This article was published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 26,
Issue 2, Author(s): Christina Lim, “Understanding Singaporean Preschool Teachers' Beliefs about Literacy Development: Four Different Perspectives”, Pages 215-224, Copyright Elsevier (February 2010).
Investigating teachers' beliefs may shed light on their activities in the classroom, and in turn, on the pedagogical process itself. It is, however, not easy to study teachers' beliefs empirically.
Q-methodology has been used over several disciplines to systematically investigate individuals' points of view on a range of issues. A study involving Q-methodology was conducted in Singaporean preschools to investigate some teachers' perceptions of early literacy development and instruction.
The study revealed four viewpoint groups among the 30 preschool teachers who participated in the study, and possible teacher characteristics that distinguish the viewpoints from each other. The results suggest that the differences in viewpoints are indicative of differences in cultural expectations held by various groups of teachers.