Professional competence is believed to be a crucial factor in classroom and school
practices (Shulman, 1987, Campbell et al., 2004; Baumert and Kunter, 2006). To study
this, a number of authors have used, for example, measures of the effects of
constructivist compared with “reception/direct transmission” beliefs on teaching and
learning, developed by Peterson et al.(1989). TALIS uses a domain-general version of
two teaching and learning-related indices (constructivist and direct transmission) to
cover teachers’ beliefs and basic understanding of the nature of teaching and learning.
Teachers’ professional knowledge and actual practices may differ not only among
countries but also among teachers within a country. To gain an understanding of the
prevalence of certain beliefs and practices it is therefore important to examine how
they relate to the characteristics of teachers and classrooms. For