Student Perceptions of the Teacher Image

Transcription

1 . COORDINATED BY FREDERICK A. RODGERS CONTENTS avid Friesen. Hal Chalmers ohn R. Bolig, Gerald O. Flelcher ohn Guenther. Wayne Dumas. D. Kerr, Robert Burton, John A/spaugh Student Perceptions of the Teacher Image DAVID FRIESEN' HAL CHALMERS THE teacher's status or image "is a function of a puzzling array of status dimen sions. These dimensions include the social prestige of teaching, the place of teachers in local communities, their competence, and professional standing." ' Attempts at a pre cise assessment of the status of teaching have been singularly unsuccessful to date, leaving the impression that the teacher's status falls anywhere between the highest and lowest occupations. However, when it is examined in terms of the dimensions sug gested by Corwin and others, a somewhat more definitive image appears. Most research has focused on the image of teaching as perceived by adults. Donald 1 Ronald G. Corwin. A Sociology of Educa tion. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, p O'Dowd and and David Beardslee found that teachers, in comparison with other groups, were considered financially poor, and were seen to have little opportunity for advance ment, to be low in social status, and to have little power in public affairs. 2 Waldrip found that teachers, in comparison with other pro fessional people, were perceived to be active in community affairs. He also found that teachers were considered underpaid, that - Donald O'Dowd and David Beardslee. "The Student Image of the School Teacher." Phi Delta Kappan 42: ; March * David Friesen, Professor, Department of Edu cational Administration, University of Alberta, Edmonton. Canada; and Hal Chalmers, Director, School of Nursing, University of Alberta Hos pital, Edmonton, Canada Copyright 1973 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. All rights reserved.

2 they lacked prestige, and that the teaching profession housed a high number of incom petents/ 1 Gerbner, in a study dealing with teachers or schools as portrayed in stories, found that the majority of teachers were rep resented as being aliens to the community. 4 A study was initiated recently to explore the status of the teacher as perceived by students."1 Studies of this nature are prac tically nonexistent, yet the student perception of the teacher image may have a significant bearing both upon the effectiveness of the teacher-pupil relationship and upon the recruitment of new members into the profession.. This study set out to determine the image of the teacher, as perceived by stu dents, in comparison with four other occu pations: those of the doctor, nurse, lawyer, and social worker. The occupations studied were chosen on the basis of O'Dowd and Beardslee's correlation of the teacher's pro file with other high-level occupational pro files. O'Dowd and Beardslee found that the image of the teacher correlated with that of the social worker at the ^.86 level, with that of the doctor at the +.49 level, and with that of the lawyer at the.23 level." Upon the assumption that these findings are signifi cant, the occupations mentioned together with that of the nurse, which has been fre quently used in comparative studies with the teacher were used to provide a relatively wide range of disparity from the profile of the teacher. The second problem of the study was related to differences in student perception of the teacher image, when students were 3 Donald R. Waldrip. "The Image of the Spokane Teacher." Phi Delta Kappan 4 7: 571; June G. Gerbner. "Smaller Than Life: Teachers and Schools in the Mass Media." Phi Delta Kappan 44: 204; February " Hal Chalmers. "Student Perception of the Teacher Image." Unpublished master's thesis. De partment of Educational Administration, Univer sity of Alberta, '' O'Dowd and Beardslee, foe cit BO 4.W i t grouped on the basis of selected independent variables. These variables included sex, socioeconomic status, academic achievement, grade level, and the occupational choice of the student. The data for this study were collected through the use of a questionnaire entitled the "High School Student Values Inventory." The questionnaire was administered to 10,019 students in grades 10, 11, and 12 of an urban public school system. A random sample of 1,500 students was selected from this population. In addition to providing the information relating to the independent variables, the students were asked to respond to 28 items classifying the occupations from highest to lowest on a five-point scale. Stu dent scores were calculated for each occupa tion on each of the 14 variables. Analysis of variance was the major statistic employed to test for differences in the ratings by stu dents of the occupations on each of the variables. To test for differences between the subgroups on the ratings, the teacher scores were subjected to analysis of variance.

3 Figure 1 provides the mean scores for the five occupations on the 14 variables con sidered in this study for all respondents in the sample. The F ratio was significant at the.01 level in all areas. Neuman-Keuls tests revealed that the image of the teacher dif fered significantly from all other occupations on seven variables, and from at least two of the four other occupations on the remaining seven variables. Students perceived the teacher as con tributing more service per dollar than any of the other occupations. On the negative side, students perceived teachers to be the least competent in comparison. In addition, students chose teachers as the occupational group with which they would least like to associate on a social basis. These results tend to agree with the findings of Waldrip, particularly with regard to competence. 7 The low rating of teachers on the sociability variable tends to support Gerbncr's statement that teachers are aliens to the community." On all variables the general trend indi cated by the analysis was that the image of the teacher was generally above average on "service" variables such as contributions to the total good, and service per dollar. How ever, on "status" variables such as prestige, income, and training requirements, the image of the teacher was generally below average. These findings relate to the study of O'Dowd and Beardslee which showed that teachers were low in social status. 9 Several analyses based upon subdivision of the sample were made to examine differ ences in perception of the teacher image between students grouped on the basis of sex, socioeconomic level, academic achieve ment, grade level, and occupational choice. On the five variables, where significant sex differences occurred, the male students appeared to have a more favourable image of the teacher than the female students. For example, the mean score of male students 1 Waldrip, Joe. cit. s Gerbner, loc. cit. a O'Dowd and Beardslee, loc. cit. was significantly higher than that of the female students on the variables "teachers should have a higher income," and "teachers are more professional." This finding contra dicts that of Langston, who found that females had a more favourable image of teachers. 1 " Subdivision by grade revealed only one significant difference. This was on the com petence variable, where students in grade 10 perceived the teacher as being significantly more competent than did the students in grade 12. The final analysis in this study was con cerned with subdivision of students on the basis of their occupational choice. The find ing in this area supports reference group theory which suggests that persons who are preparing themselves for a future role may in advance acquire attitudes and mannerisms appropriate to that role." Those students who planned to become teachers perceived the image of the teacher more favourably than those students who planned to enter other occupations. Conclusion The teaching profession should seriously consider those areas in which students per ceived the teacher image unfavourably. One of the more pronounced of these was compe tence. This may indicate a need to improve the teacher training program and to set higher academic requirements for entrance into the profession. It could also be surmised that higher standards in both entrance re quirements and training should be com municated to the students. However, the problem relating to the perception of teacher competency is complicated by its relation to the variables: socioeconomic status, the grade level, and the achievement of students. Since students in the highest achieve ment group and in the highest socioeconomic 111 R. G. Langston. "Study of Attitudes Toward Teaching as a Vocation." Journal of Teacher Edu cation 2 : 83-86; June " E. W. Ratsoy. "Professional Attitudes of Prospective Teachers." Canadian Administrator, May 1966; pp

4 ollar, e category perceived the deficiency in teacher competence more than the others, the sug gestion derives that concerns with image building be directed toward these groups. The possibility that the somewhat stronger perception in these groups of the "service" image serves as a barrier to the perception of competence in teachers can be explored later in connection with the concluding proposition. The additional finding that the perception of competence of teachers is less pronounced in grade 12 than in grade 10 clearly presents a challenge to the practi tioners in the classrooms. Another area in which the teacher was perceived to be the lowest of the five occupa tions was that of sociability. There is ap parently a need for teachers to come out of their shells and be more sociable. This would appear to be of some importance in a society where social skills are rapidly becoming more important than traditional skills. Whether the perception of the socia bility of teachers can be changed is a doubt ful question. However, current trends of substituting a facilitating and professional role for teachers, and of introducing new forms of teacher-student relationships, may have an impact. It is conceivable that the teacher's reliance for influence on his being an authority figure in the classroom has helped to foster the low sociability dimension of the teacher image. The fact that those students who planned to make a career of teaching had a more favourable image of the teacher indi cates that possibly they had already adopted some values and attitudes similar to those held by members of the teaching profession. This finding suggests that any change in the image of the teacher may have to come from within the profession's ranks. However, there are indications that changes in perceptions of teaching do occur during the years of teacher preparation. 12 The question may resolve itself to that of abstracting from the teacher training process those activities that relate to change in the perception of the teacher image and to mak ing practicing teachers aware of the impor tance of these criteria. Traditional values have placed the teacher in a public servant type of role. 13 This is reflected by the favourable rating given to teaching on all the service variables. Although this favourable image is desirable, the perceived strong service role of teachers may be a block to any status change in the teacher image. In particular, prestige, pro fessionalism, and income may be affected. In other words, the service variables may be resistors to change in status. This proposi tion is reflected in Figure 2. This model proposes that the traditional concept of the teacher as a servant of the community may act as a resistor to change and may have to be overcome before any significant change in the status of teachers can occur. Clearly the traditional concept of the service function of the teacher persists in the minds of the students. The upward movement of the status of teaching may be impeded by this image. Any change in the status of teaching may be contingent not only on the develop ment of the status dimensions of income, preparation, and professionalism, but also on the reduction of the emphasis on the service functions of the teacher. Q ^Ibid. 13 Corwin, op. cit, pp

5 Copyright 1973 by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. All rights reserved.