To learn more about changes in teachers’ views, we have used the adapted version of the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy scale. This instrument shows which difficulties teachers believe they face in the classroom. All the workshop participants were asked to fill in the questionnaire two times. First they did it before the course or during the first session. The same questionnaire was filled in again during the last session of the course (three or five months later depending on the group).
The data was collected from 46 participants taking part in the workshops. A t-test was run to determine if there had been any significant changes in teachers’ beliefs. The adapted version of the scale included the questions related to efficacy in student engagement and instructional practices (the questions related to classroom management were omitted). No significant changes were found regarding beliefs about student engagement, however a number of things appear to have changed regarding the instructional strategies (α=0.05).
The most significant change is connected to teachers’ beliefs in their ability to craft good questions for their students (p=0.0044). In other words, teachers believe that the course has considerably improved their ability to pose good questions. The results showed three more aspects where participants’ beliefs have changed: