Text-picture integration - Teachers' attitudes, motivation and self-related cognitions in diagnostics

Abstract

Especially in secondary school, students need to learn from multi-representational material. For integrating information from different sources, students need specific competencies, which are seldom explicitly fostered. Teaching and learning with text-picture material is not systematically embedded in teacher education at German universities, but teachers have to deal with this material and its inherent challenges. For initiating successful learning processes teachers need to judge students’ learning prerequisites and the level of difficulty of text-picture material. This raises the need for investigating teachers’ attitudes, motivation and their self-related cognitions in diagnostics, which are assumed to impact teachers’ diagnostic activities. The presented study aims at examining teachers’ attitudes towards diagnostics, motivation towards diagnostics, self-efficacy beliefs and self-reflection in diagnostics in regard to teaching with multi-representational learning material. CFAs support the superiority of a four-factor model. Structural equation models reveal that teachers’ experience is positively related to their motivation in diagnostics. Teachers’ attitudes and self-related cognitions are positively related to their diagnostic behavior. The study provides evidence of the structure and importance of teachers’ attitudes, motivation and self-related cognitions.