Abstract
This paper reports on a study investigating the mindsets of 51 pre-service teachers at an Austrian university using Q methodology. Despite the recent growth in interest in the concept of mindsets, little research has addressed the mindsets of teachers – most of it focusing on the mindsets of learners – and the research that does investigate teachers tends to focus on beliefs about learning or intelligence. This study offers a new perspective by focusing on teachers’ beliefs about their own teaching competences. A further aim of the study is to expand the methodological repertoire in language education researchers. This study considers the potential of Q methodology, a research approach used widely in social sciences and education, but, as yet, rare in this field. The data indicate that the most common mindset among the pre-service teachers is one based around a strong belief in the learnability of the more technical aspects of teaching, while interpersonal skills tend to be regarded as more of a natural talent fixed within the individual. One practical implication of this finding is that teacher education programmes may need to pay more attention to explicitly developing the interpersonal side of teaching. A further finding was that teacher mindsets are constructed through individuals’ management of various sets of implicit theories and tend not to conform to the established dichotomous model of mindsets.
Highlights
The concept of mindsets has received considerable attention in education in recent years
We examine the concept of mindsets, at times with a critical eye, and consider its role in foreign language education
It may well be that views of what is learnable are being shaped by what is on the curriculum, that there is a kind of circularity based on an assumption that what is on the curriculum is there by virtue of the fact that it is learnable and the interpersonal skills are not on the curriculum because they are not learnable
Summary
The concept of mindsets has received considerable attention in education in recent years. What is notable about this attention is that discussions of, and interest in, mindsets have broken out of the narrow confines of academic inquiry to reach a broader, popular audience. The scale of this interest is reflected in Kohn’s (2015) observation that the concept of mindsets “has approached the status of a cultural meme and is repeated with uncritical enthusiasm by educators and a growing number of parents.”. We hope to contribute to a small but growing body of research investigating mindsets in foreign language education and teacher mindsets. We aim to do so by offering a fresh perspective investigating pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and their views about the learnability of various core teaching competences
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
