What is teachers’ belief in the virtues of student retention founded on?

Abstract

The aim of this research is to try to explain beliefs of teachers in favour of student retention, beginning with their psycho-pedagogical beliefs in other areas: learning, intelligence, assessment, principle of justice. A questionnaire was administered to 112 primary teachers of the Belgium French. The responses have been processed through factor analysis to construct and validate metric scales. Then, using regression equations, we have tried to predict beliefs about student retention using other categories of beliefs. Finally, we conducted cluster analyses in order to identify groups of teachers, distinguishable by the nature of their beliefs. Two major results emerge from these analyses. On the one hand, it appears that the awareness of research on the effects of repetition influences teachers’ beliefs about this practice. On the other hand, contrary to our assumptions, the other categories of beliefs do not seem to affect teachers’ beliefs about student retention. These results are discussed in relation to the classical theories postulating that beliefs and social representations are organized into a system.