The development of an instrument to test pre-service teachers’ beliefs consistent and inconsistent with self-regulation theory

Background: Students are more effective when they employ appropriate strategies to regulate their learning processes and outcomes. However, many teachers do not provide, or provide very little, explicit instructions to promote this self-regulated learning (SRL). This suggests that teachers’ belief systems may include beliefs that may be inconsistent with SRL. Aims: This paper reported the validation of the 78-item Beliefs about Teaching and Learning (BALT) instrument designed to measure pre-service teachers’ beliefs about learning and teaching with particular emphasis on SRL. Samples: Out of the 78 items included in the BALT instrument, 50 of them were administered in BALT 1 and 53 in BALT2 with 25 items administered in both surveys and were common to both instruments. The BALT 1 was administered to 430 pre-service teachers. BALT 2 was administered to 366 pre-service students. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis and the Rasch model were used to investigate the unidimensionality of the scales and psychometric properties of the items. In addition, the summated rating scale procedure was used to create composite scores for the examination of the coexistence of beliefs both consistent and inconsistent with SRL. Results: Pre-service teachers expressed high overall agreement with items related to beliefs consistent with SRL and low agreement with items related to beliefs inconsistent with SRL. However, many of them also indicated high agreement with items related to beliefs in Transmissive Teaching. Conclusions: The study resulted in the development of a 58-item instrument, which was balanced with respect to the inclusion of SRL-consistent and SRL-inconsistent items. This study also provided evidence for the coexistence of pre-service teachers’ beliefs in Constructive Teaching and Transmissive Teaching.