Science and mathematics teacher communities of practice: social influences on discipline-based identity and self-efficacy beliefs

Abstract

Background Teacher communities of practice, identity, and self-efficacy have been proposed to influence positive teacher outcomes in retention, suggesting all three may be related constructs. Qualitative studies of communities of practice can be difficult to empirically link to identity and self-efficacy in larger samples. In this study, we operationalized teacher communities of practice as specific networks related to teaching content and/or pedagogy. This scalable approach allowed us to quantitatively describe communities of practice and explore statistical relationships with other teacher characteristics. We asked whether these community of practice networks were related to identity and self-efficacy, similar to other conceptualizations of communities of practice. Results We analyzed survey data from 165 in-service K-12 teachers prepared in science or mathematics at 5 university sites across the USA. Descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analyses indicated that math teachers consistently reported smaller communities of practice and lower identity and self-efficacy scores. Correlations revealed that communities of practice are more strongly and positively related to identity than self-efficacy. Conclusion We demonstrate that teacher communities of practice can be described as networks. These community of practice networks are correlated with teacher identity and self-efficacy, similar to published qualitative descriptions of communities of practice. Community of practice networks are therefore a useful research tool for evaluating teacher characteristics such as discipline, identity, self-efficacy, and other possible outcomes (e.g., retention). These findings suggest that teacher educators aiming to foster strong teacher identities could develop pre-service experiences within an explicit, energizing community of practice.

Self-Efficacy, Job Satisfaction and Teacher Well-Being in the K-12 Educational System

“…Sandholtz and Ringstaff obtained positive results for teachers who worked in challenging environments, after a three-year professional development program [ 68 ]. Coupled with practice and identity, self-efficacy has positive results for teacher retention, as Polizzi et al showed, because teacher communities of practice are organized as networks [ 39 , 55 , 69 , 70 ]. Velthuis, Fisser, and Pieters found that pre-service improvement programs increased teacher self-efficacy, meaning that universities should improve their educational offer [ 71 ].…”

An Exploratory Study: The Role of Social Networks and Self-Efficacy in the Retention of Noyce Teachers

“…On average, 36.6% of alters (nominated by the teachers) in a teacher's network were individuals employed at the same pre-K-12 school as the responding teacher and 21.3% were individuals employed at a different pre-K-12 school than the responding teacher. In previous social network studies of science and mathematics teachers, between one-third and one-half of alters were from the same school as the nominating teacher (Polizzi et al, 2016;Polizzi et al, 2021).…”

“…Teachers indicated that wellconnected networks foster collaboration among teachers, a shared vision or culture, and ease of enacting new initiatives (Polizzi et al, 2016). In a later study by Polizzi et al (2021), the authors explored mathematics and science teachers' perceptions of how connected the contacts within their networks were by showing teachers images of network maps and having them rate which map most closely resembled how connected the contacts within their own network were. Teachers' perceptions of the connections between others in their network were significantly correlated with aspects of positive science and mathematics identity (Polizzi et al, 2021).…”

“…In a later study by Polizzi et al (2021), the authors explored mathematics and science teachers' perceptions of how connected the contacts within their networks were by showing teachers images of network maps and having them rate which map most closely resembled how connected the contacts within their own network were. Teachers' perceptions of the connections between others in their network were significantly correlated with aspects of positive science and mathematics identity (Polizzi et al, 2021). These studies, though not exploring retention specifically, can be used to further understand how highly connected networks, while lacking many different buckets of support, may influence teacher retention.…”

The Effect of Online Education on the Teachers’ Working Time Efficiency

“…They had to spend additional time to acquire the necessary skills for working with various online platforms The issue of evaluating the teacher's effectiveness by various methods is considered in the academic literature. For example, using the Cultural-historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (McPherson & Pearce, 2022), or the Educational Process and Data Mining (EPDM) model (Okoye et al, 2020), or through the assessment of the level of teacher's identity (Polizzi et al, 2021). The academic literature survey revealed that there are no uniform international criteria for evaluating the teacher's effectiveness (Serafini, 2018;Prokopenko et al, 2020).…”