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Dispositions as goals for teacher education
DISPOSITIONS
AS GOALS FOR TEACHER
LILIAN University
G. KATZ of Illinois,
and JAMES Urbana-Champaign,
EDUCATION
D. RATHS U.S.A.
is proposed that professional dispositions be added to professional knowledge and skills as goals for teacher education programs. Dispositions, which are defined as summaries of act frequencies or trends in behavior, are contrasted with habits, skills, attitudes, and traits. Professional dispositions are treated as “habits of mind” that give rise to the employment of skills and are ideally manifested by skillful behavior. Justifications for including dispositions in the goals of teacher education are also proposed. Abstract--It
The primary purpose of this paper is to argue that the goals of teacher education programs should include a class of outcomes we call professional disposirions. The sections present, in turn, a working definition of the construct disposition, arguments for including dispositions among the goals of teacher education programs, and some dispositions to be considered by teacher educators as program goals.
Definition By way of illustration, let us consider a teacher observed during a mathematics lesson with junior high school students. The teacher explained and demonstrated the algorithm the students were to learn and then instructed them to solve some problems on their own at their desks. Within a few moments one of the students approached the teacher with a request for clarification and assistance. It was clear from the conduct of the lesson that the teacher possessed the skills required to teach pupils how to solve the mathematics problem. But when his reaction to the request for help was: “I explained it already. You should have been paying attention. I won’t go over it again,” the teacher could be described as showing a disposition rather than a skill. Whether or not he used the skill of explaining would not change the fact
that he has mastery of it, but whether or not he used the skill would affect the disposition attributed to him. If, on the other hand, on most occasions of such requests, the teacher is helpful and encouraging, providing clarification and assistance, then the teacher can be said to possess not only the requisite skills for teaching, but also the disposition to use these skills. For the purposes of this paper, a disposition is defined as an attributed characteristic of a teacher, one that summarizes the trend of a teacher’s actions in particular contexts. Definition of the construct disposition as the trends or frequencies of acts is taken in large part from Buss and Craik (1983), who defined disposiof act frequencies” (p. tions as “summaries 105). The acts that constitute a disposition may be conscious and deliberate or so habitual and “automatic” that they seem intuitive or spontaneous. We emphasize that while some dispositions seem especially helpful in achieving the goals of teaching, others may interfere with or undermine the achievement of those goals. We are not using the term disposition to indicate a cause of behavior; the construct is descriptive rather than explanatory. For example, a teacher does not praise children because he has a disposition to be supportive. Rather, a teacher observed to make use of praise in a number of contexts and on frequent occasions, might be described as having a supportive dis-
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LILIAN G. KATZ and JAMES D. RATHS
position. In this sense, the construct is “an act frequency conception” that serves “descriptive and forecasting functions, but . . . [does] not deal with the causal properties nor provide a causal account of the behavior at issue” (Buss & Craik, 1983, p. 106). Again, emphasis is placed on the relative incidence of acts within circumscribed categories or domains. But, because it is reasonable to assume that human behavior is stable, the summary of the trends of a teacher’s behavior, fundamentally descriptive, can also serve as a basis for predicting future trends in behavior. Finally, in proposing to include professional dispositions among the goals of teacher education, we focus exclusively upon behaviors of teachers related to effective teaching in the classroom. Obviously, teachers, like all other persons, have many dispositions, drives, moods, and emotions. Yet focusing on dispositions likely to be related to teaching effectiveness minimizes the need for teacher educators to act as surrogate clinical psychologists. When those dispositions clearly related to teaching effectiveness have been identified and incorporated into goal statements, they can be addressed legitimately and attentively. Dispositions identified as lying outside the purview of the program can be brought to the attention of other staff members qualified to address them. The following are examples of our use of the construct disposition with respect to teaching: 1. The disposition to suspend judgment about children’s behavior; to consider alternative interpretations of it. 2. The disposition to seek help with one’s teaching from others or from the literature when confronted with a problem. 3. The disposition to distinguish between what is meant and what is said; to “read” the meaning of behavior. 4. The disposition to look for patterns among cases that appear to be unique. 5. The disposition to be defensive when supervisors offer suggestions or criticisms of a teacher’s practices. 6. The disposition to experiment with alternative methods of teaching; to examine the effects of methods used and modify them accordingly. Our definition of disposition may be clarified by contrasting it with potentially confusing terms
often used to characterize the goals of teacher education or important qualities of teachers. Skills vs Dispositions To have a disposition considered desirable for teaching, a teacher must also have certain skills. A teacher could hardly manifest the disposition to examine the effects of the teaching methods he or she has used and to modify them accordingly, for example, without having the skills to analyze current practice. Yet a teacher who has a skill may use it only infrequently (Passmore, 1972). This feature is the principal distinction between our conception of disposition and that of a skill. A further distinction is found in the actuarial nature of our use of the term disposition. The term skill carries with it a sense of mastery. One either possesses a skill or does not possess it (Medley, 1984). But the term disposition refers to the relative frequency with which an action is manifested in a context such as a class discussion or lesson, as in the illustration of the mathematics teacher above. Attitudes vs Dispositions The term attitude has a long history of use among educators. In recent years, however, it has been the subject of considerable controversy in social psychology (see Adams, 1982; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977; Fishbein, 1980). Typically the term is used as Rokeach defines it: “an attitude is a relatively enduring organization of beliefs around an object or situation predisposing one to respond in some preferential manner” (Rokeach, 1968, p. 112). When attitudes is used in this way, the focus is upon pre- dispositions to act; we employ the term disposition as a summary of actions observed. The widespread use of attitude scales implies that attributions about a person’s attitudes are appropriate even when the actions are not actually observed. Indeed, attitudes are often measured not through behavioral observations but through the administration of scales on which subjects register positive and negative stances (Adams, 1982). Habits vs Dispositions Passmore reminded us that William James said that “habit diminishes the conscious attention with which our acts are performed” and that “in an habitual action, mere sensation is a
303
Dispositions as Goals for Teacher Education
sufficient guide” (Passmore, 1972, p. 415). Our definition of dispositions calls for actions that require some attention to what is occurring in the educational context, although with practice and experience the acts may appear to be spontaneous, habitual, or even unconscious. That teachers behave in habitual ways cannot be disputed. Invariably, some of those habits help (or hinder) achievement of their goals. But we are reluctant to count behaviors, normally thought of as habitual, as dispositions. Many dispositions manifested by teachers may be unconscious; but because teaching is a profession, that is, an occupation that brings rationality to bear on performance (Katz, 1984a), the dispositions related to teaching should consist of intentional acts. They should be so well learned and understood that they are manifested frequently and thus resemble habits. It is interesting to consider the hypothesis that the dispositions that most frequently interfere with teaching are unconscious ones. We prefer to use the term habit to refer to acts that are neither intentional nor consequent to reflection. We use disposition to refer to a pattern of acts that were intentional on the part of the teacher in a particular context and at particular times. Inasmuch as intentionality is a mental process, we see dispositions as “habits of mind” - not as mindless habits. They are classes of intentional actions in categories of situations, and they can be thought of as “habits of mind” that give rise to the employment of skills and are manifested (ideally) by skillful behavior. Traits vs Dispositions The term trait, like the construct of disposition, has an actuarial component. Like the term disposition, it suggests a pattern of behaviors over time rather than a cause of behavior. At least two facets, for present purposes, distinguish traits from dispositions. Almost always, in our use of the term, a disposition is a summary that describes the trend of a teacher’s actions, not her or his emotional state. We are reluctant to classify terms like honesty, ambition, courage, and forthrightness as dispositions. These terms describe some aspect of a person’s character. We use dispositions to designate actions and characterize their frequency, for example, asking higher level questions, rewarding approximations, guiding classroom discussions,
encouraging students’ creativity, and planning worthwhile experiences in the classroom. A second facet is that of intensity. When a man is asked, “Which way to the store?” and he responds with an accurate direction, few observers would attribute the trait of honesty to him on that basis alone. To merit the attribution of honesty as a trait, a person would have to be observed in the face of the temptation to lie, having to overcome some adversity and to behave with the level of intensity necessary to overcome it (Brandt, 1970). However, level of intensity is not relevant to establishing the possession or absence of a disposition.
Potential
Benefits
of Dispositional
Goals
Several arguments can be made for including dispositions in the set of goals for teacher education. Dispositions as Criteria of Competence By introducing the construct of dispositions into the discussion of teacher education goals, we hope to alert teacher educators to their potential contribution to strengthening dispositions that are desirable and weakening those that are undesirable, and to the potential error in assuming that observing a given skill on a few occasions is a sufficient criterion of teacher competence. It is conceivable that a candidate could have a given professional skill in his repertoire but not employ it. We are seeking to address the probability of actually employing categories of skills, rather than determining whether or not they have been mastered by the candidate. In other words, a criterion of competence must include a high probability that a teacher will apply given teaching skills appropriately, that is, has the disposition to use them. In a similar way, demonstrations of the mastery of pertinent bodies of knowledge (e.g., educational psychology and child development) do not ensure that the dispositions to use the principles embodied in them will be acquired. Desirable and Undesirable Dispositions Another reason to include dispositions in teacher education goals is that in discussions of teacher competence, the term skill typically
304
LILIAN
G. KATZ
and JAMES
refers to desirable behaviors; candidates are judged competent if skills are exhibited and incompetent if they are not. There may be any number of skills not relevant to competent teaching in general or the teaching of specific subjects in particular. But no skill is listed as one that disqualifies a candidate. Dispositions, however, are a different case. The dispositions thought to be related to effective teaching can constitute goals for teacher education, but the presence of dispositions that are not desirable in general or for teaching in particular could be used to judge a candidate incompetent. In addition, the weakening or elimination of undesirable dispositions (e.g., stereotyping students on the basis of race or sex) can be couched in positive terms (e.g., accepting of diversity) and their strengthening can be included among the goals of the teacher education program. Some Risks of Overemphasizing
Skills
Furthermore, we advocate the inclusion of dispositions among the goals of teacher education because of some potential risks of the excessive emphasis on skill acquisition frequently associated with the performanceor competency-based approach to teacher education. The most disconcerting risk (probably applicable to education at every level) is that excessive focus on skill learning, drill, and practice may damage the disposition to use the skills. Learners (perhaps at every age) subjected to more than optimum amounts of drill and practice of particular small segments of behavior - especially if the practice occurs in contrived situations outside a meaningful context - may resist by vowing never to use the skills once the practice of them is no longer required. In such cases candidates will have acquired appropriate skills at the expense disposition to use them.
of the
While it is of little use to have such desirable skills in one’s repertoire without the disposition to use them, it would also be useless to have appropriate dispositions without the skills that would make it possible to act upon them. It is not a matter of emphasizing skills or dispositions; it is our view that the acquisition of skills and the dispositions to use them must be mutually inclusive goals. Ideally our graduates acquire knowledge and dispositions that give rise to skillful behavior over the long term of a
D. RATHS
teaching career. A further argument for focusing on dispositions and skills in teacher education is based on the cogent observation of Gliessman (1984), who reminds us that most teaching skills are neither unique to teaching nor unfamiliar in everyday affairs. Rather, teaching behaviors appear to be fairly common social behaviors verbal, social, emotional that are likely to have been adequately practiced through day-to-day contacts. (p. 100).
The challenge for teacher educators is to help candidates learn to mobilize those already available skills into patterns conducive to effective teaching, supported by robust dispositions to use these patterns. Dispositions
and the Ethos of a Program
It has been suggested elsewhere (Katz, 1981; Katz & Raths, 1985) that one parameter of teacher education that may affect its impact upon candidates is the ethos of the program. Ethos refers to the ambience of the program and comprises the affect that marks the relationships of participants, the content of their formal and instructional interactions, and their informal noninstructional interactions. Several aspects of the ethos of a teacher education program might be considered in this argument. One is that, if the curriculum of the program consists largely of skills and their practice, that curriculum is not only likely to trivialize the course of study, but also unlikely to provide an ethos marked by strong intellectual concerns. The ethos of such a program is likely to be marked instead by strong technical, practical, and management concerns; thus it is unlikely to strengthen the intellectual life of candidates. In some cases such an ethos even may include a trace of anti-intellectualism. A teacher education program with an intellectually oriented ethos would be one in which staff and candidates exhibit, for example, dispositions to wonder, puzzle, reflect, explore, examine, analyze pertinent study, and phenomena, and in which the exhibition of such professional dispositions is encouraged and appreciated. The inclusion of selected desirable dispositions as goals for a program may remind us of the potential impact of some of our noninstructional behavior on the candidates,
Dispositions
much of it mediated through institution and program.
the ethos
as Goals for Teacher
of the
Dispositions as Selection or Exclusion Criteria Another reason to make dispositions a goal of teacher education is the notion that candidates may possess some dispositions judged essential to teacher effectiveness before they enter a teacher education program, for example, the disposition to empathize, to put oneself in another’s shoes, or to “read” another’s mind. It may be possible to assay the extent to which a candidate already has such a disposition before embarking on teacher education and to ascertain its strength early in the program; this information could be used either for diagnostic-prescriptive purposes or as a selection criterion. Other dispositions judged relevant to teacher effectiveness might also be used for selection or diagnostic purposes. Similarly, undesirable dispositions could be identified and dealt with or, in extreme cases, could serve as exclusion criteria. Characterizations of Teachers General impressions suggest that when both professional educators and lay persons discuss teachers, especially in terms of whether they are “good” or “bad,” they tend to refer to teachers’ dispositions rather than their skills or even their knowledge. Good teachers are often described in terms of their dispositions to be accepting, stimulating, encouraging, and so forth. Poor teachers are usually described in terms of such dispositions as impatience, remoteness, being rejecting, cold, and so forth. This view of the importance of emphasizing dispositions as characteristics of effective teachers is supported by the findings of a survey of instructors of preservice methods courses. Raths and Katz (1982) found that in response to questions concerning what the instructors considered to be the essential attributes of competent social studies teachers, instructors of preservice methods courses nominated more than 130 personal and professional dispositions. The data also suggested that these instructors believed that dispositions contribute more to teacher effectiveness than do skills or knowledge.
related to what Katz (1984b) called the “Goldilocks” problem of dissemination, namely, the idea that the use and adoption of ideas and concepts may be related to their “size.” Some ideas or concepts are either too small or specific to be used or generalized. Lists of teaching skills as goals for a program may be too small in “conceptual size” to motivate teacher educators to mobilize their efforts. There are so many skills - and almost all can be broken down into even more subskills - that it is hard to feel that they contribute realistically to the day-to-day work of a teacher. If the goals of a program consist of the acquisition of a large number of discrete small-scale skills, teacher educators may have difficulty feeling that they are achieving their goals. Long and detailed lists of skills and competencies that serve as behavioral objectives for competency-based teacher education programs not only overlook significant aspects of teaching in their programs but also leave teacher educators dissatisfied with their lack of coherence and meaning. Classifying skills in terms of the dispositions that may make it possible to apply them may enhance feelings of accomplishment in the program. On the other hand, some concepts and ideas may be too “large” for a would-be user in that they do not give enough information to discriminate between situations that are appropriate and inappropriate to their use. The large ideas may serve as doctrine or ideology. “The improvement of teaching” as a goal for a teacher education program is too large to use as a basis for judging how close the program comes to its goals. The disposition construct may have a middlelevel size around which teacher educators can orient their efforts. As we intend it, the term provides a concept neither too molecular nor too molar, but about the “right size” to give teacher educators a sense of direction. Dispositions can constitute bases for judging the appropriateness of curriculum content. They can be applied as a set of criteria for the evaluation of practica and assessment of candidates’ competence.
Selecting Conceptual Size Finally, another
reason
for our proposal
is
30.5
Education
The next problem
Dispositional
Goals
is to formulate
procedures
306
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G. KATZ
for selecting the dispositions that are appropriate goals for teacher education programs. How can a faculty or an individual instructor decide which dispositions should be strengthened in candidates and which should be weakened? We are wary of the problems inherent in generating lists of target dispositions. Nevertheless, the problem of nominating professional dispositions is perhaps less severe than that of nominating teaching skills. As suggested above, the concept of skill is so small in conceptual size that it is possible to adopt literally thousands of them for one program. Dispositions, on the other hand, are conceptually larger. Once a set of dispositions has been selected as goals, the temptation to add still more is not as great (though it is clearly present). In our view, once a program faculty develops a theme or a conceptual base for its teacher education program, the selection of dispositions follows fairly readily, as illustrated by the following examples. Combs’s Studies of the Helping Professions Assume for the sake of discussion that a faculty elected to adopt Combs’s basic concepts concerning teaching as a “helping profession” (Combs et al., 1969, p. 6). This classic explanation of the effective teacher suggests (in part) that ideally the teacher is disposed (using our term, not his): 1. To understand the feelings of students. 2. To encourage and reassure students. 3. To maintain rapport with students. 4. To work with students as co-workers. (p. 6) We assume that teacher educators could work with this list, and with the eight additional dispositions advocated by Combs, to strengthen them in their students. Granted, another faculty with another conception of effective teaching would select different dispositions. Joyce’s Conception of the Teacher as Innovator In a second conceptual analysis of what teachers should be and what teaching should entail, Joyce (1972, p. 20) described the characteristics of the teacher he envisioned graduating from his program: the interactive teacher, the innovator, the scholar, and the institution builder. Some of the dispositions (using our term here, not Joyce’s) that follow from the decision
and JAMES
D. RATHS
to adopt this particular vision of the teacher include: 1. To carry out exploratory and experimental teaching strategies. 2. To use a variety of teaching methods and models. 3. To re-shape plans once pupils have reacted to them. 4. To read studies of the cognitive and affective development of children (p. 20) Again, through modeling and providing candidates with the opportunity to work with cooperating teachers who manifest many of these dispositions, teacher educators should be able to have an impact on their students, an impact in which they could take some pride. Heath’s Developmental Perspective Our previous examples dealt with conceptions of teachers and teaching taken from writers proposing ways of developing teacher education programs. Our last example comes from a psychologist: Heath (1980, p. 295), who posited that at least four factors discriminate between more and less successful adults. These factors, translated into dispositions, include: 1. To symbolize and interpret personal experiences. 2. To interpret the views of others. 3. To establish reciprocally mutual and cooperative relationships. 4. To make judgments with a minimum of personal bias. 5. To act independently to solve problems. (P. 295) These dispositions may be more difficult to model than others we have listed and more difficult to assess. But teacher educators who find Heath’s analysis compelling could organize their programs and their teaching to focus on these dispositions, and they could consider which skills such dispositions require.
Summary We have presented a definition of the term disposition and some reasons for believing that the inclusion of professional dispositions in the goals of teacher education is warranted. According to our definition, a disposition describes trends or summaries of frequencies of
Dispositions
as Goals for Teacher
given categories of actions. Among the reasons underlying our belief in the usefulness of their inclusion, the most important is that they can orient our efforts toward designing and evaluating teacher education programs in terms of their enduring impact upon the candidates.
References Adams, G. S. (1982). Attitude measurement, In H. Mitzel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational research (5th ed.). New York: Macmillan and Free Press. Aizen. I.. & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relationships: A theoretical analysis and review of emoirical research. Psvchological Bulletin, 84,888-918. Bran&. R. B. (1970). Traits of character: A conceptual analysis. American Philosophical Quarterly, 7, 23-37. Buss. D. M., & Craik. K. H. (1983). The act frequency approach to personality. Psychological Review, 96, 105-126. Combs, A. W. et al. (1969). Florida studies in the helping professions. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press. Fishbein, M. (1980). A theory of reasoned action: Some applications and implications. In H. Howe, Jr. (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 27). Lincoln. NE: University of Nebraska Press. Gliessman, D. H. (1984). Changing teaching performance. In L. G. Katz & J. D. Raths (Eds.). Advances in teacher education (Vol. 1, p. 100). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Heath. D. H. (1980). Toward teaching as a self-renewing calling. In G. E. Hall, S. M. Hard, & G. Brown (Eds.),
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Education
Exploring issues in teacher education: Questions for future research. Austin, TX: Research and Development Center for Teacher Education, University of Texas. Joyce, B. (1972). The teacher as innovator: A program for preparing educators. In B. Joyce & M. Weil (Eds.). Perspectives for reform in teacher education. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Katz, L. G. (1981). A matrix for research on teacher education. South Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 9. 19-30. Katz, L. G. (1984a). The professional early childhood teacher. Young Children, 39, 7-9. Katz, L. G. (1984b). Some issues in the dissemination of child development knowledge. Newslefter of the Society for Research in Child Development. Fall. Katz, L. G. & Raths. J. D. (1985). A framework for research in teacher education. Paper presented at the of the American Educational Research meeting Association. Chicago, IL. Medley, D. M. (1984). Teacher competency testing and the teacher educator. In L. G. Katz&J. D. Raths(Eda.). Advances in teacher education (Vol. I). Norwood. NJ: Ablex. Passmore. J. (1972). On teaching to be critical. In K. I. Dearden, P. H. Hirst, & R. S. Pctcrs (Eds.). Etlmtrtio~r and the developmen: of wason. London: Routlcdge B Kegan Paul. Raths. J. D., & Katz. L. G. (1982). The best of intentions for the education of teachers. Journd of Edmation fin Teaching, 8, 275-283. Rokeach, M. (I 96X). Beliefs, artrtudes and ~altres. Snn Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Received
IX September
lYX5
AS GOALS FOR TEACHER
LILIAN University
G. KATZ of Illinois,
and JAMES Urbana-Champaign,
EDUCATION
D. RATHS U.S.A.
is proposed that professional dispositions be added to professional knowledge and skills as goals for teacher education programs. Dispositions, which are defined as summaries of act frequencies or trends in behavior, are contrasted with habits, skills, attitudes, and traits. Professional dispositions are treated as “habits of mind” that give rise to the employment of skills and are ideally manifested by skillful behavior. Justifications for including dispositions in the goals of teacher education are also proposed. Abstract--It
The primary purpose of this paper is to argue that the goals of teacher education programs should include a class of outcomes we call professional disposirions. The sections present, in turn, a working definition of the construct disposition, arguments for including dispositions among the goals of teacher education programs, and some dispositions to be considered by teacher educators as program goals.
Definition By way of illustration, let us consider a teacher observed during a mathematics lesson with junior high school students. The teacher explained and demonstrated the algorithm the students were to learn and then instructed them to solve some problems on their own at their desks. Within a few moments one of the students approached the teacher with a request for clarification and assistance. It was clear from the conduct of the lesson that the teacher possessed the skills required to teach pupils how to solve the mathematics problem. But when his reaction to the request for help was: “I explained it already. You should have been paying attention. I won’t go over it again,” the teacher could be described as showing a disposition rather than a skill. Whether or not he used the skill of explaining would not change the fact
that he has mastery of it, but whether or not he used the skill would affect the disposition attributed to him. If, on the other hand, on most occasions of such requests, the teacher is helpful and encouraging, providing clarification and assistance, then the teacher can be said to possess not only the requisite skills for teaching, but also the disposition to use these skills. For the purposes of this paper, a disposition is defined as an attributed characteristic of a teacher, one that summarizes the trend of a teacher’s actions in particular contexts. Definition of the construct disposition as the trends or frequencies of acts is taken in large part from Buss and Craik (1983), who defined disposiof act frequencies” (p. tions as “summaries 105). The acts that constitute a disposition may be conscious and deliberate or so habitual and “automatic” that they seem intuitive or spontaneous. We emphasize that while some dispositions seem especially helpful in achieving the goals of teaching, others may interfere with or undermine the achievement of those goals. We are not using the term disposition to indicate a cause of behavior; the construct is descriptive rather than explanatory. For example, a teacher does not praise children because he has a disposition to be supportive. Rather, a teacher observed to make use of praise in a number of contexts and on frequent occasions, might be described as having a supportive dis-
302
LILIAN G. KATZ and JAMES D. RATHS
position. In this sense, the construct is “an act frequency conception” that serves “descriptive and forecasting functions, but . . . [does] not deal with the causal properties nor provide a causal account of the behavior at issue” (Buss & Craik, 1983, p. 106). Again, emphasis is placed on the relative incidence of acts within circumscribed categories or domains. But, because it is reasonable to assume that human behavior is stable, the summary of the trends of a teacher’s behavior, fundamentally descriptive, can also serve as a basis for predicting future trends in behavior. Finally, in proposing to include professional dispositions among the goals of teacher education, we focus exclusively upon behaviors of teachers related to effective teaching in the classroom. Obviously, teachers, like all other persons, have many dispositions, drives, moods, and emotions. Yet focusing on dispositions likely to be related to teaching effectiveness minimizes the need for teacher educators to act as surrogate clinical psychologists. When those dispositions clearly related to teaching effectiveness have been identified and incorporated into goal statements, they can be addressed legitimately and attentively. Dispositions identified as lying outside the purview of the program can be brought to the attention of other staff members qualified to address them. The following are examples of our use of the construct disposition with respect to teaching: 1. The disposition to suspend judgment about children’s behavior; to consider alternative interpretations of it. 2. The disposition to seek help with one’s teaching from others or from the literature when confronted with a problem. 3. The disposition to distinguish between what is meant and what is said; to “read” the meaning of behavior. 4. The disposition to look for patterns among cases that appear to be unique. 5. The disposition to be defensive when supervisors offer suggestions or criticisms of a teacher’s practices. 6. The disposition to experiment with alternative methods of teaching; to examine the effects of methods used and modify them accordingly. Our definition of disposition may be clarified by contrasting it with potentially confusing terms
often used to characterize the goals of teacher education or important qualities of teachers. Skills vs Dispositions To have a disposition considered desirable for teaching, a teacher must also have certain skills. A teacher could hardly manifest the disposition to examine the effects of the teaching methods he or she has used and to modify them accordingly, for example, without having the skills to analyze current practice. Yet a teacher who has a skill may use it only infrequently (Passmore, 1972). This feature is the principal distinction between our conception of disposition and that of a skill. A further distinction is found in the actuarial nature of our use of the term disposition. The term skill carries with it a sense of mastery. One either possesses a skill or does not possess it (Medley, 1984). But the term disposition refers to the relative frequency with which an action is manifested in a context such as a class discussion or lesson, as in the illustration of the mathematics teacher above. Attitudes vs Dispositions The term attitude has a long history of use among educators. In recent years, however, it has been the subject of considerable controversy in social psychology (see Adams, 1982; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977; Fishbein, 1980). Typically the term is used as Rokeach defines it: “an attitude is a relatively enduring organization of beliefs around an object or situation predisposing one to respond in some preferential manner” (Rokeach, 1968, p. 112). When attitudes is used in this way, the focus is upon pre- dispositions to act; we employ the term disposition as a summary of actions observed. The widespread use of attitude scales implies that attributions about a person’s attitudes are appropriate even when the actions are not actually observed. Indeed, attitudes are often measured not through behavioral observations but through the administration of scales on which subjects register positive and negative stances (Adams, 1982). Habits vs Dispositions Passmore reminded us that William James said that “habit diminishes the conscious attention with which our acts are performed” and that “in an habitual action, mere sensation is a
303
Dispositions as Goals for Teacher Education
sufficient guide” (Passmore, 1972, p. 415). Our definition of dispositions calls for actions that require some attention to what is occurring in the educational context, although with practice and experience the acts may appear to be spontaneous, habitual, or even unconscious. That teachers behave in habitual ways cannot be disputed. Invariably, some of those habits help (or hinder) achievement of their goals. But we are reluctant to count behaviors, normally thought of as habitual, as dispositions. Many dispositions manifested by teachers may be unconscious; but because teaching is a profession, that is, an occupation that brings rationality to bear on performance (Katz, 1984a), the dispositions related to teaching should consist of intentional acts. They should be so well learned and understood that they are manifested frequently and thus resemble habits. It is interesting to consider the hypothesis that the dispositions that most frequently interfere with teaching are unconscious ones. We prefer to use the term habit to refer to acts that are neither intentional nor consequent to reflection. We use disposition to refer to a pattern of acts that were intentional on the part of the teacher in a particular context and at particular times. Inasmuch as intentionality is a mental process, we see dispositions as “habits of mind” - not as mindless habits. They are classes of intentional actions in categories of situations, and they can be thought of as “habits of mind” that give rise to the employment of skills and are manifested (ideally) by skillful behavior. Traits vs Dispositions The term trait, like the construct of disposition, has an actuarial component. Like the term disposition, it suggests a pattern of behaviors over time rather than a cause of behavior. At least two facets, for present purposes, distinguish traits from dispositions. Almost always, in our use of the term, a disposition is a summary that describes the trend of a teacher’s actions, not her or his emotional state. We are reluctant to classify terms like honesty, ambition, courage, and forthrightness as dispositions. These terms describe some aspect of a person’s character. We use dispositions to designate actions and characterize their frequency, for example, asking higher level questions, rewarding approximations, guiding classroom discussions,
encouraging students’ creativity, and planning worthwhile experiences in the classroom. A second facet is that of intensity. When a man is asked, “Which way to the store?” and he responds with an accurate direction, few observers would attribute the trait of honesty to him on that basis alone. To merit the attribution of honesty as a trait, a person would have to be observed in the face of the temptation to lie, having to overcome some adversity and to behave with the level of intensity necessary to overcome it (Brandt, 1970). However, level of intensity is not relevant to establishing the possession or absence of a disposition.
Potential
Benefits
of Dispositional
Goals
Several arguments can be made for including dispositions in the set of goals for teacher education. Dispositions as Criteria of Competence By introducing the construct of dispositions into the discussion of teacher education goals, we hope to alert teacher educators to their potential contribution to strengthening dispositions that are desirable and weakening those that are undesirable, and to the potential error in assuming that observing a given skill on a few occasions is a sufficient criterion of teacher competence. It is conceivable that a candidate could have a given professional skill in his repertoire but not employ it. We are seeking to address the probability of actually employing categories of skills, rather than determining whether or not they have been mastered by the candidate. In other words, a criterion of competence must include a high probability that a teacher will apply given teaching skills appropriately, that is, has the disposition to use them. In a similar way, demonstrations of the mastery of pertinent bodies of knowledge (e.g., educational psychology and child development) do not ensure that the dispositions to use the principles embodied in them will be acquired. Desirable and Undesirable Dispositions Another reason to include dispositions in teacher education goals is that in discussions of teacher competence, the term skill typically
304
LILIAN
G. KATZ
and JAMES
refers to desirable behaviors; candidates are judged competent if skills are exhibited and incompetent if they are not. There may be any number of skills not relevant to competent teaching in general or the teaching of specific subjects in particular. But no skill is listed as one that disqualifies a candidate. Dispositions, however, are a different case. The dispositions thought to be related to effective teaching can constitute goals for teacher education, but the presence of dispositions that are not desirable in general or for teaching in particular could be used to judge a candidate incompetent. In addition, the weakening or elimination of undesirable dispositions (e.g., stereotyping students on the basis of race or sex) can be couched in positive terms (e.g., accepting of diversity) and their strengthening can be included among the goals of the teacher education program. Some Risks of Overemphasizing
Skills
Furthermore, we advocate the inclusion of dispositions among the goals of teacher education because of some potential risks of the excessive emphasis on skill acquisition frequently associated with the performanceor competency-based approach to teacher education. The most disconcerting risk (probably applicable to education at every level) is that excessive focus on skill learning, drill, and practice may damage the disposition to use the skills. Learners (perhaps at every age) subjected to more than optimum amounts of drill and practice of particular small segments of behavior - especially if the practice occurs in contrived situations outside a meaningful context - may resist by vowing never to use the skills once the practice of them is no longer required. In such cases candidates will have acquired appropriate skills at the expense disposition to use them.
of the
While it is of little use to have such desirable skills in one’s repertoire without the disposition to use them, it would also be useless to have appropriate dispositions without the skills that would make it possible to act upon them. It is not a matter of emphasizing skills or dispositions; it is our view that the acquisition of skills and the dispositions to use them must be mutually inclusive goals. Ideally our graduates acquire knowledge and dispositions that give rise to skillful behavior over the long term of a
D. RATHS
teaching career. A further argument for focusing on dispositions and skills in teacher education is based on the cogent observation of Gliessman (1984), who reminds us that most teaching skills are neither unique to teaching nor unfamiliar in everyday affairs. Rather, teaching behaviors appear to be fairly common social behaviors verbal, social, emotional that are likely to have been adequately practiced through day-to-day contacts. (p. 100).
The challenge for teacher educators is to help candidates learn to mobilize those already available skills into patterns conducive to effective teaching, supported by robust dispositions to use these patterns. Dispositions
and the Ethos of a Program
It has been suggested elsewhere (Katz, 1981; Katz & Raths, 1985) that one parameter of teacher education that may affect its impact upon candidates is the ethos of the program. Ethos refers to the ambience of the program and comprises the affect that marks the relationships of participants, the content of their formal and instructional interactions, and their informal noninstructional interactions. Several aspects of the ethos of a teacher education program might be considered in this argument. One is that, if the curriculum of the program consists largely of skills and their practice, that curriculum is not only likely to trivialize the course of study, but also unlikely to provide an ethos marked by strong intellectual concerns. The ethos of such a program is likely to be marked instead by strong technical, practical, and management concerns; thus it is unlikely to strengthen the intellectual life of candidates. In some cases such an ethos even may include a trace of anti-intellectualism. A teacher education program with an intellectually oriented ethos would be one in which staff and candidates exhibit, for example, dispositions to wonder, puzzle, reflect, explore, examine, analyze pertinent study, and phenomena, and in which the exhibition of such professional dispositions is encouraged and appreciated. The inclusion of selected desirable dispositions as goals for a program may remind us of the potential impact of some of our noninstructional behavior on the candidates,
Dispositions
much of it mediated through institution and program.
the ethos
as Goals for Teacher
of the
Dispositions as Selection or Exclusion Criteria Another reason to make dispositions a goal of teacher education is the notion that candidates may possess some dispositions judged essential to teacher effectiveness before they enter a teacher education program, for example, the disposition to empathize, to put oneself in another’s shoes, or to “read” another’s mind. It may be possible to assay the extent to which a candidate already has such a disposition before embarking on teacher education and to ascertain its strength early in the program; this information could be used either for diagnostic-prescriptive purposes or as a selection criterion. Other dispositions judged relevant to teacher effectiveness might also be used for selection or diagnostic purposes. Similarly, undesirable dispositions could be identified and dealt with or, in extreme cases, could serve as exclusion criteria. Characterizations of Teachers General impressions suggest that when both professional educators and lay persons discuss teachers, especially in terms of whether they are “good” or “bad,” they tend to refer to teachers’ dispositions rather than their skills or even their knowledge. Good teachers are often described in terms of their dispositions to be accepting, stimulating, encouraging, and so forth. Poor teachers are usually described in terms of such dispositions as impatience, remoteness, being rejecting, cold, and so forth. This view of the importance of emphasizing dispositions as characteristics of effective teachers is supported by the findings of a survey of instructors of preservice methods courses. Raths and Katz (1982) found that in response to questions concerning what the instructors considered to be the essential attributes of competent social studies teachers, instructors of preservice methods courses nominated more than 130 personal and professional dispositions. The data also suggested that these instructors believed that dispositions contribute more to teacher effectiveness than do skills or knowledge.
related to what Katz (1984b) called the “Goldilocks” problem of dissemination, namely, the idea that the use and adoption of ideas and concepts may be related to their “size.” Some ideas or concepts are either too small or specific to be used or generalized. Lists of teaching skills as goals for a program may be too small in “conceptual size” to motivate teacher educators to mobilize their efforts. There are so many skills - and almost all can be broken down into even more subskills - that it is hard to feel that they contribute realistically to the day-to-day work of a teacher. If the goals of a program consist of the acquisition of a large number of discrete small-scale skills, teacher educators may have difficulty feeling that they are achieving their goals. Long and detailed lists of skills and competencies that serve as behavioral objectives for competency-based teacher education programs not only overlook significant aspects of teaching in their programs but also leave teacher educators dissatisfied with their lack of coherence and meaning. Classifying skills in terms of the dispositions that may make it possible to apply them may enhance feelings of accomplishment in the program. On the other hand, some concepts and ideas may be too “large” for a would-be user in that they do not give enough information to discriminate between situations that are appropriate and inappropriate to their use. The large ideas may serve as doctrine or ideology. “The improvement of teaching” as a goal for a teacher education program is too large to use as a basis for judging how close the program comes to its goals. The disposition construct may have a middlelevel size around which teacher educators can orient their efforts. As we intend it, the term provides a concept neither too molecular nor too molar, but about the “right size” to give teacher educators a sense of direction. Dispositions can constitute bases for judging the appropriateness of curriculum content. They can be applied as a set of criteria for the evaluation of practica and assessment of candidates’ competence.
Selecting Conceptual Size Finally, another
reason
for our proposal
is
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The next problem
Dispositional
Goals
is to formulate
procedures
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G. KATZ
for selecting the dispositions that are appropriate goals for teacher education programs. How can a faculty or an individual instructor decide which dispositions should be strengthened in candidates and which should be weakened? We are wary of the problems inherent in generating lists of target dispositions. Nevertheless, the problem of nominating professional dispositions is perhaps less severe than that of nominating teaching skills. As suggested above, the concept of skill is so small in conceptual size that it is possible to adopt literally thousands of them for one program. Dispositions, on the other hand, are conceptually larger. Once a set of dispositions has been selected as goals, the temptation to add still more is not as great (though it is clearly present). In our view, once a program faculty develops a theme or a conceptual base for its teacher education program, the selection of dispositions follows fairly readily, as illustrated by the following examples. Combs’s Studies of the Helping Professions Assume for the sake of discussion that a faculty elected to adopt Combs’s basic concepts concerning teaching as a “helping profession” (Combs et al., 1969, p. 6). This classic explanation of the effective teacher suggests (in part) that ideally the teacher is disposed (using our term, not his): 1. To understand the feelings of students. 2. To encourage and reassure students. 3. To maintain rapport with students. 4. To work with students as co-workers. (p. 6) We assume that teacher educators could work with this list, and with the eight additional dispositions advocated by Combs, to strengthen them in their students. Granted, another faculty with another conception of effective teaching would select different dispositions. Joyce’s Conception of the Teacher as Innovator In a second conceptual analysis of what teachers should be and what teaching should entail, Joyce (1972, p. 20) described the characteristics of the teacher he envisioned graduating from his program: the interactive teacher, the innovator, the scholar, and the institution builder. Some of the dispositions (using our term here, not Joyce’s) that follow from the decision
and JAMES
D. RATHS
to adopt this particular vision of the teacher include: 1. To carry out exploratory and experimental teaching strategies. 2. To use a variety of teaching methods and models. 3. To re-shape plans once pupils have reacted to them. 4. To read studies of the cognitive and affective development of children (p. 20) Again, through modeling and providing candidates with the opportunity to work with cooperating teachers who manifest many of these dispositions, teacher educators should be able to have an impact on their students, an impact in which they could take some pride. Heath’s Developmental Perspective Our previous examples dealt with conceptions of teachers and teaching taken from writers proposing ways of developing teacher education programs. Our last example comes from a psychologist: Heath (1980, p. 295), who posited that at least four factors discriminate between more and less successful adults. These factors, translated into dispositions, include: 1. To symbolize and interpret personal experiences. 2. To interpret the views of others. 3. To establish reciprocally mutual and cooperative relationships. 4. To make judgments with a minimum of personal bias. 5. To act independently to solve problems. (P. 295) These dispositions may be more difficult to model than others we have listed and more difficult to assess. But teacher educators who find Heath’s analysis compelling could organize their programs and their teaching to focus on these dispositions, and they could consider which skills such dispositions require.
Summary We have presented a definition of the term disposition and some reasons for believing that the inclusion of professional dispositions in the goals of teacher education is warranted. According to our definition, a disposition describes trends or summaries of frequencies of
Dispositions
as Goals for Teacher
given categories of actions. Among the reasons underlying our belief in the usefulness of their inclusion, the most important is that they can orient our efforts toward designing and evaluating teacher education programs in terms of their enduring impact upon the candidates.
References Adams, G. S. (1982). Attitude measurement, In H. Mitzel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of educational research (5th ed.). New York: Macmillan and Free Press. Aizen. I.. & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relationships: A theoretical analysis and review of emoirical research. Psvchological Bulletin, 84,888-918. Bran&. R. B. (1970). Traits of character: A conceptual analysis. American Philosophical Quarterly, 7, 23-37. Buss. D. M., & Craik. K. H. (1983). The act frequency approach to personality. Psychological Review, 96, 105-126. Combs, A. W. et al. (1969). Florida studies in the helping professions. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press. Fishbein, M. (1980). A theory of reasoned action: Some applications and implications. In H. Howe, Jr. (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 27). Lincoln. NE: University of Nebraska Press. Gliessman, D. H. (1984). Changing teaching performance. In L. G. Katz & J. D. Raths (Eds.). Advances in teacher education (Vol. 1, p. 100). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Heath. D. H. (1980). Toward teaching as a self-renewing calling. In G. E. Hall, S. M. Hard, & G. Brown (Eds.),
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Exploring issues in teacher education: Questions for future research. Austin, TX: Research and Development Center for Teacher Education, University of Texas. Joyce, B. (1972). The teacher as innovator: A program for preparing educators. In B. Joyce & M. Weil (Eds.). Perspectives for reform in teacher education. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Katz, L. G. (1981). A matrix for research on teacher education. South Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 9. 19-30. Katz, L. G. (1984a). The professional early childhood teacher. Young Children, 39, 7-9. Katz, L. G. (1984b). Some issues in the dissemination of child development knowledge. Newslefter of the Society for Research in Child Development. Fall. Katz, L. G. & Raths. J. D. (1985). A framework for research in teacher education. Paper presented at the of the American Educational Research meeting Association. Chicago, IL. Medley, D. M. (1984). Teacher competency testing and the teacher educator. In L. G. Katz&J. D. Raths(Eda.). Advances in teacher education (Vol. I). Norwood. NJ: Ablex. Passmore. J. (1972). On teaching to be critical. In K. I. Dearden, P. H. Hirst, & R. S. Pctcrs (Eds.). Etlmtrtio~r and the developmen: of wason. London: Routlcdge B Kegan Paul. Raths. J. D., & Katz. L. G. (1982). The best of intentions for the education of teachers. Journd of Edmation fin Teaching, 8, 275-283. Rokeach, M. (I 96X). Beliefs, artrtudes and ~altres. Snn Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Received
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