Date

6-2022

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)

Chair

Jeffrey S. Savage

Keywords

Neuroeducation, Neuroscience Literacy, Educational Neuroscience, Teacher Self-efficacy, Neuromyth

Disciplines

Education | Educational Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to explore how K-12 teachers’ self-efficacy correlates to their neuroscience literacy factors--a combination of scientific concept of learning and memory and belief in neuromyths. What teachers know about learning, memory, and the brain influences their instructional strategies and achieving academic goals. The better understanding a teacher has of learning, memory and the brain, the higher efficacy teachers’ have to execute the necessary actions to achieve desired teaching goals. A sample of 110 K-12 certified teachers were recruited from a large school district in East Tennessee to participate in this present study. Data was collected via a self-paced online survey. In addition to demographic information, the survey included the Conception of Learning and Memory inventory to measure teacher’s neuroscientific literacy and the Scale for Teacher Self-Efficacy to measure teacher self-efficacy. Multiple regression was used to measure the correlation between the predictor variables and the criterion variable. There was a statistically significant relationship between the predictor variables and the criterion variable. Therefore, the researcher rejected the null hypothesis. On average results indicated that scientific concept of learning and memory scores were positively associated with teacher self-efficacy scores, while belief in neuromyth scores were negatively associated with teacher self-efficacy scores. Higher neuroscientific knowledge likely increases teacher self-efficacy by helping teachers understand strategies that support learning environments and instructional strategies that support the achievement of learning objectives.

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