Research on Educational Beliefs of Rural Primary School Principals: Taking Sichuan as an Example

Zheng Wei WAN

Doctoral thesis

Abstract:

There is a huge gap between urban and rural education in China. School principal is the key person for reducing the gap, whose change is crucial to education reform and development. And, the change should start with beliefs. This research adopted mixed methodology of quantitative and qualitative research to describe the general characteristics of educational beliefs of rural primary school principals by macroscopic investigation, explore the realistic performances, the factors of influence, and impacts on school-running practice by microscopic case study. There are substantial variations in the definitions of educational beliefs in previous studies. In this research, the educational beliefs of school principals are defined as the educational views and ideas that school principals believe in firmly and undoubtedly. It includes six aspects: school planning, school culture, curriculum and teaching, development of teachers, internal school management, and external school environment etc. The questionnaire is constructed on the basis of these aspects. Through questionnaire survey of 420 primary school principals, the general characteristics of the educational beliefs of rural primary school principals are: (1) the overall level of educational beliefs of rural principals is "good", while it is uneven in other levels; (2) there are significant differences on origin, ethnicity, age, teaching age and professional title variables; (3) there are no significant differences on gender and educational background variables. Subsequently, fieldwork including interview, observation, and document inspections was conducted to collect qualitative data for the case study. Based on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, this research analyzed the influencing factors of principals' beliefs such as family, important people, relations between family and school, other schools, backward regional culture and earthquake, and elaborated the actual effects of school-running practices from school culture construction, changes of students and teachers, and parents' feedback etc. Based on the above analyses, the conclusions are: (1) educational beliefs do not necessarily lead to changes in practice, which are also constrained by other factors; (2) the actual situation of the school determines the focus of the principal's educational beliefs; (3) in the educational beliefs system, there is a belief that has not been publicly declared but has had an important impact on practice; (4) the lack of belief education for pre-service teachers; (5) the advocacy of ideas has no meaning for the promotion of educational beliefs, and educational practice has a great influence on beliefs. Last but not least, some suggestions for promoting educational beliefs of rural primary school principals in China, limitations and prospects of this research were discussed.

Abstract:

There is a huge gap between urban and rural education in China. School principal is the key person for reducing the gap, whose change is crucial to education reform and development. And, the change should start with beliefs. This research adopted mixed methodology of quantitative and qualitative research to describe the general characteristics of educational beliefs of rural primary school principals by macroscopic investigation, explore the realistic performances, the factors of influence, and impacts on school-running practice by microscopic case study. There are substantial variations in the definitions of educational beliefs in previous studies. In this research, the educational beliefs of school principals are defined as the educational views and ideas that school principals believe in firmly and undoubtedly. It includes six aspects: school planning, school culture, curriculum and teaching, development of teachers, internal school management, and external school environment etc. The questionnaire is constructed on the basis of these aspects. Through questionnaire survey of 420 primary school principals, the general characteristics of the educational beliefs of rural primary school principals are: (1) the overall level of educational beliefs of rural principals is "good", while it is uneven in other levels; (2) there are significant differences on origin, ethnicity, age, teaching age and professional title variables; (3) there are no significant differences on gender and educational background variables. Subsequently, fieldwork including interview, observation, and document inspections was conducted to collect qualitative data for the case study. Based on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, this research analyzed the influencing factors of principals' beliefs such as family, important people, relations between family and school, other schools, backward regional culture and earthquake, and elaborated the actual effects of school-running practices from school culture construction, changes of students and teachers, and parents' feedback etc. Based on the above analyses, the conclusions are: (1) educational beliefs do not necessarily lead to changes in practice, which are also constrained by other factors; (2) the actual situation of the school determines the focus of the principal's educational beliefs; (3) in the educational beliefs system, there is a belief that has not been publicly declared but has had an important impact on practice; (4) the lack of belief education for pre-service teachers; (5) the advocacy of ideas has no meaning for the promotion of educational beliefs, and educational practice has a great influence on beliefs. Last but not least, some suggestions for promoting educational beliefs of rural primary school principals in China, limitations and prospects of this research were discussed.

Keywords

Educational beliefs, Rural primary school principal, Educational beliefs of school principals, China

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 31. 5. 2018

Thesis defence

PALACKÝ UNIVERSITY OLOMOUC

Faculty of Education

Doctoral programme / field:
Education / Education