Preservice and inservice teachers’ knowledge of language constructs in Finland
Abstract
The aim of the study was to explore the Finnish preservice and inservice teachers’ knowledge of language constructs relevant for literacy acquisition. A total of 150 preservice teachers and 74 inservice teachers participated in the study by filling out a questionnaire that assessed self-perceived expertise in reading instruction, knowledge of phonology and phonics, and knowledge of morphology. The inservice teachers outperformed the preservice teachers in knowledge of phonology and phonics, as well as morphology. Both groups’ knowledge of morphology was markedly lower than their knowledge of phonology and phonics. Because early reading instruction does not focus on the morphological level of language but is phonics based, this result was expected. However, the findings also revealed a lack of explicit knowledge of basic phonological constructs and less-than-optimal phonemic awareness skills in both groups. Problems in phonemic skills manifested mostly as responding to the phonological tasks based on orthographic knowledge, which reflects an over reliance on the one-toone correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. The preservice teachers’ perceptions of expertise were weakly related to their knowledge and skills. Among the inservice teachers, perceived expertise and knowledge of language constructs were completely unrelated. Although the study was exploratory, these findings suggest that within the Finnish teacher education there is a need to focus more on explicit content studies for language structures and the concepts relevant for literacy instruction, as well as phonological and phonemic skills.
Reference
Aro, M., & Björn, P. M. (2016). Preservice and inservice teachers’ knowledge of language constructs in Finland. Annals of dyslexia, 66(1), 111-126.
Journal
Annals of Dyslexia
Analysis
Is this article part of a larger project or series of studies?
no
Does this study draw on a large, preexisting data set?
no
Research Approach
- Descriptive/Correlational
- Quantitative
- Survey
Geographic Setting
Institutional Context
Certification Level
Programatic Focus
- Elementary
- Special Education
Research Location Context
Preservice Participants
Preservice Sample Size
150
Other Participant Data
Duration of Data Collection
Data Sources
- knowledge of language constructs scale Binks-Cantrell et al. (2012)
- Questionnaire
- Survey
Data Analysis Tools
Researcher Positionality
- A combination of their own students and students from other programs
Research Questions
What is the relationship among self-perceived expertise, knowledge of phonology and phonics, and knowledge of morphology for preservice teachers compared to that of in-service teachers?
Is this research question explicit from the manuscript? No