Teacher characteristics related to meeting affective needs of early adolescents: Implications for inservice and hiring

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the relationship between selected teacher characteristics of listening ability, individual student perception and objectivity toward students with student perceptions of selected teachers meeting their affective needs. The theoretical foundation for this investigation is based on effective school research which concludes that teacher process behavior (teaching strategies) does influence student outcomes (learning). This investigation attempted to establish a link between teachers with similar selected characteristics and meeting the affective needs of early adolescent students. This investigation also attempted to establish a link between the selected teacher characteristics and selected teacher behaviors, including classroom management ability, amount of time supervising student activities, student self help groups, school evaluation/improvement committees and amount of positive communication with parents. Instrumentation consisted of a subscale of the Teacher Perceiver Inventory and Teacher Perceiver Inventory Student Questionnaire from Selection Research Inc., of Lincoln, Nebraska and an Immediate Supervisor Questionnaire to measure the selected teacher characteristics. A Student Perception Questionnaire developed from the (teacher) Self Assessment Checklist (Beane, 1987), was used to assess student perception of selected teachers meeting their affective needs. The selected teacher behaviors were measured by an immediate supervisor rating and a teacher questionnaire. Eighty-four out of a population of 134 middle school teachers participated in this investigation. The student sample consisted of 880 students in grades 6-8 from a population of 1650. Data was analyzed using Pearson product-moment correlations and multiple regression analysis. The probability level for all tests of significance was.05. The major findings were: (1) teacher characteristics of listening ability, individual student perception and objectivity toward students was not significantly related to meeting the affective needs of early adolescents, (2) There was not significant relationship between possession of the selected teacher characteristics and the selected teacher behaviors investigated, (3) There was no significant relationship between the selected teacher behaviors and meeting the affective needs of early adolescents