see Table 1). Since the Time 1data point varied in absolute calendar year, by Time 2, teacherswere either in their third, fourth, or fifth year of teaching.

4.5. Instrumentation

“The thing about my school is...” scale. Data in the currentstudy were collected using a number of scales, only one of which isreported here; a survey originally designed by Mary McCaslin for astudy on Comprehensive School Reform (McCaslin & Good, 2005).The survey was designed to capture the beliefs of students inGrades 3e5 who attend schools that serve students of poverty(McCaslin, 2008; McCaslin & Burross, 2008; McCaslin & Good,2005). The 30-item measure organizes student understandings ofand dispositions toward school into five domains: students’ per-ceptions of school, classroom experiences with peers, classroomexperiences with the teacher, and the content areas of mathematicsand reading across two areas: social context and curriculum. Socialcontext includes students’ perceptions of school, teacher, andclassmates. Curriculum includes the domains of mathematics andreading. Each of the five domains was designed to capture expec-tancy (“I learn even better when my teacher helps me”), value (“Ilike my teacher”), emotional contingencies (“When my teacher isproud of me, I feel even better about me”), and beliefs (“Teacherslike smart students the best”) that undermine or support studentlearning. For detailed information about the instrument, seeMcCaslin, 2008.

McCaslin and Burross (2008) used this scale with students inGrades 3e5 (Study 1: N ¼ 464, Study 2: N ¼ 328) who live inpoverty. Results indicated that students possess shared beliefsrelated to their school (e.g., “I feel better about myself when I have agood day at school.”), teacher (e.g., “I like my teacher.”), and mathand reading (e.g., “Understanding the story helps you read thewords right.”). An exploratory factor analysis revealed five factorsaccounting for 36% of the variance in students’ reports. These fac-tors, in rank order, were: Pride in Achieving (e.g., “I feel better aboutmyself when I have a good day in school.”), Rigid and Right (e.g.,“There is only one right way to read a book.”), Participation andBelonging (e.g., “When I miss school, I feel bad if others didn’t

Table 1Data collection time points by Year and Cohort.

Year Cohort

3 4 5

2004e2005 Time 1 DataCollection

2005e2006 Time 1 DataCollection

2006e2007 Time 1 DataCollection

2007e20082008e2009 Time 2 Data

CollectionTime 2 DataCollection

Time 2 DataCollection

notice.”), Resignation and Social Futility (e.g., “If my teacher is in abad mood, I get in a bad mood.”), and Reading and Literacy (e.g., “Ilike reading and talking about books.”). Findings demonstrated thatstudents possess a need for validation in both achievement andaffiliation. Results from a sub-group of tracked participants(N ¼ 101) also suggested the role of these beliefs in adaptation,particularly for students who face challenges with poverty andmobility.

In the present study; however, “The thing about my school is.”

captures teachers’ beliefs about their students’ dispositions towardschool. In applying a sociocultural lens (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978), itwas pertinent to acknowledge that these beliefs about school maybe co-constructed by teachers and students. Teachers’ responses to“The thing about my school is.” scale both honors and allows forexamination of this assumption, when comparing findings from thepresent study to prior work (McCaslin & Burross, 2008). “The thingabout my school is.” scale was also chosen because teachers inthis sample serve students similar to those used to construct theoriginal scale. For example, teachers in this study serve a largenumber of students in poverty; nearly 60% of teachers were locatedin schools in which 50% or more of students receive free andreduced lunches. Nearly 40% of teachers serve schools inwhich 80%or more of students receive free and reduced lunches. Furthermore,93% of the teachers in this sample were located in Grades K-8.Hence, the scale was distributed to teachers in the fall of their firstyear of teaching (Time 1) and again in May of 2009 (Time 2).Teachers were asked to respond to the scale in the way that theythought a majority of their students would respond. In this sense, itwas expected that the responses would capture teachers’ beliefsabout students’ dispositions and potentially that teachers mightproject their own beliefs about learners, rather than those of theirstudents. Teachers responded to the statements using the followingresponse options representing a 5-point Likert scale: YES (stronglyagree), yes, ???, no, and NO (strongly disagree).

4.6. Data procedures

Missing data were minimal; however, mean and median sub-stitution procedures were used to impute values for missing data(McKnight, McKnight, Sidani, & Figueredo, 2007). For each variablez-scores for skewness and kurtosis were calculated in order toprovide a more accurate assessment of distribution of scores. Var-iables with zskew and zkurtosis absolute values greater than 1.96failed tomeet the requirements for normal distribution andmediansubstitution imputation was used. Mean imputation was used fornormally distributed variables. Overall, mean and median impu-tation had little effect onmean values, because of limited variabilityin item responses.

4.7. Analytical procedures

Analytical procedures and selection were modeled afterresearch conducted by McCaslin and Burross (2008). Theoreticalunderpinnings of the scale and previous work (McCaslin, 2008;McCaslin & Burross, 2008; McCaslin & Good, 2005) guided inter-pretation of findings and patterns. Special attention was given tothose factors (Pride in Achieving, Rigid and Right, Participation andBelonging, Resignation and Futility, and Reading and Literacy) andshared beliefs previously identified by students in Grades 3e5(McCaslin & Burross, 2008) and the three underlying elements ofthe scaledexpectancy, emotional contingency, and beliefs(McCaslin, 2008).

Subsequently, in this study the two primary research questionswere examined two ways. First, descriptive statistics were used todescribe teachers’ beliefs about students’ dispositions toward

Table 2Descriptive Statistics for “The thing about my school is.”.

Item Time 1 Time 2

M SD M SD

I look forward to going to school each day. 4.10 .55 4.26 .59I mostly like learning in small groups. 3.86 .81 3.97 .90I enjoy doing work in math. 3.36 1.02 3.75 .93I like my teacher. 4.22 .55 4.26 .56I like reading and talking about books. 3.62 1.04 3.80 1.03When I miss school, I feel bad if others

didn’t notice.3.76 .80 4.27 .66

I don’t like math as much if I am not thefirst one finished.

2.70 .81 2.39 .76

When my teacher is proud of me, I feel evenbetter about me.

4.58 .58 4.57 .61

I don’t like to read if I don’t know all the words. 3.41 .93 3.30 1.04I feel better about myself when I have a good

day at school.4.34 .62 4.45 .58

If my group argues, I don’t feel like doing thework anymore.

3.66 .90 3.63 .97

I feel better about myself when I understandhow to do the math problems.

4.44 .54 4.33 .68

If my teacher is in a bad mood, I get in abad mood.

3.45 1.00 3.44 .97

When it is my turn to read out loud andI make no mistakes, I like reading evenbetter.

4.07 .77 4.07 .74

If you study when you are in school now, youwill get a good job later.

3.79 .84 4.27 .77

If your group doesn’t get along, there isnothing you can do about it.

2.38 .96 2.15 .94

In math, the fastest student is not always thebest student.

3.35 1.09 3.72 1.07

Teachers like smart students the best. 2.67 1.26 2.65 1.19Understanding the story helps you read the

words right.4.04 .64 4.01 .83

Going to a good school is important forsuccess in life.

3.62 .86 3.91 .98

Two heads are better than one. 3.78 .75 3.86 .87In math, there is only one right way to get

the answer.2.60 1.11 2.19 1.00

Teachers want students to do their best. 4.66 .51 4.69 .47There is only one right way to read a book. 2.42 .91 2.42 1.03I think this school is a good school. 4.15 .78 4.30 .63I learn more when I work with a partner. 3.90 .60 4.00 .80I am good at math. 3.24 .95 3.76 .82I learn even better when my teacher helps me. 4.37 .49 4.45 .53I am a good reader. 3.70 .80 3.88 .83

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e43 37

school. Modeled after McCaslin and Burross’ (2008) analysis,shared beliefs were determined using mean scores of 4.5 or higheron a 5-point scale to indicate that a majority of teachers highlyendorsed the item. Items with mean scores of 1.5 or below indi-cated items of low endorsement and rejected beliefs.

Second, exploratory factor analyses (as used in prior research,McCaslin & Burross, 2008) were employed to further captureteachers’ beliefs about students, particularly patterns that existedacross survey items. The factor analysis literature includes a num-ber of recommendations for the appropriate sample size needed toconduct exploratory factor analysis, with suggestions ranging from100 to 250 (see Cattell, 1978; Gorusch, 1983; Guilford, 1954). Cattell(1978) has argued for the importance of N/p ratio with recom-mendations of 3e6 cases for every 1 variable. More recent work(Hogarty, Hines, Kromrey, Ferron, & Mumford, 2005; MacCallum,Widaman, Preacher, & Hong, 1999) has confirmed the appropri-ateness of small sample sizes particularly when communalities arehigh, even for sample sizes well below 50 (De Winter, Dodou, &Wieringa, 2009). Hence, minimum sample size or N/p ratios havesince been abandoned.

A number of precautions were taken to support the underlyingend goal of subsequent exploratory factor analysesdto present apattern of correlations with as few factors as possible (Tabachnick &Fidell, 2007). Given the relatively small sample size in the presentstudy, attention was placed on communalities to determine theintegrity of the planned exploratory factor analyses and relatedresults. For example, because scree tests are less reliable with smallsample sizes (Gorusch, 1983), the Kaiser-Guttman rule, with anadvised eigenvalue criterion of greater than 1.0 (Guttman, 1954),was examined. Data were also subjected to a Monte-Carlo parallelanalysis (Lautenschlager, 1989) since the Kaiser-Guttman rule canresult in overextraction. An arbitrary cut-off point of 5% variancewas applied to determine which factors would be included in themodel description and subsequent analyses. A factor loading cut-offpoint of .4 was utilized to identify the scale items that loaded onto aparticular factor (Raubenheimer, 2004).

5. Results

In the following analyses, the term “staying participants” wasused to indicate the teachers who stayed through their first 3e5years in the profession and responded to the follow-up survey inMay of 2009 (Time 2). “Staying non-participants” representsteachers who remained through their first 3e5 years of teaching,but did not respond to the follow-up survey in Time 2. The term“stayers” encompasses both of these groups; teachers whoremained through their first 3e5 years of teaching.

5.1. Participant bias

Prior to analysis of the three primary research questions, aPearson’s chi square test was conducted to compare the 2008e2009 recorded district and grade level of “staying participants”(N ¼ 67) and “staying non-participants” (N ¼ 66) to examine if“staying participants”were a representative sample of all “stayers”.Results indicated no significant association between grade levelgroup and response to the survey X2(3, n ¼ 133) ¼ 1.27, p > .05 orbetween district and response to the survey X2(7, n ¼ 133) ¼ 5.24,p> .05. An independent samples t-test was conducted to examine if“staying participants” and “staying non-participants” differedsignificantly inmean school-level SES, using free and reduced lunchpercentages from March of 2009. Results indicated no significantdifference between response to survey and mean school-level SES,t(131) ¼ �.016, p > .05. “Staying participants” were deemeddemographically representative of all FYTOP teachers who had

remained through their third, fourth, or fifth year of teaching(“stayers”).

5.2. What beliefs do teachers hold about students in the first year ofteaching (Time 1)?

Shared Beliefs. In the first year of teaching, descriptive statisticsrevealed that teachers in this study held shared beliefs about stu-dents that emphasize emotional contingency of pride and partici-pation with teacher (e.g., “When my teacher is proud of me, I feeleven better about me”) and positive beliefs about effort (e.g.,“Teachers want students to do their best”). No items qualified asrejected beliefs. See Table 2.

Belief Patterns. Preliminary analyses to determine data suit-ability for exploratory factor analysis were conducted. Bartlett’s testof sphericity was statistically significant (p < .001), indicating thatthe variables are sufficiently correlated and will result in factorloadings. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value, a measure of sam-pling adequacy, was .595 (Kaiser, 1974) and deemed sufficient(Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). These findings provided adequatesupport for data suitability. Hence, an exploratory factor analysis

Table 4Change in beliefs across time.

Change in agreement Time 1 Time 2 Change

M SD M SD M SD

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e4338

(EFA) with varimax rotation was conducted to examine the Time 1beliefs of “staying participants.” One scale item was excludedbecause of a technical error. Three factors explaining 37.92% of thevariance emerged. The three factors were named, in rank order: (1)Pride and Participation, (2) Good School ¼ Reading, and (3) Rigid andRight. A majority of communalities registered at .5 or above, with alarge number of high communalities (.8e.9) establishing soundreliability (De Winter et al., 2009).

Approximately 21% of the explained variance was representedby the first factor, Pride and Participation. This factor capturesteachers’ belief that students feel personal satisfaction from successand from being part of their school community (e.g., “When I missschool, I feel bad if others didn’t notice.”). Good School ¼ Readingcaptures teachers’ belief that students hold positive affiliation to-ward school, expect to do well, and enjoy reading (e.g., “I lookforward to going to school each day.”). Finally, Rigid and Rightcaptures teachers’ belief that some students seek correctness andare inflexible in adjusting this perception (e.g., “There is only oneright way to read a book.”). See Table 3.

IncreaseI am good at math. 3.24 .95 3.76 .82 .52 .90When I miss school, I feel badif others didn’t notice.

3.76 .80 4.27 .66 .51 .99

If you study when you are inschool now, you will get a goodjob later.

3.79 .84 4.27 .77 .46 .85

I enjoy doing work in math. 3.37 1.02 3.75 .93 .38 .85In math, the fastest student isnot always the best student.

3.35 1.09 3.72 1.07 .37 1.26

Going to a good school isimportant for success in life.

3.62 .86 3.91 .98 .29 1.16

I like reading and talkingabout books.

3.63 1.04 3.81 1.03 .18 .97

I am a good reader. 3.70 .80 3.88 .83 .18 .74I think this school is a good school. 4.15 .78 4.30 .63 .15 .82I look forward to going toschool each day.

4.10 .55 4.26 .59 .15 .74

I mostly like learning in small groups. 3.86 .81 3.97 .90 .11 1.20I feel better about myself whenI have a good day at school.

4.34 .62 4.45 .58 .10 .82

5.3. Do teachers’ beliefs about students change across time (Time 1to Time 2)?

Shared Beliefs. In examining descriptive statistics, at Time 2(teachers’ third, fourth, or fifth year of teaching), teachers held thesame shared beliefs about students as indicated in Time 1. Teachers’shared beliefs emphasized pride and participationwith teacher andpositive beliefs around effort. No items qualified as rejected beliefs.See Table 2.

Change in Shared Beliefs. In order to determine the amount anddirection of change in shared beliefs across time, mean changescores for each itemwere calculated. Of the 29 scale items, teachersshowed increased agreement with 18 items with mean changescores ranging from .01 to .52. Teachers indicated a .5 increase orgreater in endorsement of the following statements: 1) I am good atmath, and 2) When I miss school, I feel bad if others didn’t notice.

Table 3Factor loadings for Time 1.

Factor Item Loading

Pride and Participation(21.36%)

I feel better about myself whenI understand how to do the mathproblems.

.87

I feel better about myself whenI have a good day at school.

.82

When I miss school, I feel bad ifothers didn’t notice.

.75

When my teacher is proud of me,I feel even better about me.

.69

I like my teacher. .41Good School ¼ Reading

(9.23%)I am a good reader. .68I like reading and talking aboutbooks.

.67

Teachers want students to dotheir best.

.53

I look forward to going to schooleach day.

.40

Rigid and Right (7.31%) In math, there is only one rightway to get the answer.

.80

There is only one right way toread a book.

.78

Teachers like smart studentsthe best.

.70

I don’t like math as much if I amnot the first one finished.

.51

If your group doesn’t get along,there is nothing you can do about it.

.44

Teachers want students to dotheir best.

�.43

Overall, the 18 items that received greater endorsement over timerepresent teachers’ belief that students place high value on peers,teacher, school, and small groups, and possess positive beliefs aboutlearning. Over time, teachers’ beliefs about students represent agreater endorsement of student expectations of success whenworking with the teacher, peers, and in mathematics and reading.Results indicated that teachers showed lower agreement on 10items with change scores ranging from�.01 to .40. In general, these10 items represent teachers’ belief that students hold negativebeliefs about learning and negative emotional contingencies. SeeTable 4.

Belief Patterns. Instead of applying the EFA model from Time 1analyses to Time 2 data to examinemean factor score change across

I learn more when I work witha partner.

3.90 .60 4.00 .80 .10 .95

Two heads are better than one. 3.78 .75 3.86 .87 .09 .95I learn even better when my teacherhelps me.

4.37 .49 4.45 .53 .07 .66

I like my teacher. 4.22 .55 4.26 .56 .03 .62Teachers want students to do their best. 4.66 .51 4.69 .47 .03 .46There is only one right way toread a book.

2.42 .91 2.42 1.03 .01 1.10

StableWhen it is my turn to read out loudand I make no mistakes, I likereading even better.

4.07 .77 4.07 .74 .00 1.00

DecreaseIn math, there is only one rightway to get the answer.

2.60 1.10 2.19 1.00 �.40 1.09

I don’t like math as much if I amnot the first one finished.

2.70 .81 2.39 .76 �.30 .97

If your group doesn’t get along,there is nothing you can do about it.

2.38 .96 2.15 .94 �.23 1.06

I don’t like to read if I don’t knowall the words.

3.42 .93 3.30 1.04 �.12 1.19

I feel better about myself whenI understand how to do themath problems.

4.44 .55 4.32 .68 �.12 .76

Understanding the story helps youread the words right.

4.04 .64 4.01 .83 �.03 .87

If my group argues, I don’t feel likedoing the work anymore.

3.66 .90 3.63 .97 �.03 1.03

Teachers like smart students the best. 2.67 1.26 2.65 1.19 �.02 1.29If my teacher is in a bad mood,I get in a bad mood.

3.45 1.00 3.44 .97 �.01 1.06

When my teacher is proud of me,I feel even better about me.

4.58 .58 4.57 .61 �.01 .71

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e43 39

time, first an EFA was run on Time 2 data to see if a distinct set ofbeliefs emerged. Preliminary analyses examining data suitabilityincluded a significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity (p < .001) and aKMO value of .720, indicating sufficient correlations between var-iables and adequate sampling, respectively. Hence, an EFA withvarimax rotation was conducted. The Time 2 EFA model wasremarkably different than Time 1 and is described below to high-light the change in beliefs across time. Two factors explaining38.28% of the variance emerged. The factors were named, in rankorder: (1) The Teacher’s Ideal Learner, and (2) Loner: Pride inAchievement. A majority of communalities registered at .5 or above,with small a number of high communalities (.8e.9) establishingsound reliability (De Winter et al., 2009).

Nearly all (21) items loaded on the first factor, The Teacher’s IdealLearner, suggesting that one underlying construct may be sufficientto characterize teachers’ beliefs about students. This factor capturesteachers’ belief that students enjoy reading and math, expect to dowell in school, like going to school and their teacher, have pride inachievement, believe learning is instrumental, and are focused onunderstanding. The second factor highlights a “type” of learner thatsits outside of this ideal learner. Loner: Pride in Achievement repre-sents teachers’ conceptualization of some learners as interested inachievement, but absent in their affiliation with peers. See Table 5.

6. Discussion

The goal of this study was to explore teachers’ beliefs aboutstudents in the United States (N ¼ 67) and if these beliefs evolveduring the first five years of teaching. Major findings that emergedfrom the present study provide valuable insight into two primary

Table 5Factor loadings for Time 2.

Factor Item Loading

The Teacher’s IdealLearner (25.96%)

I like reading and talking about books. .76I am a good reader. .68Teachers want students to do their best. .63I look forward to going to school each day. .65I am good at math. .71I enjoy doing work in math. .68I think this school is a good school. .67I like my teacher. .61If you study when you are in school now,you will get a good job later.

.56

I feel better about myself when I have agood day at school.

.55

I learn even better when my teacherhelps me.

.48

Two heads are better than one. .45When my teacher is proud of me,I feel even better about me.

.43

When I miss school, I feel bad if othersdidn’t notice.

.42

In math, the fastest student is not alwaysthe best student.

.40

In math, there is only one right way toget the answer.

�.44

If your group doesn’t get along, theresis nothing you can do about it.

�.49

I don’t like to read if I don’t know allthe words

�.52

There is only one right way to reada book.

�.53

I don’t like math as much if I am notthe first one finished.

�.59

Teachers like smart students the best. �.62Loner: Pride in

Achievement(12.31%)

I like reading and talking about books. .67I am a good reader. .68Teachers want students to do their best. .53I look forward to going to school each day. .40

areas of research: teacher identity and career development, andteacher retention. Implications of study findings in these two areasare presented below.

6.1. Teacher identity and career development

Study findings add nuance to the existing understanding of theearly stages of teaching. Prior work has conceptualized this timeperiod as one of survival and sink or swim (Feiman-Nemser &Remillard, 1996; Katz, 1972; Manuel, 2003), and that beginningteachers focus on themselves and superficial classroom issuesrather than students and student learning (Borko & Livingston,1989). In this study, beginning teachers do think about thelearners (and learning) in their classroom as evidenced throughpositive beliefs about students’ dispositions toward school that areadaptive and supportive of student learning. For example, as evi-denced in Table 3, all teacher-related items in Pride and Participa-tion, Good School ¼ Reading, and Rigid and Right suggest positiveemotional contingency with the teacher in feelings of pride andpositive beliefs about effort. Findings related to pride are particu-larly promising and reflect students’ beliefs (McCaslin & Burross,2008). Pride is an adaptive emotion that leads individuals to seekout socially valued activities (Tangney & Dearing, 2002), and isstrongly related to self-esteem (Brown & Marshall, 2001). More-over, individuals who experience pride show higher task perfor-mance (Herrald & Tomaka, 2002). Teachers conceptualize learnersas believing pride is an emotion that can be experienced withteachers.

Together, these findings underscore the belief of teachers thatthey hold a vital role in the lives of students and learning. Accordingto attribution theory (Weiner, 1979), teachers who see themselvesas responsible (at least in part) for student success are more likelyto see the connection between their behavior and student out-comes. The findings from this study indicate that this conceptual-ization develops earlier than previously noted (Glaser & Chi, 1988;Odell et al., 1999; Sabers et al., 1991).

One notable exception is the change in teachers’ beliefs acrosstime. A comparison of Time 1 and Time 2 factors illustrates that inthe first year, teachers demonstrated discrete conceptualizations ofcurriculum content (Good School ¼ Reading) and types of learners(Rigid and Right). Few survey items cross-loaded suggesting thatteachers in their first year possess distinct beliefs about students’dispositions toward school. These findings suggest that first-yearteachers’ beliefs organize in ways previously indicated in expert-novice research (Glaser & Chi, 1988). Furthermore, in Time 2,teachers’ beliefs heavily loaded on one single factor, The Teacher’sIdeal Learner, suggesting that teachers’ beliefs may become morecohesive and less distinct over time. Beliefs are part of a teacher’sidentity (Bullough, 1997) and these findings support that teacheridentity evolves (Beijaard et al., 2004). Simultaneously, thesefindings may suggest that teachers formmore integrative identitiesas they gain experience (Ibarra, 1999). This current study also ex-tends upon Kagan’s (1992) review suggesting that teacherscontinue (beyond their first year) to develop beliefs about learnersas part of the teacher identity formation process.

6.2. Teacher retention

Teachers’ positive beliefs about learners extend upon what isknown about why individuals choose to enter and continueteaching. For example, despite less than ideal conditions for manybeginning teachers (Manaserro et al., 2006), beginning teachers inthe current study maintain positive beliefs about students.Furthermore, the content of teachers’ beliefs is important. Teachersperceived students as participating with others in their

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e4340

achievement and accomplishments; a belief that students also hold(McCaslin & Burross, 2008). An emphasis on participation may bebeneficial for both teachers and students as a sense of belonging is abasic psychological need (Deci & Ryan, 1985), and important forteacher retention (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011).

Given that these teachers remained in the profession during themost challenging years, taken together findings suggest that be-liefs, like feelings of belonging, may mediate school context vari-ables (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011) and play a vital role inunderstanding teacher resilience (LeCornu, 2013) and retention.Furthermore, teachers’ overall positive and adaptive beliefs aboutlearners is an extension of prior research indicating that teachersenter teaching for the enjoyment of working with children and tomake a difference (Brookhart & Freeman,1992; Chong & Low, 2009;König & Rothland, 2012; Krecic & Grmek, 2005; Kyriacou &Coulthard, 2000; Montecinos & Nielsen, 1997; Moran et al., 2001;Richardson & Watt, 2006; Sinclair, 2008; Watt & Richardson,2008). The positive beliefs of teachers in the current study weresomewhat stable and became more positive throughout the firstfive years of teaching indicating that the initial motives to become ateacher may indeed be the same factors that sustain teachers (Scottet al., 2001).

Adaptive Beliefs. Finally, and mostly importantly, teachers’more positive beliefs about learners during their first five years ofteaching may serve to aid both the student and teacher in adaptiveways. One transformation illustrated above was a change fromdistinct beliefs of learners to a factor matrix that displayed oneheavily loaded factor, The Teacher’s Ideal Learner. As illustrated inTable 5, this factor encapsulated a majority of the positive beliefsabout learners. Teachers in Time 2 were more likely to perceive thestudents in their classrooms as students who enjoy school, expectto do well in school, like going to school, like their teacher, havepride in achievement, believe learning is instrumental, and arefocused on understanding rather than getting a good grade. Asecond example of this trend is from change in shared beliefs (seeTable 4). Results illustrate that teachers place a greater endorse-ment (over time) on beliefs about students that value peers,teacher, school, and small groups in the learning process, and ex-pectations for success inworking alone (in both math and reading),with the teacher, and with peers. Both high value and expectationsfor success predict, in part, engagement and achievement in anactivity (Eccles, 1985; Eccles et al., 1983; Wigfield, 1994). Over time,teachers conceptualized learners as less likely to have dispositionsthat are maladaptive or impede learning. For example, over timethere was lower endorsement of rigid approaches to learning (e.g.,“In math, there is only one right way to get the answer”). Theimportance of teacher expectancies has been documented for sometime (Brophy & Good, 1974; Weinstein, 2002) and this body ofresearch suggests that the beliefs teachers hold for students mayalter teachers’ behavior in ways that support or hinder studentsuccess. In terms of the results from this study, the positive ex-pectancies teachers hold for students, may, in turn, result in moreadaptive instructional settings for students, and subsequently,improved student outcomes. These positive teacher beliefs mayalso serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy for the teacher (Rosenthal,2002; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). Holding beliefs that studentslike the teacher, the content, and the instructional format, theo-retically, would serve in an adaptive way in sustaining teacherenjoyment and satisfaction with teaching, and hopefully teacherpersistence in the profession.

7. Conclusions and limitations

Findings from the present study indicate that teachers’ beliefsabout students are positive and adaptive and become more

cohesive and positive during the first five years of teaching, despitethe challenges typically encountered by beginning teachers. Threeextensions of these findings are particularly notable. First, thesechanges in beliefs appear to mirror teachers’ growth in studentachievement outcomes early in their careers (Kersting, Chen, &Stigler, 2012); however, more research is needed to determinehow beliefs found in this studymay be related to the processes (e.g.,instructional practices, relationships with students) that lead toimproved student outcomes, particularly in the context of align-ment or misalignment between beliefs and practices (Roehrig,Turner, Grove, Schneider, & Liu, 2009). Second, although foundearlier than expected in the career development process, thesegrowing positive conceptualizations that link teachers to learnerscoincide with teacher identity development. Hence, teachers buildmore confidence in their practices (Feiman-Nemser & Remillard,1996) and focus more on student understanding and achieve-ment (Borko & Livingston, 1989) as they gain more experience inthe classroom and develop expertise. Third, this study also high-lights the potential adaptive properties of having particular beliefsin the first five years of teaching on retention. Teachers in thecurrent study remained in the profession during the first 3e5 yearsof teaching. Hence, these beliefs illustrate the ways in which“stayers” modify their beliefs about learners across time, whichmay be an underlying factor in their career persistence.

7.1. Limitations and future directions

One limitation of the current study is that school-level factorswere not included. Although additional analyses (Lavigne, 2010)indicated that teachers in this sample did not establish first-yearbeliefs or modify their beliefs over time by the socioeconomicsetting in which they taught, it might be valuable to determine towhat extent teachers align their beliefs to other teachers in theirschools as they become more integrated into the local learningcommunity. As established by Le Cornu (2013), relationships in ateacher’s immediate context hold important value for early careerteachers in the development of resilience, and the same may holdtrue for beliefs. Administrators and the support they offer may beone important relationship mechanism worth exploring in thecontext of teacher beliefs (Boyd et al., 2011; Fantilli & McDougall,2009). Furthermore, in order to establish greater generalizability,context could be expanded beyond immediate school settings toinclude cross-cultural data collection to determine how beliefs mayvary across cultures, and also function differently given societalnorms, expectations, and cultural belief systems. It is possible thatbeliefs that sustain teachers in one setting are not the same beliefsneeded to sustain teachers is a different setting, especially as somecountries struggle more with this than others.

However, given what is already known about emotional con-tingency, expectancies, and beliefs, and that findings from thisstudy indicate that beliefs are malleable, teacher education pro-grams and induction programs might benefit from supportingpreservice and inservice teachers in developing the positive beliefsabout learners found in this study. Furthermore, supportingteachers in developing resiliency (Le Cornu, 2013) and adaptivebeliefs may be one mechanism missing in induction programs andpotentially the reason for less than ideal results (Ingersoll & Strong,2011; Long et al., 2012). In the meantime, the value of developingparticular beliefs or dispositions in teachers could garner furthersupport if future research examined how all teachers develop be-liefs across time (e.g., leavers, stayers, movers, returners) and ifthese beliefs continue to evolve beyond the fifth year of teaching.Extensive data collection that allows for and captures differentdefinitions of “leavers” would help ground a knowledge base thatincludes multiple definitions of attrition. A longitudinal study that

A.L. Lavigne / Teaching and Teacher Education 39 (2014) 31e43 41

captures teacher beliefs prior to teacher training and preparation,prior to and after student teaching, and then continues to followteachers as they progress through their careers would aid inshifting the concern from retaining beginning teachers to sustain-ing them (Schaefer, Long, & Clandinin, 2012).

Lastly, not all positive belief scale items received greaterendorsement across time, and these findings have important im-plications. In particular, two items that represent positive beliefsand emotional contingency about learning and an emphasis onunderstanding decreased over time (e.g., “I feel better about myselfwhen I understand how to do the math problems”). One possibleexplanation for this finding is that as teachers adapt to the class-room, they also begin to manage meaning of the current educa-tional reform climate for their instruction, students, and theclassroom. A reduced emphasis on teachers’ conceptualization ofstudents as holding dispositions for understanding may be amanifestation of the need to “get it right” and succeed on high-stakes tests (see Nichols & Berliner, 2007). In future research it isimportant to better understand how teachers’ beliefs may buffer oradapt to the policy driven nature of schools. This may be particu-larly important in the United States where teacher satisfaction is atan all time low (MetLife, 2012). It is anticipated that future andcurrent teachers may encounter even more struggles as they adaptto the challenging reality of new reforms such as Race to the Top(Lavigne, in press) and the Common Core State Standards. In clos-ing, findings from this study and the increasing demands of edu-cation reform on schools, teachers, and students underscore theurgency of continuing the study of teacher beliefs in both retainingand sustaining teachers.

Funding

FYTOP Years 3–5 was funded, in part, by the Office of the Pres-ident (University of Arizona) and deans from various colleges, DeanRon Marx (College of Education, University of Arizona), and theCarnegie Foundation.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Tom Good, Mary McCaslin, FrancescaLópez, and anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on earlierversions of this article.

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