2.2. Conceptual Framework
2.2.5. Teachers’ Belief Construct
The construct “teachers’ belief”, despite being widely used in different domains; such as pedagogy, philosophy and psychology, is still vague, which necessitates further analysis and explication to its meaning and conceptualization (Borg 2015). On this matter, Gilakjani and Sabouri (2017) explain why this concept is very confusing as it is used interchangeably with other concepts; such as teachers’ attitudes, perceptions, opinions, judgments, thoughts, values, conceptions and ideologies among others. Therefore, the researcher finds it important to review
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the main definitions of this concept and to agree on one general meaning to avoid any concept- related confusion.
An early attempt to define the construct “teachers’ beliefs” was noticed in the work of Dewey (1960) in which teachers’ belief is the knowledge that teachers have about a specific area and think that this knowledge is true, but, at the same time, it should not be taken for granted as it might be questioned later. Some early studies related teachers’ beliefs to what they think and how they make careful decisions and create active interaction with the classroom environment (e.g., Bussis, Chittenden & Amarel 1976; Clark & Yinger 1977; Shulman &
Elstein 1975). It was quite remarkable from these studies that the researchers focused in their definition of teachers’ belief on teachers’ thinking and their thought processes rather than on their feelings.
The early trial to add teachers’ feelings to teachers’ thought processes was the study carried out by Marland (1977) in which the researcher asked the participants to give his feelings and thoughts regarding the issues that may influence their decision making. The researcher introduced teachers’ feelings as an integral part of their cognitive processing, arguing for the influence of the experience of feelings on teachers’ decision making.
There were also endeavors in the early 1980s to define teachers’ beliefs as a synonym to teachers’ knowledge (e.g., Elbaz 1981, 1983) in which the researcher introduced the concept
“teachers’ practical knowledge” and related it to teachers’ knowledge of the subject matter, teaching context, curriculum, methods of instruction and self. Based on this construct, teachers are recognized as the main makers of knowledge and this knowledge is gained through teachers’
practice of different teaching methods and their abidance to the rules of practice in the applied methods (Elbaz 1983). She identified five sources of practical knowledge: theoretical,
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experiential, situational, personal and social knowledge, and asserted that these five sources should holistically be considered as an integral part of knowledge.
The research by Richardson (1996) was outstanding as it made a distinction between teachers’ beliefs and teachers’ knowledge through what was called the “truth condition”.
According to her, knowledge makes teachers feel satisfaction towards the truth condition and at the same time lays concrete evidence on this truth condition while beliefs do not need it.
Expanding on this, Griffin and Ohlsson (2001) insisted that each of the two concepts;
knowledge and belief, represents a certain aspect in human mind, as knowledge represents an assumption while belief expresses the truth value accompanied with an assumption.
Kagan (1990) defined this teachers’ belief from another angle by saying that it is all about teachers’ understanding of their roles, responsibilities, duties as well as their understanding of the nature of learning and educational goals. Another definition was yielded by Pajares (1992) who said that it is teachers’ judgment of what is true or false based on their understanding of what should be done in a specific area. In the same vein, it was defined by Pederson and Liu (2003) as the interpretation of teachers’ experience gained through continual evaluation and judgment on a specific area. Moreover, teachers’ belief was defined by Richards and Lockhart (1994) as having two dimensions; teachers’ roles in any instructional material and their understanding of the educational system under which they operate.
Building on the recommendations of the study carried out by Elbaz (1983) regarding the five aspects of teachers’ beliefs or knowledge, many researchers started to define teachers’
beliefs in a more holistic way. That is to say, a comprehensive definition of teachers’ beliefs was popularized by many researchers to include all above definitions (e.g., Borg 2003, 2009, 2012, 2015; Burns 1992; Burns, Freeman & Edwards 2015; Johnson 1994; Woods 1996). They
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introduced the concept “teachers’ cognition” as an ideal replacement of “teachers’ belief” to refer to what teachers think, believe and know about a specific area, and this included teachers’
knowledge, conceptions, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, images, perspectives and metaphors about students, teachers, learning, teaching, subject matter, instructional materials, classroom activities, curricula and self.
Based on this comprehensive definition, it was spotted that it focused more on the mental structure of teachers as the above researchers related this concept to what teachers know, think and do in classrooms, reflecting the cognitive processes that transpire in their mind. One of the most cited definitions of teachers’ cognition was the one given by Borg (2003, p. 81) in which this concept was described as concentrating on “the unobservable cognitive dimension of teaching - what teachers know, believe, and think”. This definition was used in many research papers among researchers who sought for getting into the hidden part of teaching by reaching the inner side of teachers (e.g., Borg 2015; Burns, Freeman & Edwards 2015; Freeman 1996;
Kochem 2021).
Nevertheless, recognizing the importance of feelings in describing what is inside teachers as explained above, various researchers in their definition of teachers’ cognition added what teachers feel to what they think and do (e.g., Damasio 2008; Hargreaves 2000; Nias 1996).
For them, teachers’ cognition, feelings and actions should not be separated but rather they should be integrally linked, which means that it is not possible to explore teachers’ cognition without accounting for their feelings. In this regard, according to Nias (1996, p. 294), “teachers’
emotions are rooted in cognitions…one cannot separate feelings from perception, affectivity from judgment”. In his later work, Borg (2012, p.12) himself did not neglect the role of feeling in providing a good picture of teachers’ cognition towards a phenomenon by saying that “the
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study of teacher cognition, given its concern for understanding the unobservable dimension of teachers’ lives, in no way excludes attention to emotions”. Yet, recalling the list provided by Borg (2012) to the components of cognition which included teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, thinking, assumptions, knowledge, theories, decision making, principles and conceptions, it was quite apparent that the researcher did not put “feelings” on the list.
After this, realizing that his earlier definitions of teachers’ cognition were not comprehensive as they focused mainly on teachers’ mental structures without recognizing the role of other critical elements; such as the social, emotional, historical and cultural elements, Borg (2019, p. 1167) defined teachers’ cognition as “inquiry which seeks, with reference to their personal, professional, social, cultural and historical contexts, to understand teachers’ minds and emotions and the role these play in the process of becoming, being and developing as a teacher”.
Agreeing with him, Ahmad, Farid and Hussain (2021) reported that teachers’ cognition is influenced by a number of factors including teachers’ experience, training, education, family and teaching context.
Similarly, assuring Borg’s view towards teachers’ cognition, Gokce and Kecik (2021) explored language teachers’ cognition in terms of the impact of four factors of teachers’
cognition: schooling, classroom practice, context and professional coursework, on students’
abilities to speak the target language. The schooling factor included teachers’ prior knowledge and beliefs as observed from their teachers at the time when they were still students before having the necessary qualifications and knowledge to be teachers. The classroom practice factor was the practice of teaching and the impact of the experience gained through it on teachers’
instructional decisions in the classroom. The contextual factor covered all educational, political, economic and social components of the world in which the teachers lived and particularly the
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educational institution they represented. Finally, the professional coursework factor was a reference to the training programs provided as necessary to improve teachers’ teaching abilities and skills.
Substantiating the importance of considering these factors when exploring teachers’
cognition, Haukås, Mercer and Svalberg (2021) maintained that it is important to realize that the teaching process in not isolated from the outer world as it is linked to teachers’ cultural, political, social factors and teachers’ practices. Therefore, for the purpose of this study, the construct “teachers’ belief” is defined as having the same meaning as the term “teachers’
cognition” by Borg (2019) to understand what is meant by this construct from the researcher’s viewpoint and also to provide more clarification to the second research question.