Most of the researchers who are interested in teachers’ beliefs insist that beliefs are static and stable, which represent the eternal truths that remain unchanged in teachers’
minds regardless of the situations, and many of the beliefs are deeply rooted and entrenched, therefore, belief alteration is relatively rare during the adulthood, especially those, which are formed early and develop constantly over time into a construct of system or network, are more resistant to change and are more likely to endure challenges and contradictions (Mansour, 2009).
In 1980, Nisbett and Ross have already found that “beliefs persist even when they are no longer accurate representations of reality”, and that no literature shows “individuals pursue, even in minor ways, strategies that aid in the alteration or rejection of unreasonable or inaccurate beliefs”, that is to say, teachers generally do not change their beliefs even when it is necessary for them to do so (Pajares, 1992). Correa et al. (2008) explain that teachers’ beliefs may be difficult to change or exceptionally stable mainly
because the teaching is a cultural activity, and there’s a high degree of connectedness among beliefs so that one belief may tend to be consistent with other beliefs and one cannot be changed without affecting others.
Beliefs, sometimes having ideals as the center, are usually formed because of positive attitudes on the reality, independent thinking on knowledge, and strong sense of responsibility on duty. Those beliefs, thoroughly convinced by individuals as correct opinions and rules, stimulate and guide the behaviors and personality trends integrated with awareness, emotion and volition, and become the strong psychological quality with characteristic of integrity, stability and durability, the mental backbones for teachers to understand and change the world, and also the incentive forces to carry out activities or practices. Once beliefs are established, they will have a profound and lasting influence on teachers’ minds and behaviors, and decide the directions, speeds and results of teachers’ professional growth and development.
As inner judgment criteria and behavior motivation, beliefs are not innate, but acquired.
Having steadfast and fully admissible mental status, beliefs dispense with demonstrations and possess intercultural universality. It has been well known that beliefs are gradually built up in social practices going through the identification and selection on different kinds of opinions, principles, values, theories and careers. When teachers confirm some kind of ideas or theories are right and true, they self-consciously stand up for those ideas or theories, and then beliefs come into being and have certainty to stay as they are. So normally the beliefs that teachers are aware of are those inseparable from the authenticity and incontestable persuasion.
It is widely discussed that the earlier a belief is incorporated into the belief system, the more difficult it is to be altered, and the more newly a belief is acquired, the more vulnerable it is to change (Pajares, 1992). According to Pajares’ study, the early beliefs are likely to represent the dominant modes of actions, subsequently affect the teachers’
perception, strongly influence the processing on new information, and continue to make impacts on what teachers say and do in daily teaching, then the behaviors which are consistent with the prior beliefs reinforce those beliefs again, despite the situation that they might be in conflict with the newly acquired beliefs (Pajares, 1992; Johnson, 1994).
As the arguments run, teachers’ beliefs are found to “have their origins in the past”
experience, especially during the time when teachers were students at school, and form themselves based on those early ‘idiosyncratic’ experiences in an intuitive and uncritical way “without adequate access to” the social culture and real practices of teaching, that’s why teachers’ beliefs sometimes have the characters of ‘limited generalisability’, ‘dubious value’ and even conflicts in the classroom contexts (Marland, 1993).
However, with time and use, teachers’ early experiences tend to become the more robust central beliefs in the belief structure, as a result, teachers can be found to “hold onto beliefs based on incorrect or incomplete knowledge even after scientifically correct explanations are presented to them”, which proves that “the power of beliefs easily can outweigh the clearest and most convincing contrary evidence” (Pajares, 1992).
It’s confirmed by the research led by Brousseau & Freeman (1988) that teacher education has very little and even no influence on the educational beliefs of prospective teachers in the university (Marland, 1993), which is called by Pajares (1992) as “the perseverance phenomena of theory maintenance”. Kagan (1992) also notes that teachers grow comfortable naturally with the beliefs formed in their early experiences, and those beliefs even become their ‘self’ or their unique identity (Pajares, 1992; Mansour, 2009).
Hence, basically beliefs are unchanging and unaltered, but have been also found that they do change, which Nespor (1987) explains that the change “is neither the result of argument or reason but rather a conversion or gestalt shift” (Thomas et al., 2001). It is believed that the changes of teachers’ beliefs can be successful, when the beliefs are deliberately challenged, or when teachers are clearly aware of their beliefs and are willing to change them from their inside, and sometimes teachers’ reflection on their own experiences and behaviors can also lead to the modification of their beliefs (Kyles
& Olafson, 2008).
Kagan (1992) has one suggestion to help teachers change their previous beliefs, which is “in order to promote professional growth in novice teachers, it would be necessary first to raise their awareness of their own beliefs and then to challenge those beliefs while providing opportunities to examine and integrate new information into their belief systems” (Mansour, 2009). Some researchers concur that teachers’ beliefs “can be
strengthened or modified with more evidence gained by classroom practice” (Levitt, 2001), since teachers’ behaviors in their daily teaching can influence and shape the continual development of their beliefs and their beliefs themselves also tend to be evolving with the time and more experiences (Levitt, 2001; Luft & Roehrig, 2007).
Studies have shown that some teachers do change their beliefs based on the classroom teaching, while the reality of the classroom they face with or the system they are in is different from or conflicting with their beliefs (Mansour, 2009), which is proved by this research too, and it shows usually teachers chose to adjust themselves to the reality to stay in their job position by changing or disabling their beliefs when facing the differences or conflicts. In a general way, classroom events and school environment provide either some constraints or positive opportunities for the development of teachers’ beliefs (Levitt, 2001).
From the interview, among 18 teachers in each country, 6 German teachers and 3 Chinese teachers think their beliefs have not changed; 6 German teachers and 2 Chinese teachers have kept the main parts of their beliefs unchanged, but developed something new during the teaching; 6 German teachers and 13 Chinese teachers admit that their beliefs have changed since they became teachers. From the numbers it looks like that Chinese teachers are more likely to change their beliefs according to the reality of their teaching environment than German teachers, but the single case also shows that it’s a more personalized than generalized issue to change the belief or not.
The result confirms it’s true that teachers’ beliefs can be deeply-rooted and early-formed date back to their own school days and not be easy to change even when teachers are encountered to very difficult situations to fulfill their beliefs. However, the research proves it is also true that beliefs have big possibility to be changed, when teachers find their beliefs don’t fit the real teaching environment or the whole system, or they are willing to update themselves in order to adapt to the reality in a more harmonious and successful way. So it is either they want or they have to, but they have changed their beliefs in some way, which shows the harsh reality about “survival is greater than ideal”, and when the ideal was bigger than survival, the end could be heroic and stirring like the teacher GRK4M quitting the job, otherwise, he would be ‘dead’
when giving up his beliefs.
Teachers’ beliefs changed or not:
coding GG GR GH CH CC CR
No 3 2 1 1 1 1
A little 2 2 2 1 1 0
Yes 1 2 3 4 4 5
1) No change
Among 6 German teachers who have declared that they didn’t change their beliefs, there are 3 teachers coming from the Gymnasium, 2 from the Realschule and 1 from the Hauptschule, and among 3 Chinese teachers, 1 from top senior high school, 1 from city junior high school, 1 from rural junior high school. So, from that result it can see that school levels and locations are not the main factor to influence the beliefs of Chinese teachers, but in Germany it seems that more teachers in the Gymnasium are likely to keep their beliefs unaltered when working in the real classrooms than teachers in the Hauptschule.
For all of them, the reasons that they could have their beliefs without changes are concluded as following examples:
① They always have the same beliefs in their minds since many years ago, which can be traced back to their schooling time, e.g. CCD5F had very good teachers in the school, who could make their students feel very happy in study and learn a lot more, so till now she firmly believes that successful education is to make students happy in learning, even though actually in her class she is surrounded by students who are not happy in their study;
② They still believe their beliefs are very important and they don’t want to change regardless of their situations, e.g. GRE35M believes always in the same thing that is for a society it is important to have good people, who are friendly, can live together and do their jobs, which is his vision and is very important for him till today, so there’s no change, and he still believes that education should teach children to be good people for a good society;
③ They have enough freedom and opportunities to practice their beliefs in the reality, which strengthen further their beliefs to stay the same, e.g. GGF7F doesn’t have to use the textbooks, but she is quite free to decide what topics she wants to discuss with students, and is free to choose the German literatures, books and materials for her lessons in the subject of German, which supports her belief very much about how teaching should be;
④ Their beliefs are not so far from the reality that they can fulfill their beliefs in the teaching practice, e.g. one part of CRB6M’s belief is to make students like him so that they will also like what he says and teaches, for which he doesn’t criticize students, but always talks with them in a gentle way, and he doesn’t judge students according to their study performance, but accepts them as who they are, as a result, in his class his students like him very much and his belief is fulfilled.
2) A little change
As to the teachers whose beliefs have been a little modified during the teaching experiences, 2 teachers come from the Gymnasium, 2 from Realschule, 2 from Hauptschule, and 1 teacher comes from top senior high school, 1 from city junior high school. From the number of teachers, it looks like there is no much big difference among schools, but about what aspects they have modified their beliefs, it is very different from one teacher to another, for example:
① In GGM10F’s belief, the idea about what a good lesson should be has changed over the time because of the in-service teaching training, in the beginning it’s important to do group work among students, but at the moment the big thing is individual teaching;
② After GGS5F got to know that in her class some students have very bad social background, she started to realize it’s more important for her to teach them how to behave as a good social person than how to speak English;
③ GHO7M thinks it’s very important for himself at the end of every year to reflect what he has done and to think about how to make things better in the following year,
so his belief has been modified all the time little by little, and he also understands better what he can expect from his students;
④ With continual learning and professional development, CHH18F can always bring her students up-to-date ideas and know more clearly about what ability she should guide her students to develop, so what she believes is important to pass on students has been changing, but the main part of her belief has never changed, and she is becoming more and more confident in reaching the successful education she believes.
3) Yes change
Among teachers who answered yes that their beliefs had changed after they started the teaching job, 1 is from Gymnasium, 2 from Realschule, 3 Hauptschule, 4 senior high school, 4 city junior high school, and 5 rural junior high school. Just looking at the numbers, remarkably, more than double Chinese teachers changed their beliefs than German teachers, but there’s no big difference in the numbers among different levels of Chinese schools. In German 3 tracks of schools, teachers in the Hauptschule are more likely to change their beliefs than those in other types of schools.
In a word, the table above shows very positively that most of Chinese teachers in any level of schools have changed their beliefs in their teaching. It’s interesting that all of 3 interviewed teachers from average senior high schools, where students are the left ones who cannot go to the top senior high schools, have changed their beliefs since they became teachers there. To put the Hauptschule and average senior high school together, both of them receive students who are leftovers, the students’
motivations and the school cultures are not very up or positive, and teachers there are more likely to change their ‘idealized’ beliefs, which could mean the school culture, class environment and students’ attitude on learning can greatly affect and alter the teachers’ beliefs.
Take some examples as follows:
① GHK5F very firmly answered yes that her belief changed, for at the very beginning she wanted to teach students much higher levels and planned to do this and that in class, but very soon she was really quite shocked and disappointed, since she recognized that in her school there are very difficult students who have very difficult social backgrounds and have given themselves up already, so she has to put aside her belief and just tries to teach her students the very basic things because they even can’t sit, think or be calm;
② GHH38M told that it’s surely yes that his belief changed, because when he started being a teacher, he thought he would have much more possibilities to do a lot of good and new things with students, but later he understood that it’s not possible to manage all the things he thought he could, and what he could try was just to teach students some important and reasonable things;
③ GHU32F is another example of belief change for certain. When she started her job, she was convinced that she was teaching very important things, during the first 10 years of her teaching, 60-70% of her students wanted to learn and to have good marks for the success, but years later it’s another way round, only 5-10% wanted to be good students at school, which made her give up her ideas to make students successful and start to teach them learning attitudes and basic abilities like how to keep things in order. After she tried hard over and over again and still couldn’t see the success she expected from her students, since they were so much disappointed to themselves, she became disappointed too and have given up her belief, for she couldn’t handle the failure, and in the end she realizes what she could do is just to accompany her students;
④ CHL35M has changed his beliefs largely mainly because of the reforms in education system, for he believes teachers must follow the national policies and guidelines on education. In the beginning he believed it important to train students to have strong health bodies in lots of sports and activities, for the policy at that moment was to put body at first and then study. However, now the school education is examination-oriented, study becomes the only issue in the school, and only with good exam scores students can be enrolled into colleges. Therefore, now he believes his task is to help students study well and get high scores in the Gaokao;
⑤ When CCD14F started to teach, she didn’t think about education too much, but believed she should make her students happy in class and have some fun in study.
Due to the experience as class teacher from the third year, she learned that class teacher must be strict and stern to students especially in the class management, then she stopped making fun in class. 5-6 years later she started to have a clear mind on education, and changed her belief largely, now she believes successful education is that students learn to be able to restrain their behaviors well, besides having good study performance;
⑥ CRB22F believes that her belief has changed very slowly without an obvious transition. In the beginning, she just thought she should teach well and pay all attention to students’ scores, because score was the only measurement. But later she realized that students were overburdened and very unhappy at study, and with richer teaching experience, she could make students study well in class without harsh methods, then she started to believe score was not so important, and if students could study happily, their performance would surely be good. So now she always tries to make her students feel a little bit happy and funny in her lessons and give them less homework afterwards to reduce a little bit of their heavy burden.