Secondary Pupils and Teacher Qualities: Contrasts in Appraisals
Keywords:
teacher qualities, secondary students, student perceptions, teacher appraisal, gender differences, teacher preparationAbstract
Twelve teacher qualities were ranked for relative importance by 266 Canadian and American senior-secondary pupils in anonymous responses to a questionnaire for which they volunteered. Subdivisions of the sample were formed for purposes of comparison on the basis of respondents' sex, nationality, program of studies, and social class (defined by reference to parental occupations). The ratings distributions for these groups were compared (males with females; Canadians with Americans; academic with non-academic pupils; entrepreneurs with professionals, unskilled labourers, and skilled labourers) to explore the extent to which an assumption of homogeneity of orientation and appraisals is warranted. Eleven of 48 (23%) comparisons revealed significant differences. Of these differences, 4 were found in program group comparisons; 3 arose from nationality comparisons; 3 emerged from gender comparisons; and the remaining difference was revealed through social class comparison. At least one significant difference was found in the comparisons for the majority (7 of 12) of the teacher attributes. Finer-grained analyses (i.e., within sex and within nationality) revealed 9 other significant within-group differences in ratings of teacher qualities. The results are discussed relative to issues which arise from simplification by deletion, categorical treatment of diversity or complexity, decomposition strategies in research, and teacher preparation and selection practices.
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