Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs and Actual Classroom Practices in Social Studies Instruction
Dr. Fakhri R. Khader

Abstract
This study adopted a qualitative case study approach to check how the pedagogical beliefs of social studies teachers correspond to the practices observed by their own students. The study attempted to answer two research questions:
1- What are the teachers’ stated pedagogical beliefs about the way social studies should be taught in the schools?
2- What are their actual classroom practices of teaching social studies from the students’ own perspectives?
The random sample of the study consisted of 21 teachers, and the number of students was 529. A questionnaire of 58 items spread over 7 domains: Organization, lesson presentation, control and discipline, dealing with students, evaluation, code of ethics and personal characteristics. This tool was administered to measure the pedagogical beliefs among the teachers, and the same questionnaire was also formulated in a manner which enables students to measure the teachers’ actual classroom practices of such beliefs. The validity and reliability of the tool were verified, and the results showed that there is no statistically significant correlation between the teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and their actual classroom practices of such beliefs. The divergence between the two is related to a number of factors. Implications were discussed and recommendations made.

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