Teachers' Beliefs, Teachers' Goals and Teachers' Classroom Management: A Study with Primary Teachers // Crenças, objectivos e gestão de sala de aula: Um estudo com professores do Ensino Primário

Abstract

Teachers' beliefs and teachers' practices tend to fit together. However exceptions seem to be significant. This study, carried out with primary teachers (N = 279), explores the relation of teachers' classroom management beliefs to teachers' classroom goals and teachers' practices. A cluster analysis identified three distinct teaching beliefs' profiles: teacher-centered, student-centered and ambivalent/inconsistent. Clusters somehow overlap in the teaching goals they most value but some striking differences are also apparent. Classroom reported practices clearly differentiate clusters. Somehow surprisingly almost a quarter of participants are ambivalent/inconsistent. This mismatch between teaching beliefs, teaching goals and classroom practices seems to elicit some puzzling behaviors on our teachers' participants (e. g. "humiliating students in classroom that show inappropriate behaviors") that deserve further research.