Assessing and Understanding Teacher Candidates' Dispositions Toward and Knowledge of Parent Involvement

Abstract

To maximize children's opportunities for success in school, teacher preparation programs need to support preservice teachers in developing strong knowledge, experiences, and dispositions toward working with diverse families. Yet, it is challenging for programs to assess their candidates' knowledge and dispositions in this area. In this study we utilize case scenarios to uncover preservice teacher candidates' dispositions toward working with diverse families and strategies that they identify for working with diverse families. We report the ways the scenarios can be utilized to build this understanding as well as describe what we learned about our candidates' knowledge and dispositions. Overall, candidates identified the problematic negative teacher attitudes depicted in the scenario and shared a number of alternative strategies that could be utilized. Findings indicate that candidates' knowledge and dispositions were influenced by their coursework, field experiences, and personal experiences.