A comparison of supervisors' ratings of most effective and least effective industrial arts teachers on three competency dimensions.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between industrial arts supervisors' judgments of teacher effectiveness and their judgments of teacher competency on the dimensions of interpersonal relations, teaching techniques, and technical proficiency. The specific hypotheses were: (1) when the three competency dimensions are considered cumulatively, teachers rated most effective will receive significantly higher overall ratings of competency than teachers rated least effective, and (2) all three competency dimensions will not prove equally significant in discriminating between most and least effective industrial arts teacher. The sample population was limited to randomly selected industrial arts supervisors in the State of New Jersey. A rating schedule was developed and used to obtain the supervisor's perceptions of his most and least effective teacher. The Schedule contained sixteen behavioral items for each of the competency dimensions. The data obtained were used to determine the relationship of the supervisors' judgments of effectiveness to the scores on each of the three dimensions. A previous rating given by an administrator was used to provide an additional criterion to the overall score obtained from the supervisors. Analysis of variance and the Scheffe S-method of mean comparisons were used to analyze the data concerning the relationships between effectiveness and the competency dimensions. Pearson product-moment correlations were calculated to examine the relationship between supervisors' scores and administrators' ratings. The following conclusions were drawn from the results: (1) Interpersonal relations, teaching techniques, and technical proficiency are factors which are considered when industrial arts supervisors evaluated their teachers. (2) The three stated competency dimensions taken cumulatively do differentiate between the most effective and least effective industrial arts teacher. (3) Overall, teachers are judged more competent in technical proficiency than in the other two dimensions. (4) The three dimensions do not equally discriminate between most and least effective industrial arts teacher. (5) The least effective teacher has deficiencies in all three dimensions but greater deficiencies in both interpersonal relations and teaching techniques. (6) The teaching techniques dimension to the greatest degree differentiates the most from the least effective teacher. (7) Supervisors and administrators show greatest agreement on the dimension of technical proficiency when rating an effective teacher. On the other hand, their agreement is greatest for teaching techniques when rating the less effective teacher. (8) The statistical data supported the hypotheses and the theoretical perspective of the study. It was recommended that: (1) further exploration, using the broad dimensional approach, should be undertaken; (2) any new study undertaken should include teachers covering a full range of effectiveness; (3) greater emphasis should be placed upon teaching techniques in industrial arts education; and (4) graduate level programs concerned with teacher evaluation should be developed for present and future supervisors of industrial arts