Dimensions of Teachers' Attitudes Toward Instructional Television

BRUCE H . WESTLEY AND HARVEY K . JACOBSON

Bruce H. Westley is associate pro]essor ol journalism and research coordinator ]or the Division of Radio-Television Education at the University o/ Wiscon- sin. Harvey K. Jacobson, project assist- ant in the Division and a doctoral can- didate in mass communications, is on leave from the University of North Dakota.

What are the attitudes of teachers toward the intrusion in the classroom of the television teacher and the whole ap- paratus of instructional TV? That ques- tion, which appears to have great im- portance for school television, has evoked much discussion but very little research. The discussion has been largely descriptive of the problem. As an ex- ample, see I. Keith Tyler's recent article in A VCR (6). The research, on the whole, has been concerned with teacher reactions to specific experiences with in- structional television in the elementary and secondary school classroom (1, 4, 5, and 7).

The problem has considerable theo- retical interest. What happens to the role

and status of the classroom teacher when his previously exclusive domain is in- vaded by another teacher, especially one bearing the mark of the "master teacher"? How does this situation affect the attitudes of the pupils toward their regular teacher? How does it affect the attitudes of the teacher toward this well meaning outsider? Does it affect his sense of security, professionally and personally?

To explore this general problem, the authors--with the assistance and sup- port of the Division of Radio-Television Education, the Wisconsin Improvement Program, and the Madison Public Schools--carried out a study of two experimental mathematics courses pro- duced by the Wisconsin School of the Air and broadcast over WHA-TV. The two series, developed under the super- vision of Henry Van Engen of the School of Education, were broadcast to fourth and ninth grade classrooms under the titles of "Patterns in Arithmetic" and "Patterns in Mathematics" respectively.

The purpose of these courses was to develop experience in teaching mathe- matics in new ways: they were not in-

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180 AV COMMUNICATION REVIEW

tended as an experiment in instructional uses of television. Since the project in- volved a substantial number of teachers, however, the research team saw it as an opportunity to study the attitudinal climate of the instructional television situation. 1

The television courses appeared to be especially appropriate for the study of teacher attitudes for two reasons: the content, strikingly different from that of traditional instruction, employed in many cases concepts unfamiliar to the teachers; and the courses were taught by two young persons identified with the university, rather than with the school system the station served.

Method

A 55-item test was devised to measure every possible aspect of teacher attitudes toward the instructional television me- dium. Measures were also devised to test for effects of the series on the attitudes of pupils toward their regular teacher, the TV teacher, the course, mathematics in general, etc. These measures were administered both to exposed and non- exposed pupils in the ninth grade group. The report here, however, is solely con- cerned with the teacher-attitude data.

Questionnaires were sent to 40 par-

1 The authors are grateful to all participat- ing groups and individuals, and in particular to Professor Van Engen; Professor Arlene MacKellar, Associate Director of the School of the Air; D. R. Lichtenberg and Miss Marilyn Zweng, who taught the ninth and fourth grade courses respectively; Arthur H. Mennes, curriculum consultant to the Madison Public Schools; Walter S. Stolz, graduate as- sistant in the Mass Communication Research Center, who gave invaluable statistical advice; and to the University Research Committee for making available the computational facil- ities of the Numerical Analysis Laboratory, which is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Jacob Landesman par- ticipated in early phases of the study.

ticipating teachers--those whose class- rooms were receiving one program or the other regularly--and 18 non-participat- ing teachers in the same grades. The ques t ionnai res were rou ted to the teachers through the office of the cur- riculum coordinator for the school sys- tem, and were returned to the investiga- tors through his office. Usable returns were received from 33 participating and 17 non-participating teachers, a com- pletion rate of 86.2%.

The attitude measure was admin- istered under specific instructions: Read the following statements carefully, and indicate your degree of agreement or disagreement according to the following code:

1. Agree entirely 2. Agree, with qualifications 3. Neither agree nor disagree 4. Disagree, with qualifications 5. Disagree entirely

All items were answered by nearly all subjects. The occasional blank item was assigned to the neutral position."

Results and Discussion

The 55 items were intercorrelated, and the correlation matrix was subjected to factor analysis by means of the prin- cipal component solution (2) with vari- max rotation (3) . The resulting factor structure is shown in Table I, together with the means and standard deviations of each item. The data are for all teachers, both ninth and fourth grades, participating and non-participating. The mean scale positions have been re- arranged to assign high numbers to high acceptance. Thus a mean of 4.0 indi- cates that the average teacher in our

OThere were 31 instances of non-response out of a total of 2750 possible responses (55 items x 50 subjects), a non-response rate of .01.

TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARD 1TV 181

sample agreed with qualifications. Inspection of the means shows that

mathematics teachers in two grades in the Madison Public Schools appeared to have highly favorable attitudes toward instructional television. Most of the pro- ITV items were accepted, and most of the ant i-ITV items were rejected. A subsequent paper will examine differ- ences between exposed and non-exposed teacher groups. The standard deviations were large enough to suggest consider- able variation among the teachers on most items.

It is interesting that most of the "threat" items were strongly rejected. Either these teachers were not threat- ened by the TV teacher role or were not willing to acknowledge such a threat.

The factors, however, are our princi- pal concern. Here is our clue to the di- mensionality of these attitudes. Although the reader may construct his own in- terpretation of the factors as shown in Table I, the authors have made an at- tempt to name them:

Factor 1: Challenge-threat. The first factor contains only negative loadings of any size. It consists almost entirely of items pertaining to the potential threat of the TV teacher to the classroom teacher, a threat which our respondents consis- tently rejected. Only two of the larger loadings are on items that do not appear to be concerned with the idea of threat (Items 36 and 51). Almost all of the threat items did load heavily on this factor. Because the attitudes we studied rejected the idea of threat, we have la- belled this factor challenge-threat.

The nature of Factor 1 contains an- other clue to the dimensionality of these attitudes. This is the absence of a large general factor. Although there are other fairly high loadings on Factor 1, the

highest are too consistently concerned with threat to consider this in any other light than a unique factor. I t is not un- usual for a large general factor to emerge as Factor 1. That this is not the case here suggests we are not finding a global attitude toward instructional television which influences responses over the whole range of items. Instead we appear to have eight to ten rather specific unique fac tors )

Specifically, our teachers consistently rejected the idea that instructional tele- vision endangers his chances of advance- ment; that it has an adverse effect on the caliber of teachers; that it endangers the teacher's position of authority; that it fails to challenge the teacher; that it threatens the teacher with eventual un- employment; and that it impairs normal teacher-pupil relationships.

Factor 2: Economy. The high positive loadings on this factor all seem to be concerned with the savings that instruc- tional television might make possible, particularly savings in instructional costs. Our teachers, however, did not accept this idea, either. Instead they seemed to be consistently neutral on the subject: the means on the items that have high loadings on this factor are consistently in the vicinity of 3.0.

Specifically, our respondents neither accepted nor rejected the idea that tele-

'~ The data reported here are taken f rom an initial rotation based on a limit of 10 factors. Because the 10th factor contained high load- ings on more than one variable, a second ro- tation was carried out on the basis of a limit of 16. The resulting factor structure was differ- ent in some particulars but basically similar to the one reported here. The first two factors were nearly identical; the third and fifth fac- tors of the present report broke out into two factors each. One factor emerged on the sec- ond rotation that is not discernible in the first; it, however, appears to be the negative end of the present Factor 4. We are therefore report- ing only the initial rotation. Copies of both rotations are available for examination.

182 A V C O M M U N I C A T I O N R E V I E W

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184 AV COMMUNICATION REVIEW

vision can help handle increased enroll- ments or that it can effect important savings in instructional costs.

Factor 3: Instructional side-benefits. This factor is defined by positive load- ings on items that state ways in which other individuals than pupils can learn from instructional television: the teach- ers themselves and adults who may watch TV lessons.

Specifically, our respondents accepted rather strongly the idea that all of these things are beneficial effects of classroom television: that adults can learn by watching TV lessons; that television can provide in-service training for teachers; that televised lessons provide the teacher with new content and new ways of teach- ing her subject; and that instructional television can help bring about greater uniformity of instruction.

Factor 4: Partnership. All the items with large positive loadings on this factor appear to be concerned with ways in which the TV teacher can help the class- room teacher improve the teaching- learning process. Our teachers, however, did not consistently approve or disap- prove the attitudes expressed by these items.

Specifically, our subjects gave fairly strong approval to the idea that the TV instruction helps bring about acceptance of changes in courses, helps increase teachers' satisfaction, and helps improve instruction. They neither approved nor disapproved the idea that the "master teacher" strengthens the hand of the classroom teacher, or helps supervisors to be more effective. They mildly re- jected the idea that the TV instruction helps improve pupils' attitudes toward the subject matter, or helps reduce dis- ciplinary problems.

Factor 5: Responsiveness. This factor appears to be concerned with the degree

to which television in the classroom af- fects the attentiveness or responsiveness of the pupils and the classroom teacher. Its dimensions are best understood by attention to the direction of the attitude item means, rather than to the sign of the loadings.

Specifically, our teachers mildly ac- cepted the idea that classroom television helps produce positive attitudes toward mathematics, and somewhat more mildly the idea that TV helps keep the teacher "on her toes". They mildly rejected the idea that TV has only a doubtful effect on student achievement. They strongly rejected the idea that TV can retard the classroom teacher's chances of advance- ment, and more mildly rejected the idea that TV dulls pupils' interest in the sub- ject matter and increases disciplinary problems.

Factor 6: Parental influences. There are only two high loadings on this factor, and both of them concern the conse- quences of the fact that parents can watch open-circuit broadcasts to the schools.

Specifically, our teachers rejected only very mildly the idea that such exposure would confuse parents, and rejected more strongly the idea that such ex- posure would result in parental inter- ference. Despite the specificity of these items, this is a surprisingly pure factor; i.e., the two items with high loadings on Factor 6 have almost no loadings on any of the other factors.

Factor 7: Security. A single item dom- inates the definition of this factor: that the classroom teacher is irreplaceable. Our respondents agreed strongly that TV can never replace them. The mean on this item is the highest obtained in the study. There is a modest negative load- ing on an item that says the TV teacher threatens the classroom teacher with

TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARD ITV 185

unemployment, an idea our teachers strongly rejected. This item has the low- est mean obtained in the study.

Factor 8: Invidious comparison. Again we have a factor defined almost entirely by one item. There is a high positive loading on an item which says the TV teacher can't help making the classroom teacher look inept at times. Our respond- ents rejected this idea fairly strongly. The only other loadings of any size are for items that have relatively impure loadings.

Factor 9: Experimental attitude. This factor might be labelled: "to experiment or not to experiment?" It contains two strong negative loadings on items that appear to be almost directly opposed to each other. One says we should be willing to give TV a try (our teachers strongly agreed); the other says this is no time to experiment (our teachers strongly disagreed). Despite this faet, a fairly positive correlation was found be- tween these items (.51) with the result that both items received loadings with the same sign.

Factor 10: In-service training. Two items have positive loadings on this fac- tor. Both pertain to the possibility that TV might be helpful to teachers or supervisors in providing after-hours in- struction. Our teachers approved this idea to a slight degree where they them- selves were concerned and quite strongly where supervisory personnel were con- cerned.

Summary

Responses were obtained from 50 fourth and ninth grade teachers on a 55-item test of their attitudes toward television in the classroom after 33 of them had been involved and 17 not in- volved in television series which intro- duced new ways of teaching mathe-

matics. Intercorrelations were computed, and factors were analyzed. The resulting factor structure indicated 10 unique factors of the attitudes expressed. No general factor was found.

The ten factors were tentatively iden- tified as follows: challenge-threat, econ- omy, instructional side-benefits, partner- ship between TV and classroom teachers, responsiveness, parental influences, se- curity of the classroom teacher, invidious comparison, experimental attitude, and in-service training.

On the whole the teachers' attitudes were highly favorable to instructional television, and consistently rejected the idea that the TV teacher represents a threat to the classroom teacher.

REFERENCES

1. Herminghaus, Earl G. An Investigation o/ Television Teaching (Mimeo). St. Louis, Mo.: St. Louis Public Schools. September 1956.

2. Hotelling, Harold. "Analysis of a Com- plex of Statistical Variables into Prin- cipal Components." Journal of Educa- tional Psychology 24: 417-41; 498-520; 1933.

3. Kaiser, Henry F. "The Varimax Crite- rion for Analytic Rotation in Factor Analysis." Psychometrika 23: 187-200; 1958.

4. Mierzwa, Francis, Molnar, Ethel et al. The Role of the Classroom Teacher (Mimeo). Milwaukee, Wis.: Milwaukee Public Schools. July 1958.

5. Suchy, Robert R., and Baumann, Paul C. The Evaluation Report for the 1957- 1958 School Year (Mimeo). Milwau- kee, Wis.: Milwaukee Public Schools. December 1958.

6. Tyler, I. Keith. "The Impact of Instruc- tional Television on Teaching Roles and Functions." A V Communication Review 10: 1: 51-57; January-February 1962.

7. Westley, Bruce H. and Barrow, Lionel C., Jr. Exploring the News: A Com- parative Study of the Teaching Effec- tiveness of Radio and Television. Re- search Bulletin No. 12: 53-63. Madi- son, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Tele- vision Laboratory.