An Investigation of Certain Alleged Student Biases About Teacher Education at Western Kentucky University (Survey Number Three).

Overview & Synopsis

An opinionnaire was administered to 122 students in the teacher education program at Western Kentucky University as part of a longitudinal study to determine student attitudes toward their professors, courses, and themselves. Eight biases were tested: (1) Education courses tend to be easier than most other college courses; (2) Education courses tend to have little or no relevance to the needs of a teacher; (3) Teacher education students wish they had chosen some other career program; (4) Education professors teach less effectively than other college professors; (5) Education professors appear less knowledgeable than other college professors; (6) Students in the teacher education program are academically inferior to other college students; (7) Most students in teacher education are not planning a career in teaching; and (8) Teacher education students have a low regard for the teaching profession. The data were analyzed by student's program, curriculum, college level, transfer/non-transfer status, and career plans and were compared to the results of surveys taken in 1969 and 1974. Agreement with the biases ranged from a low of 4.1 percent for Bias 5 to a high of 30.3 percent for Bias 1. The attitudes of the 1981 survey population were more positive than those found in the 1969 and 1974 surveys. A copy of the survey instrument is appended. (FG)