The purpose of the thesis was to determine whether or not relationships exist among belief systems and tenure status of junior high school teachers in a metropolitan school system, and their attitudes toward educational innovation. On the basis of previous theory and research it was anticipated that closed and open personalities should differ in their receptivity toward educational innovation. It was also assumed that tenured and non-tenured teachers should differ in receptivity toward educational innovation. Specifically, the thesis was designed to investigate this question: Do dogmatism and tenure status of junior high school teachers influence their attitudes towards educational innovation? The following three statistical null hypotheses were developed to investigate the above question: (1) There are no statistically significant differences on resistance to educational innovation scores between open-minded teachers and closed-minded teachers. (2) There are no statistically significant tenure status differences related to resistance to educational innovation scores. (3) There is no statistically significant interaction effect between tenure status and dogmatism when the criterion is resistance to educational innovation. The sample for the study consists of 302 junior high school teachers in a large eastern metropolitan school system in the United States. The measuring instruments include the Educational Innovation Attitude Scale, the twenty-item Dogmatism Scale, and a Personal Data Form. The data were analyzed by analysis of variance techniques. Conclusions drawn from the data reveal that there were significant positive relationships between tenure status and resistance to educational innovation, and between closed-mindedness and resistance to educational innovation. It is also revealed that dogmatism-tenure status interactions were not significant on the resistance to educational innovation measure. The findings tend to support the independent nature of dogmatism and tenure status as significant predictors of resistance toward educational innovation. Furthermore, this study shows that tenure status and Rokeach's theory of dogmatism can be empirically defined and their effects on innovative behavior investigated. As a result of this study, the following are suggestions for further research: (1) That replicative studies with samples of teachers other than junior high school teachers be chosen from different school systems; (2) That further investigations of dogmatism and tenure status dimensions in relation to operative innovations be conducted; (3) That further examinations of the interaction of personality factors and environmental conditions in relation to innovativeness be made.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/10576 |
| Date | January 1975 |
| Creators | Fish, James C. |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 154 p. |
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