Student Teachers-Supervising Teachers: A Study in Personality.

DOCUMENT RESUME

ND 088 887

SP 007 662

AUTHOR

Buckley, Richard tale; Dickmann, Leonore W.

TITLE

Student Teachers - Supervising Teachers: A Study in

Personality.

PUB DATE [69]

NOTE

10p.

EDRS PRICE

DESCRIPTORS

MF-$0.7.5 HC-$1.50

*Anxiety; *Cooperating Teachers; Elementary

Education; Personal Adjustment; *Personality

Assessment; Personality Tests; *Student Teachers;

*Student Teaching

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the change in anxiety levels

of elementary education student teachers from pre- to post-experience

as it related to how they were different from their supervising

classroom teachers in the intellectual dimension of practicality. The

"Omnibus Personality Inventory, Form F" was the instrument used to

determine anxiety levels and intellectual dispositions. There appears

to be no relation between the change in anxiety level and the way

that a student teacher and a supervising teacher are related in

intellectual disposition. (Authors)

STUDENT TEACHERS - SUPERVISING TEACHERS:

A STUDY IN PERSONALITY

Dr. Richard Dale Buckley

and

Dr. Leonora W. Dickmann

University of Wisconsin-Oshkoshl

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EDUCATION 1 WELFARE

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RICHARD DALE BUCKLEY is presently Chairman and Associate Professor in

the Elementary Education Department at the University of Wisconsin-

Oshkosh.

He received his Ed.D. from the University of Pittsburgh.

His interests are in social studies education and supervision.

LEONORE W. DICKAANN is presently Associate Professor in the Elementary

Education Department at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

She

received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Her

interests are Language Arts, Creativity, and group dynamics.

There has been some evidence to indicate that the supervising

teacher plays a most influential role during the otudent teaching experi-

ence.

Selecting supervising teachers is therefore an important responsi-

bility for those assigning student teachers.

The student teaching experience is perceived as anxiety-laden by

many student teachers.

When the student teacher is successful there

seems to be less anxiety. In situations of failurejanxiety level is

high and one often hears that there was a "personality conflict." Within

the pairing of student teacher and supervising teacher in terms of per-

sonality may be the essential ontributing factor toward the success or

failure of the student teacher. Anxiety level may be related to the

personality pairing.

Student teachers have personalities.

Supervising teachers have

personalities.

Personalitie3 interact. The positive interaction of

personalities is crucial to effective working together.

Student teachers want to do a competent job during their student

teaching experiences.

They have anxiety - will they succeed?

There are many dimensions of personality.

The mix of personality

factors in any one individual causes that individual to be a unique

person.

Is there any factor or factors that may be crucial to the work-

ing relation which is developed between a student teacher and a super-

vising teacher?

Some writers over the past decade have struggled with personality

factors as they relate to teachers.

Donald Musella (4:78) found that

"the personal characteristics of the rater and a ratee are related to

the rating of teachers by principals."

James S. Johnson (3226) found

that "a more open - minced student teacher shows greater susceptibility to

the influence of the supervisor than would the relatively closed-minded."

M. Maxine Hunt and Marjorie Brown (2:436) discovered that "non-dogmatic

teachers judge accurately more students who hold criteria nonsimilar to

their own than do dogmatic teachers

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to determine whether a student teacher

with less intellectual disposition (i.e., more practical, less theoretical)

than his supervising teacher will show a greater change in anxiety level

during the student teaching experience than a student teacher who is of

higher intellectual disposition (i.e., less practical, more theoretical)

than his supervising teacher.

Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were tested:

If a student becomes less anxious during his student teaching

experience, he is likely to be more practical (i.e., less

theoretical) than his supervising teacher.

If a student becomes more anxious during his student teaching

experience, he is likely to be less practical (i.e., more

theoretical) than his supervising teacher.

Sub ects

All the elementary education student teachers at the University of

Wisconsin-Oshkosh who were doing their senior level student teaching in

one nine-week period of the Fall semester 1971 and their supervising

teachers composed the potential population of the study.

Grade levels

represented were K-7.

Difficulty arose in getting complete cooperation from all of the

supervising teachers as well as all the student teachers. Complete

results were obtained from 44 student teacher - supervising teacher

pairs.

Procedure

The Omnibus Personality Inventory, Form F, was administered to the

student teachers prior to the start of the student teaching experience.

The same inventory was administered to the supervising teachers soon

after the student teaching experience was initiated. The inventory was

readministered to the student teachers immediately after the completion

of the nine-week student teaching experience.

The Omnibus Personality Inventory (1) is composed of fourteen

scales - thinking introversion, theoretical orientation, estheticism,

complexity, autonomy, religious orientation, social extroversion, impulse

expression, personal integration, anxiety level, altruism, practical out-

look, masculinity-feminity, and response bias.

Six of these scales -

thinking introversion, theoretical orientation, estheticism, complexity,

autonomy, and religious orientation - are used for determining a person's

intellectual disposition.

Only intellectual disposition and anxiety

level were used in the study.

There are eight intellectual dispositions.

The larger the intellec-

tual disposition category number the lower is the intellectual disposi-

tion.

In this paper the writers define intellectual disposition in terms

of practicality; the higher the intellettual disposition category the

more practical, less theoretical, was the subject.

The intellectual disposition category of each student teacher was

calculated for both the pretest and the posttest. The mean of the results

of these two calculations was considered as the student's intellectual

disposition in the final analysis.

The intellectual disposition of the

teacher was determined from the one administration of the inventory.

The lifference between the student teacher's mean intellectual disposi-

tion and the supervising teacher's intellectual disposition was calculated.

The anxiety level of each student teacher was calculated for the

pretest and the posttest. The change in anxiety level was noted.

Results

Of the 44 student teachers 19 became less anxious, 11 had no change

in anxiety, and 14 became more anxious.

Hypothesis one stated that, if a student becomes less anxious, he

is likely to be more practical (i.e., less theoretical) than supervising

teacher.

This hypothesis is not supported.

Of the 19 students who

became less anxious, only 9 were more practical, 3 were identical to

teacher on practicality, and 7 were less practical.

(See Table 1.)

Table 1.--Student Teacher Anxiety as Related to Practicality

Number

Identical

Number

to Less

Number

Practical

Teacher Practical

of than

than

Students

Teacher Practicality

Teacher

Students Less Anxious

Students No Change

in Anxiety

11 4

2 5

Students More Anxious

14 6

Hypothesis two stated that, if a student becomes more anxious during

student teaching experience, he is likely to be less practical (i.e., more

theoretical) than supervising teacher.

This hypothesis is not supported.

Of the 14 students who became more anxious, only 8 were leas practical

while 6 were more practical.

Supplementary Findings

From the data collected a few additional findings are worth noting:

Of the elementary education student teachers who were inventoried

at some time during the project, 49 of 69 had an intellectual

disposition categroy of S, 6, 7, or 8. This would appear to

indicate that these student teachers for the most part are not

"intellectually involved in their devotion to specific activi-

ties."

Of the 60 elementary school teachers who were inventoried at

some time during the project, 50 had an intellectual disposition

category of 5,'6, 7, or 8.

Of the 44 elementary education student teachers in the project,

32 had anxiety levels above a 50 standard score on the pretest;

on the posttest, 29 had anxiety levels above a 50 standard

score. (Note: A high score indicates a low anxiety level.)

This would seem to indicate that these elementary student

teachers were for the most part not anxiety-laden.

Of the 44 elementary school teachers in the project, 39 had

standard scores above 50 on anxiety level.

These teachers thus

do not for the most part admit to being nervous or worried.

The nervous or worried teachers might be the ones who did not

choose to participate because of concern about how the researchers

intended to Ise the results.

Discussion

This research should be considered an initial effort to identify the

significance of intellectual disposition in the relation of student

teacher and supervising teacher as it impinges on the anxiety level of

students during their student teaching experience. Although the r2sults

were inconclusive, the researchers feel research must be continued to

find more appropriate ways to pair student teachers and supervising

teachers than new exist.

Pairing of student teachers and supervising

teachers in too many situations depends on sheer random assignment or

intuition with too little actually known or noted of the personality mix

involved.

The changing job market, the push to performance-based-instruction,

the demand for accountability coupled with the need to be concerned with

the affective domain and the students' cry for relevancy make it necessary

to strive for greater, precision in selecting working partners than now

exists.

Team teaching is becoming an item of ever increasing importance in

the educational scene as well as a matter of question as it concerns

selection of a working team.

It is necessary to identify the personality

mix that makes for good teamwork.

Should a team be one of varied person-

ality factors or one composed of individuals with a sameness of intellec-

tual dispositions?

The Omnibus Personality Inventory may not be the proper instrument

to get at what the researchers were trying to identify.

It may be that

anxiety level as inventoried on this instrument is not changed in 9 weeks

significantly.

The question might be how does intellectual disposition pairing

relate to the perceived feelings of respect and/or liking for the super-

vising teacher? A second question might be does the student teacher,

in some cases of success, actually submerge his personality to the super-

vising teacher's in order to eliminate the threat of failure if he "does

his awn thing?"

The student teaching program has long been of concern to educators.

A plethora of research has been conducted in the field leading to numerous

experimental changes. Little is known, however, concerning the pairing

of a student teacher with a supervising teacher concerning teacher per-

sonality and its relation to the effectiveness of a student teacher's

preparation for teaching.

It seems necessary to consider teacher person-

ality in attempting to foster the moat conducive teaching-learning relation

between student teacher and supervising teacher.

FEB 2 6 1973

FOOTNOTE

Special thanks are due to Elaine Baker, Lois Donhauser, and Marilyn

Jensen (Graduate Assistants).

REFERENCES

Heist, Paul; Yonge, George, Omnibus Personality Inventory, Form F:

Manual, The Psychological Corporation, New York, 1962, 1968.

Hunt, Sister M. Maxine; Brown, Marjorie,"Dogmatism as Related to

Accuracy of StudrinZ Teacher's Judgment of Students," Journal of

Teacher Education, 18:429-437, 1967.

Johnson, James S., "Change in Student Teacher Dogmatism," The Journal

of Educational Research, 62:224-226, 1969.

Musella, Donald, "Open-Closed-Mindedness as Related to the Rating

of Teachers by Elementary School Principals," Journal of Experi-

mental Education, 35:75-79, 1967.