Spring cleaning for the “messy” construct of teachers’ beliefs: What are they? Which have been examined? What can they tell us?

The research on teachers ’ beliefs, to our knowledge, spans more than 57 years ( Oliver, 1953 ) and runs the gamut of research methodologies, theoretical perspectives, and identifi cation of specifi c beliefs about any number of topics. It seems that the initial goal of the research on teachers ’ beliefs was to establish a clear psychological construct, beliefs, that could serve as an explanatory and predictive mechanism for explaining differences in teachers ’ practices (e.g., Abrami, Poulsen, & Chambers, 2004 ), outcomes with students (e.g., Muijs & Reynolds, 2002 ), and experiences (e.g., McAlpine, Eriks-Brophy, & Crago, 1996 ). Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Although the published empirical…