Browsing by Subject "Teacher Beliefs"
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Item An Examination of Elementary School Teachers' Belief about Their African American Students with an Analysis of Selected Characteristics of Schools in One Urban School District(2010-10-12) Marrero, OtonielThe purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between five factors: teacher efficacy, teacher beliefs, cultural responsive classroom management, cultural awareness, and cultural sensitivity among African American, European American and Hispanic American elementary school teachers. The five factors were part of eight factors originating from the Cultural Awareness and Belief Inventory (CABI) given to Pre-kindergarten through Grade 12 teachers in an urban public school district in Houston, Texas during the 2005-2006 school year. A MANOVA using SPSS was conducted for the sample of 208 teachers from grades kindergarten through fourth to assess whether differences exist between the ethnic groups. The five factors served as the dependent variables and the ethnicities of the teachers were the independent variables. A further analysis was conducted of the elementary schools which participated in the CABI for two purposes. The first purpose was to ascertain the number of teachers with strong efficacy beliefs, and the second purpose was to identify common and distinctive characteristics among those schools. Results were analyzed using standardized test scores from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) as well as Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS). The results of the MANOVA revealed a significant difference among the teacher ethnic groups only with Cultural Sensitivity. Further tests revealed the difference in Cultural Sensitivity, which could be explained by ethnicity, was relatively small. While African American teachers obtained slightly higher mean scores on some of the items related to the factors, the three teacher ethic groups had similar mean scores in the majority of the items. Each of the teacher groups demonstrated an overall optimism for the five factors, reflecting positive beliefs about African American students and their capabilities to achieve in school. Each of the five urban schools had similar but also distinctive characteristics. The analysis of the schools with high teacher efficacy revealed them to have a high number of economically disadvantaged students. The only other commonality was very high retention rates among the schools. The high retention rates were inconsistent with practices of effective schools.Item An Examination of Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Grade Teachers' Beliefs and Cultural Awareness of Students of Color in Relationship to Teacher Ethnicity, Teaching Certification, Years of Teaching Experience, and Gender(2011-10-21) Nunley, Vonda RoychelleThe purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to examine the relationship between teachers? beliefs and cultural awareness of students of color, and teacher ethnicity, level of teaching certification, years of teaching experience and gender. During the 2005-2006 academic school year, data was collected from teachers teaching in a large urban school district, located in the southeastern portion of Texas, to examine teacher?s working with diverse populations of students in diverse communities. The Cultural Awareness and Belief Inventory (CABI) was used to collect this data. The CABI measures teachers? beliefs and cultural awareness when working with African American students in comparison to their counterparts of other ethnicities. This study examined the data collected from teachers teaching students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. The data collected in this study was examined based on four descriptive characteristics, teacher ethnicity, teacher gender, level of teaching certification (elementary or secondary), and years of teaching experience. Data collected from African American teachers and European American teachers were examined for statistically significant differences. The results indicate that there is a statically significant difference in the beliefs and cultural awareness of African American and European American teacher?s teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. There was not a statistically significant difference in the beliefs and cultural awareness of teachers teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth grade in relationship to teacher gender, level of teaching certification (elementary or secondary), or years of teaching experience.Item Examining the Differences Between Pre-K Through Second Grade Teachers' Perceptions and Third Through Fourth Grade Teachers' Perceptions of Cultural Awareness and Beliefs in One Urban District(2010-07-14) Plimper, Ouida C.The purpose of this study was to examine archival data collected from the administration of the Cultural Awareness and Belief Inventory (CABI) (Webb-Johnson & Carter, 2005) in an urban district located in the southwestern United States. Specifically, the study examined whether differences exist between Pre-K through second grade urban teachers' perceptions and third through fourth grade urban teachers' perceptions of cultural awareness and beliefs as measured by the CABI in one urban district. Of the respondents, 399 Pre-K through second grade teachers' perceptions and 219 third through fourth grade teachers' perceptions of eight factors were measured by the CABI. These factors included: A) Teacher Beliefs, B) School Climate, C) Culturally Responsive Classroom Management, D) Home and Community Support, E) Cultural Awareness, F) Curriculum and Instruction, G) Cultural Sensitivity and H) Teacher Efficacy (Roberts-Walter, 2007). Further, by comparing the perceptions of the Pre-K through second grade teachers and those of the third through fourth grade teachers, this study investigated the differences between the perceptions of the teachers held responsible for their students? test scores and those teachers employed in grades in which students are not given state-mandated tests. The difference between the Pre-K through second grade teachers' perceptions and the third through fourth grade teachers' perceptions were indicated in only one factor of the eight measured by the CABI. A difference in both groups' perceptions was determined in the factor, Cultural Sensitivity. The results indicated that the Pre-K through second grade teachers' were more culturally sensitive than the third through fourth grade teachers.