| Author: | Yang, Xiaowan |
| Title: | Striving for excellence : an ecological examination of language teachers’ belief development during the transformation from student teachers to novice ones |
| Advisors: | Hu, Guangwei (ENGL) |
| Degree: | DALS |
| Year: | 2025 |
| Subject: | English teachers -- China -- Attitudes Student teachers -- China -- Attitudes Identity (Psychology) Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Faculty of Humanities |
| Pages: | xviii, 512 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Teacher beliefs guide teachers' pedagogical decisions and act as a filter as well as a target of teachers' professional growth. As such, they have received significant attention in teacher education research. While earlier studies often portrayed teacher beliefs as durable and stable, recent research suggests that teacher beliefs are dynamic and open to change. This shift calls for a deeper exploration of not only the content of teacher beliefs but also the processes underlying their development. In addition, although contextual factors are widely recognized as influential on teachers' thoughts and actions, there is a need for a more systematic and structured examination of how these factors interact with teachers to influence their belief development over time. Situated in an EFL context in China and drawing on Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory (1979) as the framework for exploring language teachers' belief development in relation to the contributory role of the environment during their teaching practicum and the first year of in-service teaching, this study adopts a longitudinal mixed-methods design (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) that combines surveys and a multiple-case study approach. Data were collected and analyzed via (1) pre-practicum, post-practicum and end-of-first-year questionnaire surveys, (2) pre-practicum, post-practicum and end-of-first-year interviews, (3) observations of classroom teaching and reflection sessions during the practicum and first year of in-service teaching, (4) relevant teaching documents including lesson plans, teaching journals, teaching practicum reports, and end-of-semester summary reports. All the research instruments were piloted and validated prior to their use in the main study. The findings indicate that language teachers hold a set of beliefs shaped by their experiences as language learners, student teachers in teacher education programs, and novice teachers during their first year of in-service teaching. These beliefs are open to change as teachers encounter the complex realities of the classroom. Both the various environments that beginning teachers are situated in and the duration of their exposure to these contexts can influence their belief change. Furthermore, the study identifies 12 categories of belief change—realization, strengthening, weakening, reprioritization, clarification, fluctuation, expansion, omission, disagreement, integration, reversal, and pseudo change—and sheds light on the relationships between these processes. Finally, based on Bronfenbrenner's ecological framework, the study proposes an ecological model of beginning teachers' work environments, highlighting the interconnected influences among factors within the five ecosystems, the relationship between these factors and teacher agency, and the impact of these interactions on teachers' belief development. This study has contributed to research on language teacher beliefs in several key ways. First, it advances the debate on the stability of teacher beliefs, providing evidence that beginning teachers' beliefs can change significantly during the practicum and first year of formal teaching. Second, it explores teacher beliefs across five dimensions, highlighting the interconnectedness of language teacher beliefs. Third, it is longitudinal in nature and emphasizes the process of belief development rather than the content of beliefs, identifying 12 distinct categories of belief change and examining both the processes of these changes and their interconnections. Fourth, its employment of a mixed-methods design provides methodological insights for future research on language teacher beliefs. Fifth, it incorporates Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory (1979), allowing for a systematic and structured analysis of the dynamic and reciprocal relationships between teachers' belief development and surrounding environmental factors. Finally, the study offers practical implications for language teacher education. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
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| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8787.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 3.22 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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