Abstract:
Contributions of selected personal and social perceptual factors to the
teaching performance of 67 female, undergraduate, Caucasian students, enrolled as
student teachers in a multicultural preschool setting associated with a teacher
preparation program, were examined. The multicultural preschool setting enrolled
children from both International and U.S. cultures. Student teachers were classified
into five teacher preparation levels. Personal perceptual factors included student
teachers' self-esteem and personal teaching efficacy (motivation). Social perceptual
factors included family, peer, and supervisor support, as well as work environment
autonomy. Students' teaching performance included both competency ratings by
supervisors and observed teacher behaviors with children in unstructured and
structured small group activities. Regression analysis involving the criterion variable of student teachers' competency ratings revealed the overall model to be significant, with the variable of teacher preparation level to be the only significant positive predictor. Application of a 5-way MANOVA on all observed student teacher behavior scores revealed that (a) International children had significantly lower frequency and quality of positive behaviors and significantly higher frequency and quality of negative behaviors displayed toward them than American children, (b) girls had significantly lower frequency and quality of positive and negative behaviors displayed toward them than boys, and (c) children had significantly higher frequency of negative behaviors displayed toward them during structured rather than unstructured activities. In addition, regression analyses involving the criterion variable of student teacher behaviors during unstructured activities revealed only 2 of the 16 models tested to be significant. These included those associated with (a) the frequency of negative student teacher behaviors displayed toward International boys, in which none of the personal and social perceptual factors occurred as significant predictors, and (b) the quality of negative student teacher behaviors displayed toward American boys, in which work environment autonomy occurred as the significant negative predictor. Furthermore, regression analyses involving the criterion variable of student teacher behaviors during structured activities revealed only 3 of the 16 models tested to be significant. These included those associated with (a) both the frequency and quality of student teacher behaviors displayed toward International girls, in which personal teaching efficacy occurred as the significant positive predictor, and (b) the frequency of negative student teacher behaviors displayed toward American girls, in which personal teaching efficacy and work environment autonomy occurred as the significant negative and positive predictors, respectively.
