Dimensionality of Teacher Education Beliefs: An Exploratory Study.
An inventory of items describing notions about how learning occurs, what priorities are important in education, and how teachers should relate to students was administered to a sample of 290 teachers assigned to kindergarten and grades one through six. An oblique factor solution yielded four moderately independent dimensions of belief describing affective and cognitive educational values, directive teaching behavior, and relevancy in subject matter. The significance of the multidimensional findings for teacher belief profiles is discussed.