A Study of Teacher Attitudes Toward Pupils in the Classroom : A Comparison of Selected Beginning, Early-Tenured, and Career Teachers

This study was designed to compare the attitudes of beginning, early-tenured, and career teachers toward pupils and teaching as revealed in the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory. Fifty beginning teachers. Fifty early-tenured teachers (four or five years of teaching experience), and fifty career teachers (twelve or more years of experience) were selected from Bay Area secondary schools in California for the study. They were given the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory in 1970. It was found that there were significant differences between the three groups of teachers in teacher attitudes. The mean scores on the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory were: beginning teachers, 28 .82; early-tenured teachers, 55.86; and career teachers, 45.64. T tests revealed that there was a statistical significant difference in all of the comparisons. The greatest difference was found to be between the beginning teachers and the early tenured teachers, 14. 95, which was significant well beyond the .01 level. The difference between beginning teachers and career teachers, .1 = 2.73, was also significant at the .01 level, and that between the early- tenured and career teachers, .1 .13, was significant at the .05 level. Some of the conclusions were that differences in teacher\u27s attitudes toward pupils in the classroom do exist, these attitudes apparently change with the teacher\u27s length of service, early-tenured teachers have a more positive attitude toward pupils than career teachers, beginning teachers seem to lack sufficient knowledge in areas of educational psychology and human growth, and that the choice of instruments for measuring teacher attitudes are limited. The recommendations included the upgrading of teacher in-service programs with an emphasis on helping career teachers maintain a positive attitude toward children, more effective educational psychology and human development instruction in teacher training institutions, the need for additional research of teacher attitudes, and the development of up-to-date instruments for measuring teacher attitudes