Abstract
Purpose. The purpose was to investigate classroom teacher characteristics following participation in clinical or resource supervision as inservice activities. This study addressed self-analytical and self-directive teaching characteristics as employed in the classroom setting. Furthermore, the relationship between identified teaching characteristics and effective teaching performance was analyzed.Procedure. This study was a quasi-experimental project with a control group posttest-only design. Participation in Treatment 1, clinical supervision, or Treatment 2, resource supervision, was the independent variable. Dependent variables were the self-analytical and self-directive teaching characteristics.Data were collected from seventy-two primary classroom teachers in a public school system and analyzed with variance, t-test, and Pearson correlation.Findings. There was no statistically significant differences in self-analytical and self-directive teaching characteristics between treatment groups and no statistically significant relationship between teaching characteristics and effective teaching performance. Positive mean changes were registered by Treatment 1 participants in each research measure and in each case the mean gain scores were greater than those of Treatment 2 participants.Conclusions. (1) Treatment 1 participants do not tend to be more self-analytical and self-directive in their teaching than Treatment 2 participants. (2) Self-analytical and self-directive teaching characteristics generally are not related to effective teaching performance as measured in this study. (3) Teachers in this sample generally rate their teaching characteristics higher and with less differentiation than other raters. (4) Trained specialists in this study tend to be more discriminating in ratings than the other rater groups. (5) Teachers in this study perceive a change in their self-directive teaching behavior following the treatments.Recommendations. Further research should address clinical supervision with the present variables using different instrumentation and triangulation of measures. Prior to implementing clinical supervision in a school setting, teachers and administrators should receive comprehensive training in the process.