Teaching Styles among Shanghai Teachers in Primary and Secondary Schools

Educational PsychologyVol. 27, No. 2, April 2007, pp. 255–272

ISSN 0144-3410 (print)/ISSN 1469-5820 (online)/07/020255–18© 2007 Taylor & FrancisDOI 10.1080/01443410601066750

Teaching Styles among Shanghai Teachers in Primary and Secondary Schools

Weiqiao Fana* and Shengquan YebaShanghai Normal University; bThe University of Hong KongTaylor and Francis LtdCEDP_A_206604.sgm10.1080/01443410601066750Educational Psychology0144-3410 (print)/1469-5820 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis272000000April [email protected]

This study had two aims. The first was to validate further Sternberg’s theory of mental self-government in a Chinese cultural setting. The second was to investigate the relationship betweenteaching styles and teachers’ characteristics. Two hundred and three (64 males, 139 females)primary and secondary school teachers from Shanghai, mainland China, participated in the study.Research participants responded to the Chinese version of the Thinking Styles in TeachingInventory (TSTI), based on Sternberg’s theory of mental self-government. They also provided arange of demographic information including gender, age, educational level, number of years ofteaching experience, subject area taught, and grade taught. The results showed that the TSTI isbasically a reliable and valid inventory for assessing the teaching styles of primary and secondaryschool teachers in Shanghai. The results also found that some teaching styles differed statisticallyin relation to teachers’ particular personal variables, and partially supported the viewpoint thatthinking styles are socialised. The general implications of these findings for teaching in primaryand secondary schools are discussed.

The notion of style refers to a person’s preferred way of using his/her abilities (and inthis way differs from ability), and is a very important factor in trying to account forthe marked individual differences in performance shown by people as they think,learn, teach, or carry out various tasks (Messick, 1984; Riding & Cheema, 1991;Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1997; Tennant, 1988; Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, & Karp,1971). Since the 1950s, psychologists have been investigating the nature of varioustypes of styles, such as cognitive, thinking, teaching and learning styles, and theireffects on performance in both academic and non-academic settings (see Goldstein& Blackman, 1978; Kogan & Saarni, 1990; Rayner & Riding, 1997; Sternberg &Grigorenko, 1997; Witkin & Goodenough, 1981).

*Corresponding author. Department of Applied Psychology, Shanghai Normal University, No.100, Guilin Road, Shanghai, P. R. China, 200234. Email: [email protected]

256 Weiqiao Fan and Shengquan Ye

The term teaching styles appeared around the 1970s (Biggs, 2001) when interestbegan to focus on the role of styles in teaching and learning. Teaching styles refer toa teacher’s preferred way of solving problems, carrying out tasks, and makingdecisions in the process of teaching, and, besides differing from individual to indi-vidual, may sometimes differ between different groups, for example schools (e.g.,Sternberg, 1997).

Several researchers have investigated the nature and scope of teaching styles.Stensrud and Stensrud (1983), for example, examined the teaching-style preferences(visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic) of 95 public school teachers. They found 84.2%of the subjects preferred the visual style, while 80% said kinaesthetic was their least-preferred style. Henson and Borthwick (1984) have proposed a six-approach modelof teaching styles: task-oriented, cooperative-planner, child-centred, participant-centred, learning-centred, and emotionally exciting. According to Henson andBorthwick (1984), these styles can be practised in conjunction with each other, andare probably most effective when they are used in such a way. Indeed, teachers whohave a wider range of teaching styles are likely to be more successful than are thosewhose repertoire is more limited (Joyce & Hodges, 1966).

The present study focuses on a relatively new style theory—the theory of mentalself-government (Sternberg, 1994, 1997). Sternberg (1997) suggests that, in manag-ing their activities, people choose styles with which they are comfortable, and,furthermore, that people change their use of thinking styles according to the stylisticdemands of a given situation. The theory of mental self-government posits 13 think-ing styles, which fall along five dimensions of mental self-government: functions(including legislative, executive, and judicial styles), forms (including monarchic,hierarchical, oligarchic, and anarchic styles), levels (including global and localstyles), scopes (including liberal and conservative styles), and leanings (includinginternal and external styles).

Why did the study employ Sternberg’s style model? According to Sternberg(1997) and Zhang and Sternberg (2001), the theory of mental self-governmentpossesses three major characteristics: first, the specifics of the thinking styles fallalong the above five dimensions (i.e., functions, forms, levels, scope, and leaning),rather than along one; second, thinking styles are perceived as falling along continuarather than as being discrete phenomena; and third, the theory of mental self-government constructs a profile of styles for each person, rather than identifyingonly a single style (also see Zhang, 2000).

Based on a series of studies (e.g., Zhang, 1999, 2002a, 2002b; Zhang & Huang,2001; Zhang & Sternberg, 2000, 2001) concerning thinking styles, Zhang (2004)grouped the 13 thinking styles into three types: Type I; Type II; and Type III. TypeI thinking styles include the legislative, judicial, hierarchical, global, and liberalstyles, which are thought to be more creativity-generating and complex. Type IIthinking styles consist of the executive, conservative, monarchic, and local styles,which are perceived to be more norm-favouring and simplistic. Type III thinkingstyles include the internal, external, oligarchic, and anarchic styles, whose usedepends more on specific contexts or tasks.

Teaching Styles among Shanghai Teachers 257

In light of the theory of Mental Self-Government, Sternberg (1997) proposedseven teaching styles consisting of only Type I and Type II styles, and operationa-lised them through the Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory (TSTI; Grigorenko &Sternberg, 1993). This inventory deals with just three of the five dimensions ofthinking styles (function, level, and leaning). The seven styles in teaching are: (1) thelegislative style, whose central characteristic is creative; (2) the executive style,whose central characteristic is conforming; (3) the judicial style, whose central char-acteristic is analytical; (4) the local style, whose central characteristic is focusing onconcrete ideas or details; (5) the global style, whose central characteristic is focusingon abstract thinking or general problems; (6) the liberal style, whose central charac-teristic is employing new ways to deal with tasks (the liberal style differs from thelegislative style in that the creativity or new ideas used by the liberal person do nothave to be the individual’s own); and (7) the conservative style, whose centralcharacteristic is employing traditional ways to deal with tasks (unlike the executivestyle, an individual with a conservative style may like to come up with his/her ownideas, but these ideas are based on existing and accepted customs).

Sternberg (1997) argues that teachers are very flexible in the use of their teachingstyles and always try to select the optimal teaching style to “manage” their classroominstruction in the light of specific circumstances. A variety of factors can influenceteachers’ choices of teaching styles, such as their educational experience, theirprofessional level, and their dedication to teaching. Sternberg (1997) concludes thatteachers’ teaching styles could socialise in part over time and according to theirworking environment. In a study with 85 teachers from four schools in the USA,Sternberg and Grigorenko (1995; see also Sternberg, 1997) found that there weresignificant relationships between styles and a number of variables: grades taught,teaching experience, teachers’ ages, subject areas taught, and ideology. First, thelower grade teachers were more legislative and less executive than the upper gradeteachers. This meant that the former preferred creative-generating thinking and didnot like norm-favouring thinking than did the latter. Second, the more experiencedteachers were more executive, local, and conservative than the less experiencedteachers; and older teachers were more executive, local, and conservative thanyounger teachers. That is to say, abundant teaching experience based on, for exam-ple, teaching and life might block teachers’ creativity and make them becomeconservative and obedient. Third, science teachers tended to be more local than theteachers of humanities, while the latter tended to be more liberal than the former.This meant that science teachers preferred concrete or tiny details, but humanitiesteachers had more open thinking. Fourth, the schools themselves differed in terms ofprofiles of styles of teachers. Lastly, and connected to the previous points, teacherstended to match the stylistic ideology of their schools. In other studies, Zhang(2001) and Zhang and Sternberg (2002) validated the TSTI (Grigorenko &Sternberg, 1993) in a Far Eastern cultural setting, in both cases with Hong Kongteacher samples. Zhang and Sternberg’s (2002) study also examined the relation-ships between the thinking styles and the characteristics of the teachers: gender,professional work experience outside school settings, the degree of enjoyment in


adopting new instructional materials, the tendency to use group projects in assessingstudent achievement, perceived autonomy in determining teaching content, andtheir rating of the quality of their students. They obtained significant results in therelationships between teachers’ styles and these features. For instance, they foundthat male teachers scored higher on the executive thinking style than femaleteachers, and teachers’ professional work experience (as measured by duration)outside school settings was positively related with the judicial and liberal styles.

As a relatively new model of teaching styles, the theory of mental self-governmentand the TSTI need further empirical studies to examine their cross-cultural valida-tion and practical usefulness in identifying and extending the repertoire of teachers’teaching styles. The present study had two aims: (1) to investigate the validity andreliability of the TSTI with a group of Shanghai teachers, and (2) to explore teachingstyles as a function of teachers’ gender, age, educational background, number of yearsof instructional experience, subject area taught, and grade taught.

Based on the key characteristics of and previous studies concerning the theory ofmental self-government, and the TSTI, the following two predictions wereproposed. First, the TSTI would have accepted validities and reliabilities foridentifying Shanghai teachers’ teaching styles delineated in the theory of mental self-government. For instance, the executive, local, and conservative styles positively andsignificantly correlated with one another, and significantly loaded on the samefactor; the legislative, judicial, global, and liberal styles positively and significantlycorrelated with on another, and significantly loaded on the same factor. Second,because thinking styles are largely socialised (e.g., Saracho, 1993; Sternberg, 1997)and have significant influence on educational practice (e.g., Mahlios, 1989; Zhang &Sternberg, 2005), teachers’ thinking styles by the TSTI should significantly relate tothe variables of gender, age, educational level, number of years of instructional expe-rience, subject area taught, and grade taught. For instance, older teachers might bemore executive and conservative, whereas younger teachers might be more creative.

Method

Sample

Two hundred and three (64 males, 139 females) primary and secondary school teach-ers from Shanghai, mainland China, participated in the study. These participantscame from three public primary schools and three public secondary schools, andthere were 90 primary school teachers, 20 junior secondary school teachers, and 93senior secondary school teachers. They were aged 21–66 years (M = 33.7; Mdn = 31).The participants were divided into four age groups: (1) younger teachers – 21–30years old (112 individuals); (2) middle-aged teachers – 31–40 years old (47 individ-uals) and 41–50 years old (13 individuals); and (3) older teachers – 51 years old orolder (31 individuals). The participants had from 1 to 43 years of instructionalexperience (M = 11.5; Mdn = 7). In this study, if a teacher had 5 or more years ofteaching experience, he/she would be considered an “expert teacher”, while a teacher


with only 4 or fewer years of teaching experience would be considered a “noviceteacher”. There were 137 expert teachers and 66 novice teachers in the study. Asregards the educational background of the teachers, 111 graduated from university,81 graduated from college for professional training, and 11 graduated from secondarynormal school. One hundred and sixteen of the participants taught humanities andsocial science (including Chinese, English, politics, music, art, and history), andthe remainder (87) taught science courses (including mathematics, computing,physics, chemistry, nature, and geography). These participants included 90 primaryschool teachers, 20 junior secondary school teachers, and 93 senior secondary schoolteachers.

Measures of Teaching Styles

The TSTI (Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1993) was used to assess teaching styles in thepresent study. The current study used the Chinese version of the TSTI, with a backtranslation of the inventory (translation from Chinese back to English) to ensure thatboth the Chinese and English versions were identical. The inventory was a self-report test consisting of 49 items, which involved seven teaching styles (7 items persubscale): legislative, executive, judicial, local, global, liberal, and conservative. Itemsamples from each of the subscales are listed in the Appendix. Each subscale had 7Likert-scale items with an evaluation scale ranging from 1 (indicating that the state-ment did not describe the responder at all) to 7 (indicating that the statementdescribed the responder extremely well). The TSTI has been proved to be reason-ably reliable for identifying teachers’ teaching styles in the USA (Sternberg &Grigorenko, 1995) and in Hong Kong (Zhang, 2001; Zhang & Sternberg, 2002).For Sternberg and Grigorenko’s (1995) schoolteacher sample, the internalconsistency alpha reliabilities of subscales ranged from .66 (global) to .93 (judicial).For Zhang’s (2001) Hong Kong teacher sample, the internal consistency alphareliabilities of subscales ranged from .61 (global) to .81 (executive). For Zhang andSternberg’s (2002) Hong Kong teacher sample, the internal consistency alphareliabilities of subscales ranged from .58 (conservative) to .75 (legislative).

Besides the TSTI, the participants completed a demographic information inventoryconcerning gender, age, educational level, number of years of teaching experience,subject area taught, and grade taught.

Data Analysis

The internal consistency of each of the seven subscales was computed withCronbach’s alpha coefficient. An intercorrelation matrix of the seven subscales wasobtained by calculating the Pearson product–moment correlations. An exploratoryfactor analysis was used to examine the constructive structure of the TSTI. Zero-order correlation analyses and two-way ANOVA were used to check the relationshipbetween participants’ background characteristics, such as gender, age, educationallevel, number of years of experience, subject area taught, and grade taught. On the


basis of correlation analyses, a MANOVA procedure was employed to examine themean differences in teaching styles in relation to the participants’ backgroundcharacteristics.

Results

Scale Reliabilities

The alpha coefficients, ranging from .45 (two below .50) to .76, are reported inTable 1. These estimates can be accepted statistically (however, the scales of thejudicial and global styles need to be revised in future studies) but are lower than theresults of Sternberg and Grigorenko’s (1995) study based on a sample of Americanteachers, and Zhang’s (2001) and Zhang and Sternberg’s (2002) studies based onsamples of Hong Kong teachers.

Subscale Intercorrelations

Intercorrelations for the seven subscales are reported in Table 2. The absolute valuesof these subscale correlations ranged from .01 to .74, and largely supported thepredictions; for example legislative vs. judicial (r = .32, p < .01); legislative vs. global(r = .50, p < .01); legislative vs. liberal (r = .63, p < .01); legislative vs. conservative(r = −.14, p < .05); executive vs. local (r = .39, p < .01); and executive vs. conserva-tive (r = .74, p < .01). However, several significant correlations were inconsistentwith the prediction of the theory of mental self-government, for example legislativevs. local (r = .32, p < .01); judicial vs. local (r = .28, p < .01); global vs. local (r =.41, p < .01); and liberal vs. local (r = .31, p < .01).

Factor Analysis

An exploratory factor analysis was employed to examine the structure of the TSTI inthis Shanghai teacher sample. Visual inspection of eigenvalue with the scree plot(Cattell, 1966) supported the best factor extraction as a two-factor model (Table 3).

Table 1. Statistics for TSTI scales (N = 203)

Scale M SD Cronbach’s α

Legislative 5.75 .62 .62Executive 3.67 .98 .76Judicial 5.23 .59 .45a

Global 5.22 .61 .47a

Local 4.86 .81 .70Liberal 5.75 .63 .59Conservative 3.84 .95 .72

a The alpha coefficients that need to be revised in future studies.


The factor analysis used principal-component analysis and Varimax rotation withKaiser normalisation. The two factors accounted for 69.12% of the variance.The first factor loaded highly on the legislative, judicial, global, and liberal styles.The second factor loaded highly on the executive, local, and conservative styles. Theresult largely supported the predictions in this study.

Mean Differences in Teaching Styles in Relation to Background Characteristics

The correlation analyses found that some background variables were significantlycorrelated with each other (Table 4). Gender significantly correlated with the otherfive background variables. Age significantly correlated with number of years ofteaching experience and grade taught. Educational level significantly correlated withsubject taught and grade taught. These significant correlations meant that the inter-actions between the background characteristics might exist and affect participants’teaching styles. Thus, a MANOVA procedure was used to investigate the differencesin teaching styles based on these background characteristics.

Table 2. Interscale Person correlation for seven subscales of TSTI (N = 203)

Legislative Executive Judicial Global Local Liberal

Executive −.12Judicial .32** .09Global .50** .15* .28**Local .32** .39** .28** .41**Liberal .63** −.01 .49** .42** .31**Conservative −.14* .74** .09 .15* .41** −.10

** p < .01; * p < .05.

Table 3. Factor structure of TSTI

Scale Factor 1 Factor 2

Legislative .84Judicial .65Global .72Liberal .84Executive .90Conservative .91Local .53 .56Variance explained (%) 41.29 27.84Cumulative (%) 41.29 69.12Eigenvalue 2.89 1.95

Variables with factor loadings of less than .30 are omitted.


A MANOVA procedure was employed to examine the mean differences inteaching styles in relation to the teachers’ personal characteristics of gender, age,educational level, teaching experience, subject areas taught, and grades taught. Theanalysis considered the main effects of these background characteristics and theirinteractions on various teaching styles. Table 5 shows the significant results of themultivariate analysis.

The results show that the teachers’ teaching styles did not have significantdifferences with respect to number of years of teaching experience, subject areastaught (humanities and social science vs. science), and grade taught. However, theparticipants’ teaching styles were statistically different in relation to gender, age, andeducational levels (Table 6). Furthermore, age and gender had significant interactionon the differences in teaching styles.

To explore the relationship among the three demographic variables further, a two-way ANOVA was conducted, with educational level as the dependent variable andage and gender as independent variables (Table 7). It was found that the effect sizesof mean difference in educational level based on age (η2 = .02) and gender (η2 =.02) were both very small (Glass, McGaw, & Smith, 1981, p. 104), although the p-value for the difference between gender was significant (p = .02). Therefore, theresults suggest that the participants’ educational level did not have significant differ-ence on the different levels of both age and gender.

First, female teachers preferred the judicial and conservative styles more than didmale teachers. Specifically, female teachers were significantly higher than male

Table 4. Zero-order correlations between background variables

Gender AgeEducational

levelNumber of years of teaching experience

Subject area taught

Age .31**Educational level .15* .04Number of years of teaching experience

.31** .96** −.03

Subject area taught .25** .05 .15* .08Grade taught .18* .15* .76** .06 .10

** p < .01; * p < .05.

Table 5. Multivariate analysis on differences of teaching styles

EffectWilks’s

Lambda Λ F Hypothesis df Error df Sig. η2

Gender .86 4.05 7 180 .00 .14Age .75 2.66 21 517 .00 .10Educational level .87 1.90 14 360 .02 .10Gender × age .77 2.38 21 517 .00 .10


teachers on the judicial style (M = 5.12 vs. M = 4.69), and the conservative style (M= 3.95 vs. M = 3.35). That is to say, on the one hand, female teachers preferredjudicial thinking more than did male teachers; on the other hand, they were alsoinclined to be more conservative in their teaching methods than were male teachers.

Second, concerning teachers’ age and thinking styles, the study found the follow-ing points: (1) middle-aged teachers (aged 31–40 years) preferred the legislative andjudicial styles than did older teachers (aged over 50 years); (2) middle-aged andolder teachers (aged 31 years or above) preferred the executive style more than didthe younger teachers (aged 21–30 years). In other words, the younger teacher group(aged 21–30 years) (M = 3.46) scored lower on the executive style than did theother three age-group teachers (see Table 6); (3) teachers aged 41–50 years scoredlowest, whereas teachers aged 31–40 years scored highest on the local style amongthe four age groups. The remaining two age groups scored midway on the localstyle.

Third, participants’ gender and age had significant interactions on the differ-ences of their teaching styles: the judicial and local styles, respectively. For thejudicial style (see Figure 1), female teachers aged 41–50 years scored higher thantheir male counterparts (M = 5.63 vs. 4.35, p < .05); however, in the other threeage groups, respectively, the corresponding differences were non-significant. Forthe local style (see Figure 2), similarly, female teachers aged 41–50 years scoredhigher than their male counterparts (M = 4.88 vs. 3.14, p < .01); however, in theremaining three age groups, respectively, the corresponding differences were alsonon-significant.Figure 1. Profile plot of gender and age about difference of judicial styleFigure 2. Profile plot of gender and age about difference of local styleLastly, higher educational level meant more creativity-generating trends and fewernorm-favouring trends in teaching styles; lower educational level meant fewercreativity-generating trends and more norm-favouring trends in teaching styles.Specifically, university-graduate teachers scored significantly higher than college-graduate teachers on the global style (M = 5.64 vs. M = 5.17) but lower on the localstyle (M = 4.48 vs. M = 4.94). College-graduate teachers scored significantly higheron executive style than those teachers who had graduated from secondary normalschool (M = 3.62 vs. M = 4.29). No significant differences were found in teachingstyles between university-graduate teachers and teachers who had graduated fromsecondary normal school.

Table 6. Two-way ANOVA on difference of educational level

Source Sum of squares df Mean square F Sig. η2

Gender 2.03 1 2.03 5.74 .02 .03Age 1.72 3 .57 1.62 .19 .02Gender × age 1.20 3 .40 1.14 .34 .02Error 68.89 195 .35Total 1,334.00 203

264 Weiqiao Fan and Shengquan YeT

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Discussion

This study explored the cross-cultural validation of the TSTI, which is based onSternberg’s theory of mental self-government (Sternberg, 1994, 1997). It also exam-ined differences in teaching styles in light of the participants’ background variables.The results of the study were largely supportive of the predictions.

The TSTI proved to be reliable and valid in identifying the teaching styles of thesample of primary and secondary school teachers in Shanghai. Five of sevensubscales had good internal consistency reliability estimates yet the values of thealpha coefficients were lower than the results of Sternberg and Grigorenko’s (1995)study based on their sample of teachers in the USA, and Zhang’s (2001) and Zhangand Sternberg’s (2002) studies based on samples of Hong Kong teachers. Theremaining two weak subscales were judicial (α = .45) and global (α = .47). Thecorresponding results of Sternberg and Grigorenko (1995) were .93 and .89, respec-tively; of Zhang (2001) .63 and .61, respectively; and of Zhang and Sternberg(2002) .66 and .66, respectively. Based on this study, the two subscales – judicialand global styles – need to be revised, at least with respect to the results in Shanghai.

With regard to the validity of the TSTI, the following two points reflected goodinternal validity and factor structure. First, regarding the correlations amongsubscales, the original theoretical hypothesis (e.g., Sternberg, 1997; Zhang &Sternberg, 2000, 2001) that the four Type I styles would usually/invariably be signif-icantly correlated, and the Type II styles likewise, while Type I styles would havenegative correlations with Type II styles, was supported: (1) the legislative, judicial,global, and liberal styles had significantly positive correlations with one another; (2)the executive, local, and conservative styles had significantly positive correlationswith one another; and (3) negative or weaker positive correlations were reportedbetween the legislative and executive styles, the legislative and conservative styles,the executive and judicial styles, the executive and liberal styles, the judicial andconservative styles, and the liberal and conservative styles.

However, some estimates did not support the hypothesis of grouping styles intoTypes I and II. Significantly positive correlations were reported between the legisla-tive and local styles, the executive and global styles, the judicial and local styles, theglobal and local styles, the global and conservative styles, and the local and liberalstyles. The results were very inconsistent with Sternberg’s (1997) theoreticalassumption and findings in 1995 (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1995). The differencesbetween the results of the study and Sternberg and Grigorenko’s (1995) resultsmight be attributed to cultural differences in Western (i.e., the USA) and Eastern(i.e., China) teaching styles. It also meant that a suitable revision of the theory ofmental self-government is needed in Eastern cultural setting. For instance, besidesthe positive correlations between the judicial and local styles, this study also foundthat both styles were important to the success of female teachers aged 41–50 years.However, according to Sternberg’s (1997) assumption, the judicial and local stylesrepresent very different models of using abilities. Further empirical research on thetheory of mental self-government might add to our understanding of teaching styles.


Second, factor analysis was generally, although not totally, supportive of thestructure of the theoretical construction of the theory of mental self-government andthe TSTI. The factor structure in the current study was basically consistent with thehypothetical basis for Type I and Type II styles (e.g., Sternberg, 1997; Zhang, 2004;Zhang & Sternberg, 2000, 2001). The Type I and Type II styles were clearly sepa-rate. Although the local style loaded high on two factors, this did not influence theprimary structure of the theory of mental self-government. The present result isconsistent with the findings of Zhang and Sternberg (2002), who also found that thelocal style loaded high on the two factors, with loadings of .21 and .74, respectively.A further study is needed to investigate why the local style was loading on the twofactors. A plausible explanation may be that the local style cannot arbitrarily bethought to be less effective or more simplistic (Zhang & Sternberg, 2000, 2001).Actually, the local style is a very practical one in some contexts (e.g., teaching andlearning).

The second prediction of this study was that teaching styles should be significantlyrelated to a teacher’s gender, age, educational level, teaching experience, subjectarea taught, and grade taught. In the literature, some authors (e.g., Sternberg, 1997)have argued that teachers’ teaching styles could socialise in part over time and inlight of their working environment. In other words, teachers with different workconditions or experiences might have very different teaching styles. However, theresults only partly supported this prediction in that significant correlations werefound only with gender, age, and educational level. The study also found significantinteractions between gender and age in relation to the judicial and local styles. Thesestudy findings were not completely consistent with those of Sternberg andGrigorenko’s (1995) and Zhang and Sternberg’s (2002) studies. For example,Zhang and Sternberg (2002) found that the executive style was significantly corre-lated with a teacher’s gender, and Sternberg and Grigorenko (1995) found thatolder teachers were more local than younger teachers, but this was not the case inthe present study.

Compared with their male colleagues, the female teachers preferred the judicialand conservative styles. The results suggested that, on the one hand, female teach-ers may be more likely to employ analytical teaching approaches, and be good atevaluating existing rules, ways, and ideas in their educational practices; on theother hand, also compared with their male counterparts, female teachers mightfollow the conservative thinking model in teaching. It might mean that, althoughmale teachers did not prefer to compare or analyse in their classrooms like theirfemale colleagues, they might conduct their personal teaching actions, or like toattempt new teaching methods or contents. This preliminary result needed to befurther verified. Furthermore, the finding on the conservative style was also incon-sistent with Zhang and Sternberg’s (2002) result from a Hong Kong sample. Theyfound that male teachers were more likely than female teachers to use the executivestyle. Both the executive and conservative styles are Type II styles according toZhang’s (2004) typology; however, the two Type II styles showed contrastingeffects on female and male teachers in this study. Thus, a comparative study of


thinking styles between different participant groups might well explain theseinconsistent findings.

Age was an important factor in influencing teachers’ teaching styles. The resultswere similar to Sternberg and Grigorenko’s findings in 1995. Younger teachers wereinclined to be more creative and open, and less compliant or conservative in theirteaching practices than their older counterparts. Nonetheless, with increasing age,their teaching styles became seemingly more compliant and conservative, and lessactive or liberal in style. In other words, older teachers were less inclined to chal-lenge existing methods in instructional practices. Their first choice was to follow off-the-peg rules or modes. Generally speaking, the older the teacher, the more teachingexperience he/she should have gained. That is, a possible explanation is that teachingexperience affected their teaching styles to a significant extent. The main reason forthis might be that older teachers had ample teaching experience, and in their teach-ing they also knew what to do and how to do it. Thus, in comparison with theiryounger colleagues, a conservative attitude or stand led older teachers to prefernorm-favouring styles (i.e., Type II styles), such as the executive style, and to be lesskeen on creativity-generating styles (i.e., Type I styles), such as the legislative andliberal styles. By contrast, younger teachers were inclined to employ creativity-gener-ating styles, and to be less keen on norm-favouring styles. What is the reason forthese differences? Generally speaking, most young teachers aimed to put in a goodperformance, and to manifest their personal features in their teaching. In thissituation, although these younger teachers did not have much practical experience touse for reference, they benefited from being unencumbered by existing rules thatwould block their thoughts or creativity. Thus, why would younger teachers notchoose Type I styles, and why would they choose Type II styles?

The local style is an exception, however. The two groups of middle-aged teachers(aged 31–40 years and 41–50 years) exhibited very different performances in relationto the local style. The result at least showed the local style is exceptional. The localstyle means that an individual enjoys or values details of work and task. Specifically,this result mirrored teachers at different stages had very different behavioural prefer-ences to details of work or task. What explanation can be given for the finding thatthe teachers in the 31–40 age bracket had the strongest preferences to the details ofwork or task? A possible reason might be that they increasingly gained an under-standing of the significance of details of work or task after having been through acreativity-generating period, that is, in their younger years (e.g., in the 21–30 agebracket). Styles largely represent states, not traits (Zhang & Sternberg, 2005). As theteachers became older (for instance, aged 41 years or above), increasing work expe-rience probably led them to ignore the specifics of work or task. So teachers in the41–50 age bracket had the lowest tendency to adopt the local style. As for thoseteachers aged 21–30 years and 51 years or above, a slight tendency to adopt the localstyle would be a practical choice, because the details of work or task are sometimesmore important.

The study found significant interactions only for the group of teachers aged 41–50years: female teachers preferred the judicial and local styles more than did male


teachers. In the remaining three age groups, the corresponding differences wereinsignificant. As regards teachers from primary and secondary schools, the 41–50age group represents a mature teacher population. They have abundant teachingexperience and strong capacities in relation to their teaching tasks. Furthermore, inmainland China, about 70% of all teachers in primary and secondary schools arefemale (Shi, Wu, & Chen, 2005). That is to say, female teachers are the majorstrength in primary and secondary schools; simultaneously, female teachers aged41–50 are the key component of this strength in primary and secondary schools inmainland China. Under these circumstances, and with their stronger approach toanalysing and scrupulous thinking (judicial and local styles), female teachers are wellsuited to their work role in primary and secondary schools.

As regards teachers’ educational levels, the study found that those teachers whoreceived more education (e.g., graduated from university) exhibited stronger creativ-ity-generating trends in teaching styles than those teachers who received less educa-tion (e.g., graduated from secondary normal school). A possible explanation is that ahigher educational level is beneficial in developing individuals’ self-determinationand independence (e.g., Mukhopadhyay & Dash, 1999; Staudinger, Maciel, Smith,& Baltes, 1998). Therefore, those teachers in the study with higher educationallevels might have been less inclined to use executive, local, and conservative styles. Itis a pity that several related previous studies did not involve this topic.

To sum up, in this research sample, only gender, age, and educational levelproduced significant differences in the participants’ teaching styles. Therefore, noconsistent conclusion that styles are socialised could be drawn. In other words, thehypothesis that teaching styles are significantly related to teachers’ personal charac-teristics was only supported in part.

General Conclusion and Implications

The results of this study have demonstrated that the theory of mental self-govern-ment had statistically acceptable cross-cultural validity and reliability in a Far East-ern setting (apart from specific subscales). The Thinking Styles in TeachingInventory (TSTI) was a valid inventory for measuring the teaching styles of thesample of teachers from several Shanghai common primary and secondary schools,apart from a few discrepancies, for instance, in the judicial style and global stylesubscales.

The study has also partly demonstrated that teaching styles were socialised andsignificantly related to the participants’ gender, age, and educational level. It ishoped that this result will increase our understanding of the variables involved inchanges of teaching styles. Teaching styles are very important for effective teachingand learning (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1995, 2001), and a wide range of stylesmakes for more effective teaching (Joyce & Hodges, 1966). Also, different teachingstyles have different optimal contexts (Sternberg, 1997), and a teacher with a moreextensive and varied repertoire of style profiles has more choices in his/her teaching.Finally, since teachers’ teaching styles always interact with students’ learning styles


in the classroom, it would be very useful to encourage teachers to develop and takeon a variety of styles in order to maximise their impact within the classroom. Thismight be an interesting direction to take in further studies on styles.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to express their sincere thanks go to all the researchparticipants.

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Appendix

Table A1. Sample items from the Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory (TSTI)

Scale types Sample items

Legislative I like students to plan an investigation of a topic that they believe is importantExecutive A good student always listens carefully to directionsJudicial Teachers should give continual feedback on students’ progressGlobal I think that teachers must increase the conceptual as opposed to the factual

content of their lessonsLocal I like to give my students tasks that require exacting and highly detailed workLiberal Each year I like to select new and original materials to teach my subjectConservative I agree with people who call for more, harsher discipline and a return to the

“good old ways”

Documents

Teaching Styles among Shanghai Teachers in Primary and Secondary Schools