Characterization of Primary School Teachers’ Beliefs about Narrative Writing and their Relationship with Cognitive Style

Abstract

This article reports a study that seeks to characterize the beliefs of elementary school teachers about the composition of narrative texts, and their relationship with the field independence-dependence cognitive style. The sample is composed of 87 language teachers (77 women and 10 men), from 14 educational institutions in the municipalities of Ubaté, Vélez, Ipiales and Todos a Aprender Program of Nariño in Colombia. The study is mixed and descriptive nature. The participating teachers answered the first instrument corresponding to the Questionnaire on Transmissive and Transactional Beliefs about the process of writing narrative texts. The second is called the Masked Figures Test. It was adapted from the National Pedagogical University. The results indicate that 6 out of 10 teachers have transmissive beliefs, which indicates that the participant considers writing as an act of moving or transcribing words from the board to the notebook. Regarding transactional beliefs, it is highlighted that participants conceive writing as a process composed of several stages called time to read, plan, write, revise, correct, share, rewrite, and publish. Finally, the Masked Figures Test used to identify the cognitive style of the participants shows that there is no tendency for field independence-dependence, since the average score was 25,11.