How Young Children Perceive Their Teachers: A Developmental Study

This is a developmental study of how young children perceive their teachers. The primary aims of the study are: 1) to pzovide a developmental picture of elementary school children's perceptions of their teachers, and 2) to determine the accuracy of teachers'wareness of the perceptions of the children. Instrumental to these primary aims are two subordinate ob] ectives: 1) to construct a scale of reactions to teacher charactezisticsl behaviors that aze understandable for young children and yet meaningful to adults, and 2) to test the utility of the scale for obtaining measures of affect. Within each of two schools, approximately 15 students were randomly selected from each of four, i.e., kindergarten (K), second (2), fourth (4), and sixth (6), grades. Thirty-two teachers of grades K, 2, 4, and 6 were subjects for the second part of this study. A rating scale was adapted for use by young children in which they indicated how they would feel in response to various characteristics by pointing to faces which varied from smiling to frowning. The teachers were asked to respond as to how they thought each situation would be responded to by the average boy and by the average girl in the grade that he/she taught. Group administration, using paper-and-pencil questionnaires, were employed with teachers. Through a factor analysis of the students' responses, categories (12 factors) were derived to define the underlying dimensions of perceived teacher characteristics and behaviors, instrumental to the primary aim stated above. We sought to determine how the children at the different grade levels reacted on each of these factorial dimensions, and whether the sex of the child made a difference. An ANOVA and Newman-Keuls Test were performed for these purposes. Another ANOVA was performed to compare students' and teachers' responses to the questionnaire items. Findings suggested that concrete, observable teacher behaviors were readily perceived by young children. On some factor dimensions, developmental trends and sex differences were indicated. The teacher X student comparison may be used to provide feedback important to teachers, reflecting similarities and differences between teachers' beliefs regarding how they affect students and the students' actual reports of their reactions to teacher characteristics and behaviors in the several factorial domains.