Chapter 7: Beliefs of Early Childhood Teachers

Two paradigms in research on teaching have been identified. The first, which assesses teaching effectiveness, is called “the process-product approach” (Shulman, 1986, p. 9). The process-product approach was developed in the United States in the early 1950s in the field of psychology. In this approach, “process” refers to the visible and audible behavior of students and teachers, and “product” refers to the results of teaching. Process-product studies have explored effective teaching by studying teacher behavior and student achievement; thus, a specific process is correlated with specific products. In this framework, the good teacher is one whose students achieve the highest scores on tests of knowledge and skill. The research program is dedicated to describing the teaching skills and behaviors that reliably distinguish between the most effective teachers and their less effective counterparts (Clark, 1995; Shulman, 1986).