A Study of Distributive Education Students' Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Secondary Distributive Education Teachers in Utah

• Main Author: Levere, Wallace J.
• Format: Others
• Published: DigitalCommons@USU 1975
• Subjects: Education Students; Teachers; Utah; Education
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/3188; https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4192&context=etd

The purpose of this study was to mea sure secondary distributive education students' perceptions and attitudes toward their teacher coordinators in the Utah secondary schools . The student scores were then analyzed to determine if there were any differences which may be attributed to a specific teacher characteristic such as age, sex, teaching experience, vocational work experience, and academic preparation. Nine groups of null hypotheses (54 total ) were tested. Each group consisted of the following six factors derived from student responses to the attitude and pupil observation survey questionnaires: (l) Friendly, cheerful, admired; (2) Knowledgeable, poised; (3) Interesting, preferred; (4) Strict control; (5) Democratic procedure; and (6) Student attitude score. The population involved i n the study consisted of the students of those teacher-coordinators randomly selected from the teacher coordinators in Utah. Three questionnaires were used in the study. The first questionnaire was a General Teacher Information Questionnaire designed to obtain teacher demographic information. The second questionnaire used was the Pupil Observation Survey (POSR) which was designed to measure students' perceptions. The third questionnaire used was~ Scale for Measuring Attitude Toward Any Teacher, which measured the attitudes of the students. The null hypotheses were tested by analysis of variance. Where more than two groups were involved, a statist i cal procedure known as the Duncan New Multiple Range Test was used to analyze where the difference occurred. The . 05 level of significance was the criterion for rejecting or failing to reject the hypotheses. The following findings were reported: No significant difference was found between student perception and attitude scores relating to age , sex , years of occupational experience, occupational field experience , type of experience , academic degree, and type of professional training of the teachers. There was, however, a significant difference in the student scores relating to teach ing experience and teaching assignment . The perception scores indicated that the students perceived teachers with three or more years ' teaching experience as being more knowledgeable and poised than those teachers with less than three years' teaching experience. Students also perceived the teachers with three or more years ' teaching experience as being more interesting and preferred. The student attitude scores for the teachers with three or more years' teaching experience was also significantly different from those student attitude scores for the teachers with less experience. Students perceived those teachers who taught both non-skills and skills subjects as using significantly more democratic procedures than those teachers of only s kill s subjects. The major recommendations were: 1. A larger scale study, related to student perceptions and attitude toward their teacher-coordinators , should be undertaken to further substantiate the findings of this study. 2. Studies should be undertaken to determine students' perceptions relating to teacher effectiveness and evaluation of curriculum and methodology used in Distributive Education.