Surveying Job-Related Beliefs of Teachers as Pedagogical Reference Systems: A comparison of future and employed teachers on different levels of the Swiss school system

Subjective pedagogical beliefs of teachers are a key issue of professional action. Beliefs are usually subdivided into behavior-remote (general) and behavior-close (concrete) beliefs and as such are being measured in isolation. This differentiation, however, is not always clear-cut because general and concrete beliefs are also always interrelated. For that reason, the authors introduce the terminology of figure and medium to better conceptualize subjective beliefs. Thus, the connection between concrete (figurative) and general (medial) beliefs is revealed. In this, the medium constitutes the pedagogical reference system which functions as assessment body for concrete beliefs and actions. A new instrument is being presented for the measuring of such referential systems: the E-profiler. For the empirical examination of the E-profiler, the authors investigate whether the pedagogical reference systems show systematic differences between the different levels of the Swiss school system (primary, secondary, and higher secondary) and between future and employed primary and secondary school teachers. The comparisons by means of single factor variance analysis and nonmetric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) reveal that primary school teachers tend to show rather progressive pedagogical reference systems, whereas those of grammar school teachers tend to be more conservative. The junior secondary school teachers are positioned in between the other school levels. When comparing employed primary and secondary school teachers with future teachers, it can be shown that only the future primary school teachers differ substantially from the employed teachers. The limits and potentials of the E-profiler as development tool (to be used in teacher training and further education) and as research instrument are discussed.