Australian grades 4 to 6 teachers’ beliefs and practices about teaching writing to low SES students

The current study examined writing beliefs and practices of 187 grades 4 to 6 teachers who taught writing in schools serving predominantly low SES students in Queensland, Australia. These participants completed a mailed survey that assessed their perceptions of preparation to teach writing to low SES students, time spent on writing instruction, frequency of writing instruction, students’ time spent on writing, efficacy beliefs for teaching writing, beliefs about these students’ cognitive attributes for successful writing, beliefs about the suitability of basic writing instruction for low SES students, frequency of teaching basic writing skills and frequency of teaching advanced writing skills. As predicted, these teachers did not feel that they were prepared adequately to teach writing to low SES students. Neither did they consider in-service support sufficient. These teachers spent limited time on teaching writing, with a majority (81 %) spending 1 or 2 h or less teaching writing each week. Most teachers held deficit beliefs about low SES students, considering them lacking cognitive and motivational attributes for successful writing. Most also considered basic writing instruction appropriate for low SES students. As expected, most teachers taught basic writing skills more often than advanced writing skills. The results of multiple regression analyses showed that teachers’ efficacy beliefs predicted frequency of teaching basic and advanced skills and moderated the effects of other teacher beliefs on how often basic writing skills were taught to low SES students.

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