Alternative Path Analytic Models of Student-Teacher Influence: The Implications of Different Strokes for Different Folks

Abstract

Using data from a study of black adolescents and their teachers, as a heuristic device, this researcher examined the empirical implications of five causal models which reflected four common notions concerning the social influence processes assumed to characterize the student-teacher role relationships. These models included both uni-directional and bi-directional notions of social influence. The results from these models were extremely diverse and were capable of generating radically different interpretations. This situation cast doubt on previous unconditional substantive interpretations made in the literature and suggested the need for progressive explorations of complex models on comparable data sets.