Attitudes Toward Education and Effectiveness of the Classroom Teacher Student Teacher Relationship
Three independent rankings of classroom teachers' supervisory effectiveness were obtained from (a) 47 classroom teachers, (b) 91 student teachers, and (c) 12 university personnel. All persons were familiar with the supervisory behavior of the 47 teachers. Each classroom teacher and student teacher also completed two standard ized attitude toward education scales, which yielded four scores. The results indicated that teachers with highly progressive and/or highly traditional attitudes toward education tended to be perceived by student teachers as somewhat less effective supervisors. There were consistent differences between supervisory class room teachers and student teachers with respect to at titudes toward education. THIS STUDY was prompted by a concern over the potential pairing of student teachers and elementary classroom teachers espousing different attitudes toward education. The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between the effectiveness of the super vising classroom teacher and the attitudes of the class room and student teachers. Social psychology theory suggests that relationships are facilitated when persons are in agreement on the philosophical and psychological dimension in question. Classroom teachers are traditionally stereotyped as being more conservative than liberal. Student teachers are typically assumed to be moderate to liberal in their edu cational attitudes but certainly more liberal than class room teachers. If there is a discrepancy between the edu cational attitudes of these two groups of persons, is this