What's Gender Got To Do With It? Teachers' Perceptions Of Situation Severity And Requests For Assistance

Abstract

There is currently a gap in the consultation literature related to how teacher and student gender may affect teacher perceptions of and responses to student behavior. In this study, 147 preservice and practicing teachers were presented with four “gender-neutral” student-centered problems in the form of short vignettes in which the gender of the student was rotated. Respondents rated these vignettes on problem severity, likelihood of seeking assistance, and from whom they would seek assistance. Data were analyzed by teacher status (preservice or practicing), teacher gender, and student gender. Results suggest teachers typically did not make different decisions based on student gender. However, female teachers often rated student situations as more severe than their male colleagues, with some differences between practicing and preservice teachers. The potential implication of this and related findings for the process of consultation are highlighted.

This study was conducted as a masters' thesis by the first author, with the second author serving as thesis chair. The third author was heavily involved in editing, analyses, and writing of results as this manuscript was being prepared for publication. We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of thesis committee members Dr. Doris Bergen, Dr. Sally Lloyd, and Dr. Ray Witte to this study. We also thank Dr. Chris Bloom for his statistical guidance while this study was being designed and analyzed. Finally, we thank Dr. Ian Kudel and Dr. Janay Sander for their helpful and timely editorial suggestions while this manuscript was in preparation.

Notes

∗p < .05

∗∗p < .01.

∗p < .05

∗∗ p < .01. Note. Cell samples sizes ranged from 140 to 147.

^aAdjusted mean values are calculated using the covariate severity 1 = 6.854.

^bAdjusted mean values are calculated using the covariate severity 2 = 7.606.

^aAdjusted mean values are calculated using the covariate severity 3 = 8.242.

^bAdjusted mean values are calculated using the covariate severity 4 = 8.144.

∗p < .05

∗∗∗p < .001.