The Relationship Between the Assignment of Educational Priorities and Their Practice. Final Report

The educational priorities of 90 key decisionmakers -- school administrators, teachers, and community members -- from school districts representing three economic levels, were investigated to determine: (1) the types of educational objectives preferred by each group, (2) the agreements within and among the three groups of decisionmakers in these school districts of varying economic levels, and (3) the relationship between the priorities as assigned in a Q-sort and as practiced in the classroom. One hundred behavioral objectives representing the categories low-cognitive, high-cognitive, tool-skill, affective-personal, and affective-interactive were put into a Q-sort. Each person's Q-sort was subjected to an analysis of variance. Comparisons were made within and among groups of decisionmakers for different types of districts, and teachers' Q-sort preferences were correlated with their classroom practices. Two main findings emerged: (1) decisionmakers generally assign high priority to high-cognitive and affective-personal categories regardless of the group or district to which they belong and (2) teachers' classroom practices reflect heavy emphasis on tool-skill objectives rather than the categories of high preference. (Author/DN)