The relationship of authoritarianism and behavior modeling in prospective teachers

This study was concerned with the relationship between authoritarianism and tendencies toward behavior modeling in a population of 23 students involved in a teacher training program at the University of Houston. Of specific interest was whether or not subjects rated as highly authoritarian demonstrate a significantly greater tendency to model neutral teaching behavior than do subjects who were rated as less authoritarian. Selected items of the Rokeach Scale of Dogmatism (D Scale) were used to measure authoritarianism. Subjects observed a videotaped model while she taught a linear math concept, then each subject was asked to teach the same concept. A panel of five judges observed the teaching performance and rated subjects according to the degree of imitative behavior which was evidenced. A Kendall’s tau was used to investigate the relationship between level of authoritarianism and degree of imitative behavior. This procedure yielded a correlation of t = 0.47 and a z of 2.879. These results indicated a statistically significant (p less than 0.002) relationship between subjects’ ratings on the authoritarian variable and their tendencies to model the behavior of teaching experiences which they observed.