An exploratory study of the relationships between teacher education experiences and the development of teacher role expectations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to systematically explore the potential for role conflict based on bureaucratic and professional value orientations in prospective and first-year teachers. The hypotheses of the study were: (1) Beginning students in the secondary teacher education program define their role expectations in relationship to that of the school bureaucracy; (2) Pre-student teachers in the secondary teacher education program define their role expectations in relationship to that of the teaching profession; (3) Student teachers in the secondary teacher education program define their role expectations in relationship to that of the teaching profession; (4) First-year secondary teachers, upon completion of the equivalent of one university quarter of actual teaching, define their role expectations in relationship to that of the school bureaucracy; and (5) Role conflict is found in persons who perceive their role expectations based on value orientations to both the bureaucracy and the profession. Of the four groups studied, teachers with actual teaching experience exhibit more role conflict than the other three groups.

The discipline divisions of mathematics, science, social studies and English in the secondary teacher education program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University provided the population for the study. Four groups in the secondary teacher education program were studied: (1) beginning teacher education students; (2) pre-student teachers preparing to student teach; (3) student teachers; and (4) teachers of the same teacher education program who had completed their first 10 weeks of actual teaching. Each group represented different levels of teacher education experience.

The Teacher Value Orientation Questionnaire was developed to assist in the data gathering procedures to support or reject the hypotheses of the study. The instrument was designed to produce bureaucratic and professional responses toward selected teaching situations. The instrument was also designed to determine conflict in expected teaching roles by the inclusion of paired items, one item bureaucratically oriented and the corresponding item professionally oriented.

The process of analyzing the data diverged into three stages: (1) determining commonalities found in the response patterns of the subjects; (2) determining the relationship of subject demographic variables to their value orientations; and (3) determining conflict in the responses of the subjects to 10 paired items on the questionnaire.

The results of the analysis of data supported the general hypothesis of the study: The type of value orientation of each subgroup and the degree of conflict response reflected the amount of teacher education experienced by the subgroup.