A Continuing Study of the Classroom and Personal - Professional Attitude Development of NTSU Elementary Graduates in their First Year of Teaching. Research on Elementary Teacher Preparation, Monograph No. 3

The monograph contains followup data on the classroom and personal - professional attitude development of 112 graduates of North Texas State University in their first year of elementary school teaching. Evaluation was accomplished through principals' reports, classroom observation, and projective and self-assessment tests that measured general self-perception, optimism, attitudes toward others, children and teaching, and general adjustment. Subjects taught at inner-city or middle-class schools in the Dallas metropolitan area. Data were analyzed to show the relationship of teaching success and the following factors within the college and teaching milieu: training mode (field- or campus-based); student teaching and teaching locales; school staff organization; grade level; and the general impact of the first year of teaching. Findings supported the following generalizations, among others: that teachers trained in the field fared better than those trained on campus; that successful student-teaching experience in the inner city helped first-year teachers; and that experience at primary grade levels elicited more positive effects than teaching of intermediate grades. (GW)