STEM TEACHER BELIEFS ON SELF-EFFICACY AND REVELANT PRACTICES

The present study is carried out at national level by a research team from the University of Bucharest within the framework of the international project Scientix, coordinated by European Schoolnet and the activities undertaken by the National Community for Science Education. The conceptual framework of the research is based on data and information on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and its context at European and national level. The study addresses the beliefs and attitudes of STEM teachers in the pre-university education on current practices, evolution and trends in the skills of students. Two investigative techniques are used: document analysis and an on-line standardized questionnaire survey. The grid is a standardized tool developed by Friday Institute for Educational Innovation for which we received the agreement to use. So far quantitative data was collected from 252 STEM teachers. The survey invites teachers to give information about: their self-efficacy for teaching; their belief that teachers affect student learning; how often students use technology; how often they use certain STEM instructional practices; their attitudes toward 21st century learning; their attitudes toward teacher leadership; their awareness of STEM careers. For this article we focused on two out of the seven constructs - personal teaching efficacy and beliefs and STEM Instruction. Each of the two constructs are operationalised in eleven, fourteen sub-items respectively. The discussion on the two constructs are quite relevant in light of the relationship between beliefs and practices while the results are quite striking, with impact on tailored professional development approaches. (C) 2019 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.UK