Cognitive Modeling Effects on Preservice Teachers with Low and Moderate Success Expectations

Preservice teachers exhibiting low and moderate levels of self-efficacy beliefs were randomly assigned to observe two types of instruction (cognitive modeling vs. direct instruction) and two types of attributional feedback (self-efficacy vs. task-oriented statements) concerning teaching a child how to find the main idea of a paragraph. Dependent measures were estimates of their success regarding teaching the skill, self-efficacy beliefs, and predicted persistence in teaching the skill. Results suggest that, for students exhibiting initial low self-efficacy beliefs, cognitive modeling combined with task orientation is more effective for raising estimates of success. There were no effects found for students initially exhibiting moderate levels of self-efficacy beliefs.