The Impact of Teacher Beliefs on Elementary Teachers' Use of Scaffolding in a Technology-rich, Inquiry-focused Classroom

This mixed-methods study, conducted with five elementary teachers, explored the relationship between teacher beliefs and classroom practice. Three theoretical frameworks---Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK), Teacher Beliefs, and Scaffolding---were used for creating the data collection tools and for analyzing the data. Teachers were interviewed and observed in an effort to relate their beliefs about using technology and writing to teach science to their classroom practice when implementing Electronic Science Notebooks (ESNs) to teach elementary science.;The data collected suggested that while teachers with greater technological knowledge also had more positive beliefs concerning self-efficacy when teaching science, a greater degree of technological understanding did not necessarily mean that the scaffolding role was shared equally between the ESN and the teacher. Likewise, a higher pedagogical understanding did not mean that the scaffolding role was shared equally between the ESN and the teacher. Concerning the use of writing to teach science, writing was not scaffolded by teachers with the most content knowledge. Finally, teachers with prior experience with ESNs provided more scaffolding for the writing and inquiry process, and they were more likely to engage students in whole class discussion.;Although the results of this work cannot be generalized beyond this sample, understanding these teachers' beliefs and classroom practice provided potential insight into how professional development programs could be designed to better support teachers as they plan to incorporate writing into their science instruction or implement ESNs in their classroom. As an example, when there was discrepancy between a teacher's intended use of technology and the actual use behavior, the teacher discussed the barriers that prevented the best strategies from putting into practice. Strategically planned professional development can provide these teachers with a greater understanding of the factors that shape their beliefs and the impact that those beliefs have on their practice.