the best way to find the literature is to do your own search. You can start with Google Scholar, where you can set the parameters for your search (e.g. key words and time frame). Try to find synonyms for your key words, for example by using http://www.thesaurus.com/.
Try Rudolph Arnheim's new essays on the psychology of art. An old book of mine, updrafts: case studies teacher renewal: focuses just on teachers perceptions .
If you are interested in how perceptions and behavior are related, have a look at Perceptual Control Theory (PCT). The classic book. by William T. Powers, is Behavior: The Control of Perception (1973/2005). A less technical introduction by Powers is Making Sense of Behavior: The Meaning of Control (2004). Among other things, PCT explains why attempting to control others (as teachers often do, in order to achieve their own desired goals and perceptions) while ignoring or ignorant of the goals and desired perceptions of the others (such as students), often leads to conflict and resistance.
Perception, in psychology, mental organization and interpretation of sensory information. The Gestalt psychologists studied extensively the ways in which people organize and select from the vast array of stimuli that are presented to them, concentrating particularly on visual stimuli. Perception is influenced by a variety of factors, including the intensity and physical dimensions of the stimulus; such activities of the sense organs as effects of preceding stimulation; the subject's past experience; attention factors such as readiness to respond to a stimulus; and motivation and emotional state of the subject. Stimulus elements in visual organization form perceived patterns according to their nearness to each other, their similarity, the tendency for the subject to perceive complete figures, and the ability of the subject to distinguish important figures from background. Perceptual constancy is the tendency of a subject to interpret one object in the same manner, regardless of such variations as distance, angle of sight, or brightness. Through selective attention, the subject focuses on a limited number of stimuli, and ignores those that are considered less important. Depth perception, considered to be innate in most animals, is produced by a variety of visual cues indicating perspective, and by a slight disparity in the images of an object on the two retinas. An absolute threshold is the minimal physical intensity of a stimulus that a subject can normally perceive, whereas a difference threshold is the minimal amount of change in a stimulus that can be consciously detected by the subject. Recent studies have shown that stimuli are actually perceived in the brain, while sensory organs merely gather the signals. William Dobelle's research, for instance, has offered significant hope for the blind.
Perception INTRODUCTION Perception is defined as a process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world. Sensation usually refers to the immediate, relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or skin. Perception, on the other hand, better describes one's ultimate experience of the world and typically involves further processing of sensory input. In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part of one continuous process. Our sense organs translate physical energy from the environment into electrical impulses processed by the brain. For example, light, in the form of electromagnetic radiation, causes receptor cells in our eyes to activate and send signals to the brain. But we do not understand these signals as pure energy. The process of perception allows us to interpret them as objects, events, people, and situations. Without the ability to organize and interpret sensations, life would seem like a meaningless jumble of colors, shapes, and sounds. A person without any perceptual ability would not be able to recognize faces, understand language, or avoid threats. Such a person would not survive for long. In fact, many species of animals have evolved exquisite sensory and perceptual systems that aid their survival. PRINCIPLES OF PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION Organizing raw sensory stimuli into meaningful experiences involves cognition, a set of mental activities that includes thinking, knowing, and remembering. Knowledge and experience are extremely important for perception, because they help us make sense of the input to our sensory systems. You could probably read the text, but not as easily as when you read letters in their usual orientation. Knowledge and experience allowed you to understand the text. You could read the words because of your knowledge of letter shapes, and maybe you ev
David W. Chan & Lai-Kwan Chan, “ Implicit Theories of Creativity: Teachers' Perception of Student Characteristics in Hong Kong”, Creativity Research Journal, Volume 12, Issue 3, 1999, pages 185-195, DOI:10.1207/s15326934crj1203_3
Yu-Mei Wang , “When Technology Meets Beliefs Preservice Teachers’ Perception of the Teacher’s Role in the Classroom with Computers”, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Volume 35, Issue 1, 2002, pages 150-161, DOI: 10.1080/15391523.2002.10782376
Mark G. Borg, “Secondary school teachers' perception of pupils' undesirable behaviours”, Article first published online: 13 MAY 2011, British Journal of Educational Psychology”, Volume 68, Issue 1, pages 67–79, March 1998, DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1998.tb01275.x
“Classroom Assessment in Malawi: Teachers’
Perceptions and Practices in Mathematics”
by
William John Susuwele-Banda
Classroom Assessment in Malawi: Teachers’
Perceptions and Practices in Mathematics
by
William John Susuwele-Banda
Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
Since 1975 I did a lot of work in the field of teacher’s and student’s perceptions as a reaction against a mere external, objectivist and behaviorist interpretation of human functioning. In the publications, you can find references to highly interesting research.
A first line of research is on teacher thinking and cognitions. See: ISATT publications that include teachers' purposes, beliefs, conceptions, practical theories, narratives, histories, stories, A central intention for this research is to focus on the way teachers themselves understand teaching and their own roles in it. Research is not limited to studying what teachers do but tries also to understand how they think and feel about what they are doing and the cultural contexts in which their work is embedded. Consequently, research is individually as well as socially, psychologically and culturally based. A recent publication is the 30th ISATT anniversary volume: Craig, C., Meijer, P. & Broeckmans, J. (2013). From teacher thinking to teachers and teaching: The evolution of a research community. Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 19. Bingley, UK: Emerald. Other important sources are the Journals : ‘"Teacher and Teacher education" (Elsevier publisher), "Journal of Teacher Education" (Sage) and ‘"Teachers and teaching"’ (Taylor & Francis). There are ample examples of relevant studies on teacher's cognitions and perceptions.
A second line is student’s perceptions. Students, like teachers, do not react to objective or nominal stimuli in a given environment but to transformed, i.e. interpreted stimuli (See: Lowyck, J., Lehtinen, E., Elen, J. (2005). Students' perspectives on learning environments: guest editorial. International Journal of Educational Research, 41 (6), 401-406); Lowyck, J., Elen, J. & Clarebout, G. (2004) Instructional conceptions: Analysis from an instructional design perspective. International Journal of Educational Research, 41, (6), 429–444). Consequently, effectiveness cannot exclusively be measured through use of observational characteristics since many mediating variables play a role. (Some examples of publications at our Center for Instructional psychology and technology (CIP & T) are: Elen, J., Clarebout, G., Léonard, R., Lowyck, J. (2007). Student-centred and teacher-centred learning environments: what students think. Teaching in Higher Education, 12 (1), 105-117; Elen, J. & Lowyck, J. (2000). Instructional metacognitive knowledge: A qualitative study on conceptions of freshmen about instruction. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 3, 421-444; Elen, J. & Lowyck, J. (2000). Homogeneity in students’ conceptions about the efficiency of instructional interventions: origins and consequences for instructional design. Journal of Structural Learning and Intelligent Systems, 14 (3), 253-265; Elen, J., & Lowyck, J. (1998). Students’ views on the efficiency of instruction: An exploratory survey of the instructional metacognitive knowledge of university freshmen. Higher Education, 36, 231-252.