| Abstract: | Teachers routinely make decisions regarding the best pedagogical methods for altering students’ understandings about academic
content. Such practices are at the root of teaching as persuasion, and have been shown to be related to academic achievement.
Yet very little research has investigated the extent to which individuals learning to be teachers (i.e., preservice teachers)
feel they are capable of performing the practices underlying teaching as persuasion. As such, the purpose of this study was
to examine the extent to which preservice teachers see themselves as capable of performing persuasive pedagogical practices
compared to more general teaching practices as operationalized on well-researched measures of teacher efficacy. Results indicated
that undergraduates enrolled in preservice teacher education courses perceived themselves as less capable of performing persuasive
pedagogical practices than more generally accepted practices. In addition, preservice teachers perceived they were more capable
of altering students’ knowledge about content than at modifying their beliefs about content. Implications for research and
practice are forwarded. |
