Preservice early childhood teachers’ attitudes toward the process approach to writing

Abstract

Thirty‐eight preservice early childhood education teachers responded to a two‐part questionnaire about teaching writing. First, they reacted to statements which represented either a process approach or a non‐process approach to writing. Subjects rated each item on #opa#cp their degree of agreement and #opb#cp how feasible they believed the practice to be in the classroom. Second, subjects rated unlabeled descriptions of four approaches to teaching writing on their likely effectiveness and classroom feasibility. Subjects also indicated which, if any, of the approaches they planned to use. The results indicated that the preservice teachers generally supported specific process approach positions while rejecting non‐process approach views. They also tended to believe that the process view can be easily implemented in real classrooms. Moreover, when presented with general descriptions of various approaches to teaching writing, these preservice teachers rated descriptions of the process approach higher than other approaches and overwhelmingly declared their intention to use that approach in their classrooms. However, certain mismatches between subjects’ responses and process approach views suggested implications for teacher educators.