A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Systemic Reform - October 1996

Perceptions of Influences on and Control of Instruction

Building on research in earlier studies that examined relationships between practice and policy, our survey asked teachers for their perceptions about how much they were influenced by various factors and how much control they had over aspects of their school or classroom.

State Guidance as One of Many Influences on Instruction

Teachers' responses to a survey item on influence support the idea that state expression of curricular guidelines are seen as only one among many factors affecting classroom practice. The survey item, written to allow some comparisons with other studies, gave a list of possible influences and asked teachers to indicate for each the extent to which it influenced the content and methods of their instruction. For the middle school teachers, the question was specific to either mathematics or writing instruction. Elementary teachers responded to two items, one for each subject area. Teachers responded on a 0-3 scale, where "0" stood for "no influence" of a factor and "3" stood for "extensive influence." (See Tables 13 and 14)

Of the items on the list, "state curriculum guide" best represents the curricular guidance articulated by the state. The average rating given to this item varies across grade level, state, and subject area, from a high of 2.13 for elementary mathematics in the California schools to a low of 0.6 for elementary reading in Michigan. By contrast, the tables show a stronger reported influence for the group of items about teachers' individual beliefs and perceptions of student interests and needs. The means for these items are typically over 2.0, many times over 2.5.

One general conclusion is that teachers in these reforming schools see these states guides as having some influence, but the state guides do not stand out as a primary influence. Teachers are more influenced by their own beliefs and their perception of the students. The survey does not allow teachers to indicate where teachers own beliefs and knowledge come from. It is possible that state articulations of a vision have been internalized by teachers, thereby having an indirect influence. But the interview responses suggest that teachers are more aware of national trends, so state efforts once more seem more a part of a broader picture than a dominant force.

The strong influence these teachers attribute to their own knowledge of the subject matter points toward the importance of individual capacity building as an influence on classroom practice. If professional development activities, for example, enhance teachers' knowledge in mathematics or writing, teachers see a likely connection to the content and methods of instruction.

Teachers' Sense of Control over Instruction

We have some evidence about how much teachers in these reform districts believed that decision making was being made locally. Our survey included two items that permit comparison between these teachers perceptions and broader samples of teachers. What we see is that the teachers generally see themselves as having a great deal of control over these matters, usually more than teachers in the national samples. For the inservice activities, the greater sense of control over inservice is accompanied by a rate of participation considerably greater than reported in national surveys. An exception is control over the content of inservice programs, where the results for the two Michigan districts are close to the national average or below for elementary school.

These are the items that start "At this school, how much actual influence do you think teachers have ...", "How much control do you feel you have in your classroom over selecting ...", and "To what extent do the following categories influence..." On the "To what extent ..." item, our survey included a longer list of possibilities than any of the national studies used. This report focuses on the options for which we have national comparison data.

We present the means for all three states and both subjects, but caution you to remember that NELS and NSF results are for mathematics. Also recall that, for middle school, our sample within each state for a particular subject is only a few teachers.⁶

Overall the middle school teachers in our sample report feeling more influence over these school-level matters. (See Table 15.) One area of exception is control over the content of inservice programs, where California mathematics and writing were at the national average or below. The other exception is control over policies on grouping, where the Vermont writing teachers were down near the national average.

The elementary school teachers feel that, in math, they have more influence over these matters than the national sample, though the Michigan and Vermont teachers don't feel that they have quite as much influence as their middle school counterparts; the reverse is true in California, where the elementary teachers are almost at the top of the scale. (See Table 16.) In language arts, elementary teachers in California and Vermont are far above the national comparison groups; the Michigan teachers are closer to the national average, especially in control over inservice programs, the area where they were also low at the middle school level.

For their classroom (as opposed to the whole school), middle school teachers across all the studies seem to feel that they control selection of their teaching techniques and criteria for grading students, especially the former. (See Table 17.) Responses differ for selection of texts and content/topics, however. One obvious dimension of difference is across subject areas, with the language arts teachers feeling greater control; the exception is Vermont on text selection, where mathematics teachers also feel great control. This difference is reflected in the national studies as well. For mathematics teachers across states, Vermont teachers feel most in control of selecting texts and topics; California teachers least. Michigan and the national (math) samples are both in the middle. For language arts, the same is true for selecting texts, but there is little difference in selecting topics.

As with the middle school level, elementary school teachers across all studies feel a high degree of control over selection of teaching techniques and grading. (See Table 18.) Unlike our middle school sample, however, these elementary teachers all also feel a high degree of control over selection texts and topics, with a slightly lower level in the Vermont teachers' responses about selection of texts.

⁶ Where necessary, we have converted the scales used to match ours. For the "at this school" items, NELS used a 1-5 scale, rather than 1-6, so we multiplied the average by 6/5. For the "in your classroom" items, the same applies for NSFMQ. For "To what extent..." NSFMQ numbered their scale 1-4, rather than 0-3, so we subtracted 1 from the average.
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