Brunning - Chapter 7

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Brunning - Chapter 7

• Beliefs About the Intelligence

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Implications for Teaching

• Everyone holds beliefs about intelligence and
  knowledge
• Beliefs about intelligence and knowledge affect
  our behaviors
• Beliefs about intelligence and knowledge affect
  the way we reason
• Education affects the kinds of beliefs we hold
• Educational experiences affect reasoning skills
• Beliefs are not strongly related to ability

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Implicit Beliefs About Intelligence
Are unconscious personal beliefs about key
aspectsof learning? set of tacit assumptions
about how something works
Class, look at your learning behaviors and decide
where you belong
Incremental Theory Learning (mastery
goals) Improve competency
Entity Theory Performance goals Prove competency
Improving competence Seeks challenge Persists Succ
ess?effort response to failure Self regulated

• Providing competence
• Avoids challenge
• Success?ability
• response to failure
• Quits
• Helpless

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• Constraints on Classroom Behaviors
• Classroom factors that affect student orientation
  positively
• Situational factors?classroom climate/home
  environment (little is known)
• Classroom structure?norm-referenced vs.
  criterion-referenced
• Is Intelligence Changeable?
• Attributional theorists?No! (internal/stable/
  uncontrollable
• Brain-based?Yes! (plasticity ability to adapt
  successfully to environment)

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• Guidelines for Fostering Adaptive Goals
• Promote the view that intellectual development is
  controllableits up to you!
• Reward effort and improvement while deemphasizing
  native ability
• Emphasize the process, rather than the products
  of learning
• Process how long I spent studying?
• How do I organize my information?
• Am I ready for my classes?
• Stress that mistakes are normal part of learning
• Encourage individual, rather than group
  evaluative standards?are you improving in your
  learning behaviors?

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Epistemological Beliefs orBeliefs about Knowledge
Right Wrong
Dualistic perspective (early stages)
Perry (1970)
Ryan (1984) Knowledge must be evaluated on a
personal bases by using the best personal
evidence (experimentation)
Relativists

Relativists Based on their experimentation
Develop different beliefs Have different
approach to learning
Dualists Search for fact oriented
information Remember information reported
explicitly Knowledge is viewed as absolute Do
not questions authority Knowledge accepted as
faith
Experiment Asked students to describe
strategies they used to monitor their
comprehension

• Results show
• Dualist do not do as well in final grades
• Dualist? fact-centered information
• Relativists?context centered information

Validated by SAT scores
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Schommer (1990) ?Extremely Complex Beliefs?used a
Self Report Inventory
Simple Discrete Unambiguous Facts
Certain Constant True and Forever
Fixed Ability Genetic
Quick or no learning

• Amount of higher ed received is inversely related
  to their beliefs
• The longer the S attend college, the more
  likeable to believe that knowledge
• is tentative and subject to personal
  interpretation constructivist
• Females learning is gradual persistence
• SS with less education acquire new knowledge
  all or nothing situation,
• oversimplified conclusions
• Prior knowledge broader conclusions
• Beliefs in simple knowledge negatively affects
  complex problem solving
• SS in soft disciplines knowledge is uncertain
• SS in hard disciplines knowledge is fixed

• Kuhn (2000)?epistemological beliefs are related
  to ones ability to argue persuasively that
  knowledge
• Absolutist 2. Multiplist 3.
  Evaluative
• (right or wrong) (knowledge is relative)
  (depend on rules of learning)

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Reflective Judgment Kitchener King (1981)

• Judgment is defined as ones ability to
• Analyze critically multiple facets of a problem
• Reach an informed conclusion
• Justify ones response
• Developmental Stages of Reflective Judgment?based
  on certainty of knowledge, process of acquiring
  knowledge, and type of evidence used to justify
  ones view of the world
• Knowledge - unchangeable, absolute, and
  accessible
• Knowledge - certain, but may not be accessible by
  everyone
• Knowledge - is certain, though it may be
  accessible to anyone
• Knowledge - is uncertain and idiosyncratic
• Knowledge - is uncertain though contextually
  interpretative
• Knowledge - is relative yet justifiable on the
  bases of rational arguments
• Knowledge is relative, though some
  interpretations have greater truth

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Hope in Life and Attitude Change
HOPE

• Agency Pathways Hope inventory
  scores correlated with
• will ways life
  orientation, life experiences, self-
• esteem, and hopelessness
• Self Generation
• Determination of workable High hope SS
  showed greater self-
• Perseverance solutions determination
• CHALLENGE Prefer difficult
  tasks
• How easily can maladaptive beliefs can be
  changed?
• Changing beliefs complicated
• Beliefs are formed based on cognitive and
  affective information
• When beliefs were formed initially
• Those based on affective responses may be
  difficult to change
• by cognitive means
• Those based on cognitive responses may be
  difficult to change
• based on affective persuasion

Teacher beliefs assumptions about students,
learning materials to be taught and class
organization?preservice teachers tend to leave
with many of the beliefs and attitudes they held
when entering the program