Academic literature on the topic 'Teachers' inaccurate perceptions'

The present mixed-methods study intended to explore Iranian EFL teachers’ and students’ perceptions of assessment of students’ written performance and the effect of any possible (mis)matches on students' achievement. To these aims, a convenient sample of teachers (N=5) and students (N=30) from different classes and institutes in Iran was recruited to participate in the study. In the first phase of the study, all of the participants, both teachers and students, were interviewed to determine their perceptions of writing assessment. In the next phase, students were asked to write about a topic and in the last phase, the writings were assessed and scored by both teachers and students. During this phase, teachers and students were asked to think aloud while assessing the writings. Results indicated that a) based on teachers’ perceptions, language, punctuation, content, organization, and communicative achievement are important factors in assessing a piece of writing, respectively. Also, teachers believed composition writing is the best activity to assess students' writing and the teachers should stick to their own perceptions while assessing writing and not use available rubrics. Moreover, all of them believed that scoring writing is always inaccurate and subjective; b) based on students’ perceptions, grammar and spelling are important factors in the assessment of a piece of writing, respectively. They also mentioned that the ability to write can be assessed through composition writing and their teachers should utilize their own perceptions rather than utilizing a standard rubric. In addition, most of them considered scoring writing to be always inaccurate and subjective; c) students' perceptions of writing assessment affected their writing scores. That is, based on their own perceptions of criteria for writing assessment, the students expected to receive higher scores than the ones given by their teachers.

Although education is a staple of news coverage, the reporting of school-based education rarely receives attention within journalism and media studies. Scholars in other areas, however, have argued that news coverage of education is highly influential and should be examined. The research consensus has been that education coverage is mostly negative and, further, that teachers are frequently portrayed as the ones to blame for perceived shortcomings in school systems. Such coverage is said to concern and affect schoolteachers. However, to date, very few studies have canvassed teachers’ attitudes towards the reporting of education. This article contributes to this under-researched area by providing the results of a series of interviews with 25 Australian schoolteachers and principals about their perceptions of news coverage of education. The vast majority of the teachers interviewed considered news about schooling and teachers to be predominantly, and unfairly, critical. They described news reporting of education as frequently inaccurate and generally superficial. Many expressed a distrust of journalists and were wary about being interviewed. The implications of these findings are discussed, and recommendations for journalism practice and journalism education are outlined.

The disproportionate representation of students of color in special education is a serious concern that has lasted for forty years. Research suggests that students of color are too often not identified accurately for special education and that the programs they are placed in are frequently poor in quality. This trend contributes to a less-than-optimal learning environment that lowers their chances for future success. Some of the factors that may contribute to this problem include poverty and inaccurate teacher perceptions. To reduce this problem, teachers can be trained to be culturally responsive and the public-school system can be improved so that students from low-income households receive better services.

This study is an examination of whether accuracy and delivery of teacher instruction and student attentiveness would affect evaluative perceptions of teacher effectiveness. Participants were 168 musicians and were grouped according to experience level: (a) Grades 6–8, (b) Grades 9–12, (c) undergraduate, and (d) experienced teacher. Participants viewed and evaluated a videotape of eight teaching segments for teaching effectiveness. A two-way ANOVA with repeated measures indicated significant differences due to experience level and teaching segments. Results indicated that the secondary students rated a teacher giving inaccurate instruction relatively high when the teacher demonstrated high delivery and the class was attentive. Analysis of the descriptive data suggested that the four groups attended to the delivery of the teacher more than any other variable. Experienced teachers attended to accuracy of instruction more than did any other group, and middle schoolers attended to student attentiveness, or perceived classroom management skills of the teacher, more than did any other group.

It is perplexing that some preschool teachers not only advise parents who have children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to go to religious healers, but also attribute such neurological disorders to the curse of the “evil eye” or vaccines. Although it is now the twentieth century, this behavior simply reflects the concerns of over-protective teachers and the cultural misperceptions about the actual definition of ASD. In Yemen, the term “ASD”, with its wide range of symptoms, is still ambiguous among preschool teachers. Thus, in a rather insightful piece for the education community, this study has attempted to look beneath the surface of the beliefs (religious belief–social belief–personal belief) of Yemeni preschool teachers regarding ASD. Based on the data collected from 213 teachers (20–30\31–40-~≥40 age) in the Taiz district, this study found that misconceptions specific to autism spectrum disorder were strongly evidenced among teachers who taught preschoolers. Due to personal ignorance and growing superstitions, these teachers tend to believe the society’s perceptions of ASD, thus resulting in the ignorance of scientific views. However, the mass media can increase this group’s awareness of ASD by continually assessing the inaccurate views on ASD, and correcting them. And by influencing the teachers to take a more conceptual scientific approach in serving their special needs students, furthermore, by informing preschool teachers of children’s rights in normal life in the future through providing children with an optimal chance of development by early intervention.

We analyzed effects of peer teaching on non–science major undergraduates’ knowledge, perceptions, and opinions about genetically modified (GM) crops and their use in agriculture. Undergraduates enrolled in an introductory nonmajors biology course participated in a service-learning program (SLP) in which they acted as cross-age peer teachers to high school students, teaching about the role of genetics in crop improvement through traditional breeding and GM approaches. Using pre/postassessments, we found that undergraduates’ opinions shifted to favor the use of GM organisms (GMOs) in agriculture after SLP participation, rising from 46 to 97%. Perceptions about risks and benefits of GMOs also shifted from 43% stating that GMOs are harmful or suspect to no students describing GMOs in that way. Knowledge about GMOs became more accurate after SLP participation. There were significant correlations between students who had negative perceptions of GMOs and negative opinions or inaccurate knowledge about them. Students recognized the effect of peer teaching on their knowledge and perceptions, identifying the repeated peer teaching as an important factor in knowledge gain. Our results suggest students developed an informed opinion about the use of GMOs through first learning the science of genetic engineering and then teaching this information to younger students.

This study examined the learning of teacher candidates taking a language arts course in a special-educator preparation program and that of the second graders they tutored in a supervised field component of the course. Teacher candidates’ knowledge of literacy instruction was assessed using five knowledge tasks; children were assessed on several measures of basic reading and spelling skills as well as on their knowledge of phonics concepts such as syllable types. Teacher candidates generally had inaccurate perceptions of their knowledge at pretest, but their knowledge improved significantly on all tasks after course instruction. Tutored children improved significantly from pre- to posttest on all assessments. The study suggests that carefully designed literacy coursework with field experiences can benefit both prospective special educators and struggling readers.

A study to determine the sociocultural factors influencing knowledge, attitudes, and practices of individuals from a small community toward Schistosoma mansoni infection was carried out in an endemic area in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The study used qualitative approaches to collect data from school-aged children and teachers. Specific findings were that the individuals interviewed were aware of the disease, but also held inaccurate popular beliefs about transmission. Misconceptions coexisted with accurate knowledge both in children and teachers. The disease was not seen as a major health problem and did not affect their activities since it did not cause severe symptoms in most of the individuals. Although the majority of the participants related transmission to water and lack of sanitation, they did not take any preventive measures since their subsistence is highly dependent on irrigation, farming, fishing, and other essential work that is directly related to water activities. The authors discuss the development of a health education program based on the knowledge and perception of individuals about the disease and its determinants as being important for the context and behavioral change.

This study aimed at investigating the accuracy of grammatical structures made by EFL students and their perception of factors affecting them to translate Indonesian texts into English grammatically. The subjects of the study were 21 students in an Indonesian-English Translation class at Language and Literature Faculty, Universitas Sains Alqur’an Wonosobo, Indonesia. The data were collected through students’ translation result texts, questionnaires, and interviews. Since the data involve social phenomena the qualitative approach is used to interpret the data. The findings indicate that the major inaccurate grammatical structures made by students are noun phrase structure, passive voice, and usage of tenses. EFL students consider that factors that contribute to helping them translate texts grammatically are lecturers’ grammar class, watching English movies, and frequent translating exercises. With regard to Indonesian-English translation, this study is believed to ensure the teachers to design an appropriate course to serve the students to develop their grammatical performance in translation.

Psychology<br>Ph.D.<br>Conceptual development and achievement are embedded in social relationships. Research on self-fulfilling prophecies in the classroom has shown teachers' inaccurate perceptions about a child's ability shape schoolchildren's intellectual development in the direction of the misperception (Jussim & Harber, 2005; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968; Sorhagen, 2013). This contrasts with prior research on the influences of parents' misperceptions, which has shown that parents with accurate perceptions of their child's abilities, compared to those with misperceptions, have children with advanced conceptual development and higher achievement (Hunt & Paraskevopoulos, 1980; S. A. Miller, Manhal, & Mee, 1991; Sorhagen, 2014a, 2014b). Taken together, the literature on adult misperceptions of child abilities paints discrepant pictures of how adults' inaccurate beliefs may influence children's achievement trajectories. There is evidence for conditional direct and indirect effects of misperceptions within both literatures. Perhaps if moderating conditions were the same at school and at home, the effects of teacher and parent misperceptions would be the same. The present dissertation used prospective data to address the conflicting evidence on the effects of teachers' and mothers' misperceptions of abilities, focusing on differences in the magnitude and direction of adult misperceptions by the levels of environmental control (i.e. rigidly structured and intrusive versus autonomy-supporting). The results confirmed and extended the prior literature by showing that children's reading and math achievement in high school were differentially affected by the accuracy of adults' perceptions of the children's abilities depending on whether the adult is a teacher or mother. Children's high school performance benefited most when their teachers overestimated their abilities and when their mothers' accurately estimated their abilities in in third-grade. Furthermore, there was evidence for mediation through adults' differential treatment in the reading models. Evidence for moderation was also seen in the reading models, but only for the influence of teachers' misperceptions on teacher attention, which indirectly led to differences in child achievement (i.e. conditional indirect effects). The effects of teachers' misperceptions were more profound at low levels of environmental control compared to highly controlled classrooms. Thus environmental control did not lead to similar influences of teacher and mother misperceptions. This supports the notion that there are different consequences of teacher and mother misperceptions on child achievement. The results of additional analyses found child characteristics (i.e. child birth order, gender, ethnicity, family SES, child social competencies, and prior abilities), as well as teacher's self-efficacy predicted the degree of accuracy of the adults' perceptions of children's reading and math abilities. Furthermore, the results showed that teachers' and mothers' perceptions were often accurate, but when one adult was inaccurate, it was likely that the other adult's perception was similar. As we become increasingly aware of the importance of social influences on cognition, the results of the present dissertation suggest that it is important to consider differences between socializing agents.<br>Temple University--Theses