Impact of Cooney, Shealy, and Arvold’s (1998) Belief Structures: A Literature Review and Citation Analysis

Cooney, Shealy, and Arvold (1998) wrote a widely cited article describing the belief structures of prospective teachers and argued that the structures can aid in describing how beliefs change and the influence of authority on the individual. We investigate the impact of this manuscript on the field. To do this, we conducted a literature review (n = 59) of journal articles and proceedings published since 1998 covering the same population and goals of Cooney, Shealy, and Arvold (changing prospective teachers’ beliefs) and then conducted an analysis of 101 journal articles citing Cooney, Shealy, and Arvold (1998) to see why the authors cited the piece. We conclude that the impact of Cooney, Shealy, and Arvold’s article differs from that of their results and suggest that belief structures should be more carefully investigated by the field.