A Technique for the Assessment of Teacher Directiveness’

Abstract

In an attempt to develop a practical, reliable, and valid measure of teacher directiveness, the Student Perception of Teacher Style (SPOTS), a 32-item, 9-point student rating scale, was filled out by 363 male eleventh- and twelfth- grade vocational-technical high school students in ten non-vocational and twelve vocational classrooms. In addition, each of the twenty-two cooperating teachers was observed by two trained observers for a minimum of two class sessions and were rated on two observer rating scales. It was found that the SPOTS (a) was internally consistent, (b) had high inter-rater reliability, (c) was related to one of the observer scales, and (d) was composed of one major factor accounting for approximately a third of the variance. A Revised SPOTS was constructed and is offered for the efficient measurement of teacher directiveness.