Implications of pedagogical beliefs and pedagogical content knowledge for the reading comprehension strategy instruction of teachers

• Main Author: Ma. Jhona B. Acuña
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas 2016-12-01
• Series: Asian Journal of English Language Studies (AJELS)
• Subjects: comprehension strategy instruction; instructional practices; pedagogical beliefs; pedagogical content knowledge
• Online Access: https://ajels.ust.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/6-Implications-of-pedagogical-beliefs-and-pedagogical-content-knowledge.pdf

This study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between theory and practice on teachers’ reading comprehension strategy instruction. One hundred twenty-one (121) Math, Science, and English language teachers participated in the present study. The descriptive research design was used to address the research problem at hand. A survey was administered to obtain the necessary information about the teachers’ perceptions on and awareness of teaching comprehension strategies, while observation of classes by experts was conducted to corroborate the perceptions of the teachers with their instructional practices. The measure of central tendency and correlation were the tools used to analyze the quantitative data. Pearson r was utilized to determine the relationship among the three variables (i.e., pedagogical beliefs, pedagogical content knowledge, and instructional practices), while the mean scores were computed to ascertain the beliefs, knowledge, and practices of the teachers. The results indicated that while teachers believed in the importance of comprehension strategy instruction, they hardly knew about its principles. Their ambiguous understanding of pedagogical content knowledge limited their use of comprehension strategies in instruction. Moreover, a significant correlation was established between the teachers’ beliefs and knowledge of their practices. However, the actual practices as observed by experts did not match the teachers’ perceptions on pedagogical beliefs and pedagogical content knowledge. The study likewise revealed that the perceptions of the content-area teachers were not observed in their practices in comprehension strategy instruction.