Child outcomes in Head Start classrooms: The impact of teacher beliefs and interactions

An increased emphasis on accountability for the achievement of children at all grade levels, including preschool, has created the necessity for schools to demonstrate that all children are achieving. This emphasis has resulted in an increased interest in the study of the classroom characteristics that have an impact on the achievement of children and, in particular, the impact of classroom teachers on the achievement of children. Teacher efficacy is the one teacher characteristic found to have a consistent relationship with child achievement in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms (Woolfolk & Hoy, 1990). The consistency of this relationship at the preschool level has not yet been demonstrated in previous research.;This dissertation presents findings from a correlational study that examined the relationship between teacher efficacy beliefs and child outcomes, and the relationship between teacher efficacy beliefs and instructional interactions. The participants were 61 Head Start lead teachers in a large mid-western metropolitan area Teacher efficacy beliefs were measured using the 24-item Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001), child outcomes were measured using a portfolio rating scale, and instructional interactions were measured using the Classroom Practices Inventory-KP (Vartuli, 1992). The study also measured job satisfaction, commitment to the field of early childhood education, and pedagogical teacher beliefs, all of which are variables that may impact teacher efficacy beliefs and/or child outcomes.;The findings of this study indicate that there is no significant relationship between teacher efficacy beliefs and overall child outcomes. When child outcomes were explored by developmental and subject matter domains, a significant relationship, although low, was found between teacher efficacy and literacy. No significant relationship was found between teacher efficacy and instructional interactions. A supplementary analysis, however, revealed a significant relationship between instructional interactions and overall child outcomes. Results of this current study indicate that while teacher efficacy beliefs of the participants were not found to have a significant relationship with child outcomes, the instructional interactions that are occurring in the classroom do have a significant relationship with child outcomes.