A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF THE PROBLEMS AND CONCERNS OF BEGINNING ART TEACHERS

The purpose of this study was to classify and describe the problems of beginning art teachers in Nebraska and its surrounding states, and to determine the relationship between the types of problems and the demographic variables: age, sex, school population, and grade level(s) of teaching. The population consisted of all teachers endorsed to teach art in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota, and who had one or two years of art classroom teaching experience as a primary teaching responsibility. Respondents used the critical incident questionnaire to share one or more stressful situations related to art teaching responsibilities. Fifty-seven problems were identified from 537 incidents, with minor disruptive behaviors cited as the most frequent concern. Eight major problem categories emerged from the data: (1) control, (2) attitudes toward the art program, (3) teaching, (4) facilities, equipment and materials, (5) classroom organization and management, (6) planning and development of curriculum, (7) professionalism, and (8) evaluation. Most noticeable results from a cross-tabulation of problems with demographic variables were: (1) Age. 40-49 year old respondents reported 20.8% of their problems were related to facilities, equipment and materials, compared with 10.9% for respondents 20-29 years old, and 13.5% for respondents 30-39 years old. (2) Sex. Females reported 13.8% of their problems were related to facilities, equipment and materials, compared with 7.1% for males. (3) School Population. Respondents teaching in multiple schools reported 32% of their problems were related to classroom organization and management, a noticeably higher score than that for respondents in one school. Respondents in schools with 600 or more pupils reported 28.1% of their problems were related to control issues. (4) Teaching Grade Level(s). Respondents in elementary schools reported 21.9% of their problems were related to classroom organization and management, a score three times higher than that for secondary or K-12 respondents. Secondary school respondents reported 29.4% of their problems were concerned with control, compared with 21.9% for elementary respondents and 14.6% for K-12 respondents