One Model to Fit Them All? A Mixture Distribution Path Analysis of Preservice Early Childhood Teachers’ Beliefs, Emotions, and Knowledge

Abstract

Previous studies have applied a variable-centered approach to conduct extensive investigations of preservice early childhood teachers’ (PECTs’) epistemic beliefs in the domain of mathematics (application-related beliefs, process-related beliefs, static orientation), enjoyment of mathematics, mathematics anxiety, mathematical content knowledge, and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge. However, person-centered approaches, which have been fruitfully applied to other constructs and domains concerning pre- and inservice teachers, have not yet been applied to the aforementioned constructs. We addressed this research gap by investigating relationships between mathematics-related beliefs, emotions, and knowledge in terms of the well-established control-value theory in combination with a mixture distribution path analysis. About 1,851 PECTs took part in the study. Participants worked on tests and questionnaires during regular class time in teacher education. The results yielded two latent classes with structural differences in the coefficients of the path model, which we termed the application and static learning classes. In Class 1, higher levels of application-related beliefs were in line with lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of knowledge. In Class 2, higher levels of static orientation were in line with lower levels of enjoyment and higher levels of anxiety and knowledge. These novel results indicate two pathways for learning, with implications for research and practice. For research, the results are interesting with regard to static orientation and show the need for further research. For practice, they indicate the need to respect individual differences even during teacher education.