Teacher Preference Schedules (TPS)

Abstract

The Teacher Preference Schedules (TPS), developed by Stern, Masling, Denton, Henderson, and Levin in 1960, constitute a comprehensive instrument designed to assess unconscious motivations related to the teaching profession. The development process was rigorous, beginning with the description of 18 preliminary teacher roles, followed by extensive, in-depth interviews with educators representing these roles. This foundational work led to the creation of scales measuring teaching gratifications and attitudes across ten specific teaching roles: practical, status-striving, nurturant, nondirective, critical, preadult-fixated, orderly, dependent, exhibitionistic, and dominant.

The TPS consists of a pool of 100 items distributed across both the gratification and attitude scales. Both scales utilize a standardized six-point response system. The gratification scale captures the degree of preference, ranging from “strong dislike, disapproval” to “strong liking, preference, approval.” Conversely, the attitude scale measures agreement, ranging from “strong disagreement” to “strong agreement.” The instrument was successfully administered to various populations, including teacher-trainees, practice-teachers, and experienced teachers, demonstrating strong psychometric properties, specifically good test-retest reliability and significant item discrimination across all derived scales.

Keywords

Teacher Preference Schedules, Teaching Gratification, Teacher Attitudes, Unconscious Motivation, Teaching Roles, Psychometrics, Test Development, Test Reliability, Test Validity

Authors

Stern, George G., Masling, Joseph, Denton, Barnett, Henderson, John, Levin, Rachel

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Teacher Preference Schedules (TPS) is to provide an objective measurement of the psychological factors driving teaching behavior. Specifically, the instrument seeks to quantify the level of gratification (defined as unconscious motivations) and attitudes (defined as rationalizations) that individuals associate with the ten identified teaching roles.

By separating gratification and attitude measurements, the TPS allows researchers and educators to distinguish between deeply held, often unconscious motivations, and the more conscious, socially acceptable justifications or rationalizations for adopting specific pedagogical styles or functions.

Construct

The TPS measures two closely related, yet distinct, psychological constructs critical to understanding professional engagement in education: Teaching Gratification and Teaching Motivation. These constructs are operationalized through the individual’s reported preferences and attitudes toward specific, behaviorally defined teaching roles.

The ten measured roles—practical, status-striving, nurturant, nondirective, critical, preadult-fixated, orderly, dependent, exhibitionistic, and dominant—represent a spectrum of professional identities and underlying psychological needs that contribute to the overall motivation to teach. The scale aims to uncover the deeper, often inaccessible, reasons for selecting or persisting in a teaching career.

Validity

The validity of the TPS was primarily established through rigorous item discrimination analysis, a key step in ensuring that each item effectively differentiates between high and low scorers on the respective subscales. The analysis demonstrated strong discriminatory power across the instrument.

Specifically, the lowest scale average observed during the item discrimination analysis was 0.26. This value significantly surpasses the threshold of 0.20 suggested by Ebel as an indicator of significant discrimination, suggesting that all items contribute meaningfully to the total scale score. Furthermore, the majority of the item entries exceeded a high value of 0.40, reinforcing the strong internal consistency and construct validity evidence derived from item performance.

Reliability

The reliability of the Teacher Preference Schedules was assessed using the test-retest reliability method, demonstrating the stability of the measurements over time. The instrument showed good consistency across all subscales.

The reliability coefficients obtained for the 10 distinct subscales ranged from 0.654 to 0.865. These coefficients are generally considered acceptable to strong within educational and psychological measurement, indicating that the scales provide stable and consistent measures of teaching gratification and attitudes.

Factor Analysis

No formal factor analysis was performed or reported during the initial development and validation phase of the Teacher Preference Schedules (Stern et al., 1960). The structure of the ten roles was derived primarily from qualitative interviews and theoretical definitions rather than empirical factor extraction.

Instrument

Test Type: Interview Schedule/Guide

Format: Paper (Self-administered questionnaire based on interview findings)

Language Available: English (Original development language)

Population Group: Human (Male and Female)

Age Group: Adult (Primarily college undergraduates and experienced teachers)

Population Details: The initial sample population was drawn from the United States, consisting primarily of undergraduates who were teacher-trainees, as well as practicing and experienced teachers.

Test Methodology: The TPS uses a fixed-choice response format across two main scale types: the gratification scale (6-point preference/disapproval continuum) and the attitude scale (6-point agreement/disagreement continuum). The administration method is paper-based.

Keywords

Psychological Assessment, Teacher-Trainees, Educational Measurement, Attitude Scales, Gratification Scales, Role Conflict, Educational Psychology, Stern Scales

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not Available

Affiliation Email addresses: Not Available

Correspondence Address: Refer to the original publication for correspondence details of the authors.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Teacher Preference Schedules were developed and published in 1960. Permissions for use are generally granted for Research/Teaching purposes, reflecting the academic nature of the instrument’s original purpose. Information regarding current fees or licensing requirements should be directed to the journal publisher or intellectual property holders.

Reference’s

• Stern, G. G., Masling, J., Denton, B., Henderson, J., & Levin, R. (1960). Two scales for the assessment of unconscious motivations for teaching. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 20, 9–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316446002000102

Items of the Teacher Preference Schedules (TPS)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Test items for the Teacher Preference Schedules are not generally available in the public domain. Please contact the original authors or the publisher of the journal, Educational and Psychological Measurement, for obtaining copies of the 100 items used in the gratification and attitude scales.