Teachers’ Knowledge of Neuroplasticity: How It Augments Their Thinking

EasyChair Preprint 10620

Abstract

Educational research has shown that teachers’ knowledge and beliefs are two important variables that significantly affect their pedagogical practice and decisions. Relying on the premise that knowledge is superior to beliefs in a pure epistemic dimension and rooted in the previous empirical studies, we examined the hypothesis that teachers’ knowledge of neuroplasticity affects their epistemological belief system and mindset. Using a survey consisting of established scales about these variables, we collected data from a sample of 345 teachers. Results showed that teachers with a higher score in the knowledge of neuroplasticity had a growth mindset and a sophisticated epistemological belief system: 63.8% of teachers with a growth mindset and 74.3% with sophisticated beliefs were found to have good knowledge of neuroplasticity. The results of SEM analysis also proved our hypothesis: the path coefficients (direct effects) from teachers’ knowledge of neuroplasticity to their mindset (β= -0.70, P˂0.01) and epistemological belief system (β= -0.73, P˂0.01) were statistically significant. Teachers’ knowledge of neuroplasticity also had also an indirect effect of -0.18 on their epistemological beliefs mediated by mindset. These results have a conceptual contribution to the literature because it suggests that teachers’ knowledge of neuroplasticity is a predicting variable for mindset and epistemological beliefs. In practice, it provides us with a tool for developing teachers’ growth mindset and sophisticated epistemological beliefs.

Keyphrases: Epistemological beliefs, Neuroplasticity, SEM, Teachers knowledge, mindset

@booklet{EasyChair:10620,
  author    = {Khalil Gholami and Maryam Alikhani and Kirsi Tirri},
  title     = {Teachers’ Knowledge of Neuroplasticity: How It Augments Their Thinking},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 10620},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}