Elementary Science Educators' Confidence and Expectations in Culturally Responsive Teaching

This descriptive-correlational study examined the self-confidence and expectations regarding culturally responsive teaching (CRT) among elementary science educators, addressing a gap in research on elementary educators' self-confidence in teaching CRT and the outcomes associated with it in the Philippine setting. CRT is a method of teaching that utilizes diverse funds of knowledge embedded within a culture, the totality of existing events observed by students, and ways in which students learn and apply skills seamlessly, drawing on their rich backgrounds. This method helped students feel welcomed and at ease in schools and is best suited to the Philippine context, given that students came from culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds. A total of 106 elementary educators who taught science were selected as the sample and participated in the quantitative survey, which included a 40-item researcher-developed questionnaire. Means as well as standard deviations were employed for descriptive analyses, while the inferential data employed the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient. Results revealed that elementary educators teaching science had remarkably high confidence (M = 4.63; SD = .41) in their ability to create an effective learning process that employs CRT as they implement science instruction. They also had exceptionally high outcome expectations (M = 4.74; SD = .40) that using CRT can create an enjoyable and accommodating classroom, and increase students' performance. There is a positive relationship between CRT self-confidence and CRT outcome expectations (r = 0.404), and these beliefs are moderately correlated with one another. Findings suggested that only (r2=0.163) of the CRT outcome expectations were predictable by their CRT self-confidence. The elementary science educators' CRT self-confidence alone was a moderate predictor of CRT outcome expectations. Further study is encouraged to determine other variables that may serve as accurate predictors of CRT expectation.