As researchers and teachers, we have particular beliefs about the world and how it works, and about classrooms and how they work. Borg notes that "beliefs colour memories with their evaluation and judgment, and serve to frame our understanding of events" (Borg, 2001, p. 187). When already qualified teachers, in a TESOL graduate program,…

The aims of this symposium are to examine and discuss critically the findings of a major survey of practices in instructional supervision. Data from over 1,000 teachers and their supervisors in central Pennsylvania were compiled, and findings are reported in four sections. The first section is an introduction focusing on the theoretical…

This brochure provides brief descriptions of 11 recent documents and journal articles selected from the ERIC database by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management (University of Oregon), all on the broad topic of teacher collegiality. The works reviewed are as follows: "A New Model for Professionalizing Teacher Evaluation," by…

A series of supervisory behavior studies that began at Mississippi State University in 1980 are summarized. The studies were instigated because of interest in effective supervision and dissatisfaction with an indepth literature search of supervision literature. The theories disclosed were fragmentary, contradictory, and impractical for use by…

Interviews conducted with 15 elementary school teachers and 5 principals in a southern California metropolitan district bring out the differing work orientations and incentives among teachers and administrators, and reveal how various principal-generated orientations and incentives affect teacher performance. The research shows that the work…

Recent studies of the perceptions of teachers and supervisors about the benefits of teacher supervision show clear disagreement between the two groups. Supervisors see their efforts as helpful to teachers, whereas teachers consider supervision ineffectual. This document reports on research conducted to test the theory that positive…

This study was conducted, using the Supervisory Behavior Description Questionnaire (SBDQ) Form 1, to determine if there were significant differences in the supervisory behaviors of secondary school principals, secondary vocational directors, and community college academic deans as these supervisory behaviors were perceived by the teachers in these…

This 3-year study, part of the Effective Schools Project of the Seattle School District and the University of Washington, was undertaken to investigate the relationship between teachers' perceptions of the principal as instructional leader and average gain scores of students in 67 elementary schools in Seattle. Scores were disaggregated by student…

This study sought to describe how an elementary school faculty made sense of the impending succession of its principal, and to extend Gephart's effort to develop a grounded theory of leader succession by examining an unforced succession in an organization whose members exerted little if any influence on the selection process. On the basis of…

Discussed is the elementary science teacher curriculum and its role in students' interest in science. Qualifications, teacher attitudes about science, college preparation, hands-on experience, science instruction, science method instruction, and the role of the administrator are described in terms of effective elementary science programs. (KR)

This paper summarizes research on teacher attitudes and performance under clinical supervision. The literature for comparative studies of inservice personnel (not student teachers) in elementary and secondary schools was extensively searched. The 19 complete and 4 in-progress studies reported are grouped as follows: (1) attitudes toward…

The methodology, results, and implications of a study of instructional leadership styles of principals of four unusually successful inner city schools are outlined in this general summary. The principals studied were selected with the help of expert opinion and student test scores. Data comprise ethnographic observations and interviews of the…

Focusing on four methods of teacher evaluation (principal visits, student evaluations, achievement tests, and peer evaluations), attitudes of elementary and secondary school teachers in Florida and Utah were gathered through interviews and questionnaires. Teachers expressed little or no hostility to principal visits, but viewed them as perfunctory…

Selected findings from a major investigation of preservice clinical teacher education are presented, focusing on the supervision of 20 student teachers by their cooperating teachers. Participants completed background questionnaires, responded to five evaluation questionnaires, kept journals, audiotaped their supervisory conferences, and…

Two data-gathering instruments, the Supervisory Behavior Description Questionnaire (SBDQ) and the derivative Supervising Teacher Behavior Description Questionnaire (STBDQ), are described in one paper and employed in three others in this symposium series. Both forms are useful in evaluating perceived behaviors of supervisory educational personnel,…