The Relationship of Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory Scores to Certain Biographical Information

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if certain biographical data was associated with attitudes toward teacher-pupil relationship as measured by the MTAI. Data were collected on 532 female Ss near the beginning of their course work in education. These subjects were divided into groups scoring high and low on the MTAI for both and purposes. Biographical data were compared for differences in per centages between high and low groups. Some items were found which significantly differentiated between the two groups. IT IS A popular belief that if we had informa tion regarding an individual's past we could un derstand his present attitudes and behaviors. Several studies in recent years have demon strated the usefulness of biographical data in studying human behavior. It has been shown that certain biographical data are related to occupa tional choices of individuals (4). Ryans (3) found some relationship between childhood and adolescent activities of teacher with their later teaching behaviors. Statement of Problem The purpose of this study was to investigate certain biographical data that might be associ ated with attitudes, as measured by the Minne sota Teacher Attitude Inventory (MTAI). Bio graphical data that are associated with attitudes of pupil-teacher relationships may give us clues regarding the development of attitudes postu lated to be important in the classroom situation. The problem may be stated in the following question: Can it be empirically demonstrated that there exist certain biographical patterns associated with differences in attitudes as meas ured by the MTAI? The problem stated in the null form is as follows : There is no difference between the pattern of responses made by a group that scores low (lower quartile) on the MTAI, and a group that scores high (upper quartile) on the MTAI to certain biographical data. The Subjects Data were collected from 476 female subjects who were registered in a psychological founda tions course (Human Development and Learn ing), which was their first professional course in education, and from 56 female subjects reg istered in a nonprofessional education course (Introduction to Teaching) at the University of South Florida (USF). Students at USF normally do not declare their specific major in education until after they have completed their first pro fessional education course. The standardization group (N = 166) con sisted of those who were registered in a psycho logical foundations course during the 1961-62 academic year and trimester I of the 1962-63 academic year, and whose scores fell in the upper or lower quartiles. The biographical data were complete for those who scored in the upper quar tile, but were missing for two subjects in the lower quartile. The cross-validation group (N = 86) con sisted of those who were registered in a psycho logical foundations course (N = 49) and an in troduction to education course (N = 37) during trimester II of 1962-63 academic year, and whose MTAI scores fell in the upper or lower quartiles of the distribution for trimester II, 1963. Bio graphical data was incomplete for two subjects whose MTAI scores were in the lower quartile, and for nine subjects whose MTAI scores were in the upper quartile. A constant of 100 was added to all of the MTAI scores to avoid negative numbers. The means and standard deviations for MTAI scores of the and cross-validation groups is presented in Table 1. The reason for the unequal number in the upper and lower quartiles was the failure to col lect biographical data from all individuals whose scores fell either in the upper or lower quartiles. These may be thought of as nonrespondents. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.86 on Sat, 15 Oct 2016 04:13:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms