Teachers epistemic authority: perceptions of students and teachers

Transcription

1 Social Psychology of Education 6: 17 42, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 17 Teachers epistemic authority: perceptions of students and teachers AMIRAM RAVIV 1,, DANIEL BAR-TAL 2, ALONA RAVIV 3, BRAHA BIRAN 2 and ZVIA SELA 2 1 Department of Psychology, 2 School of Education, 3 Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Tel Aviv University, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel Abstract. The present study examines students perception of the teacher s role as epistemic authorities, that is, a source of determinative influence on the formation of individuals knowledge, from three perspectives. First, it examines 7th and 10th graders perception of their teachers as epistemic authorities. The results showed that a teacher s subject matter, as well as students age and gender, influence perception of him/her as an epistemic authority. In addition, interest in the subject matter was found to be an important predictor of students perception. The second part focuses on teachers self-perceptions as epistemic authorities. The results indicated that teachers personal efficacy is the most powerful predictor of their self-perception. Finally, the study compares students perceptions of teachers as epistemic authorities, teachers self-perceptions in these terms and teachers perceptions of how their students perceive them. Two main findings showed the following: (a) teachers perceive themselves as being more of an epistemic authority than their students consider them; (b) teachers believe that students perceive them as being more of an epistemic authority than the students actually think. 1. Introduction One of a teacher s principal roles is to transmit knowledge to students (Strauss, 1993). Whether or not they are successful in this depends, among other factors, on students perceptions of teachers as reliable sources of information. Lay epistemic theory (Kruglanski, 1989, 1990), which describes knowledge acquisition, directly contributes to our understanding of teachers role as a source of knowledge. In its discussion of the factors that affect knowledge acquisition, the theory introduces the concept of epistemic authority, which denotes a source that exerts determinative influence on the formation of individuals knowledge. The concept epistemic authority was originally presented as a factor in the process of knowledge formation through which individuals receive information perceived as valid and, consequently, stop seeking alternative knowledge (Kruglanski, 1989). Individuals trust information dispensed by epistemic authorities, assimilate it into their own repertoire and rely on it. In this respect, epistemic authorities, as reliable sources of knowledge, define the scope of legitimate, truthful, and factual Author for Correspondence: Tel.: ; Fax: ; raviv@post.tau.ac.il

2 18 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL. information and enable individuals to construct their own knowledge. The lay epistemic theory suggests that any source can potentially become an epistemic authority to the extent that the individual considers him/her/it to possess those characteristics that turn this source into such an authority. Thus, only an individual s subjective beliefs determine who is to be considered an epistemic authority. There are individuals who believe, for example, that people who assume certain roles, such as priests or teachers, are by the nature and definition of their roles, epistemic authorities. There are others who rely on particular individuals whose knowledge they trust. An epistemic authority such as a rabbi may be perceived as having valid knowledge in all, or most, domains or he/she may be considered an expert only in a particular domain of knowledge, as would be the case with a biology teacher. In schools, teachers are expected to function as epistemic authorities, that is, be perceived by their students as reliable sources of information, at least in the discipline they teach. The present study investigates the perception of teachers as epistemic authorities. It examines students perceptions of their teachers as epistemic authorities, teachers self-perception of themselves as epistemic authorities, teachers perceptions of to what extent their students perceive them as epistemic authorities and, finally, comparisons will be made among these three perceptions. In addition, the present study attempts to shed light on the factors that influence these perceptions among students and teachers. Although it is generally agreed that teachers transmit knowledge to their students, there is disagreement about the scope of this transmission, based on the different approaches as to what a teacher s role entails. One approach emphasizes the task-oriented mission of teaching disciplinary knowledge (Berliner, 1983; Weinstein, 1991), while another expands the teachers mission to include a wide range of responsibilities, such as helping students to actualize themselves and to socialize them (Gump, 1967; Fiedler, 1975; Weinstein, 1991; Blumenfield, Puro, & Mergendoller, 1992; Goodenow, 1992; Levine, Resnick, & Higgins, 1993). Recently, Gardner (1999) proposed that the different approaches are reflected in the pedagogical perspectives provided by the different disciplines. According to Gardner (1999), teachers piece facts together in a certain way and place them in the service of a particular theory, framework or sequence, according to the discipline they teach. Thus, teachers in some disciplines put an emphasis on the importance of narrative, connecting the knowledge of their discipline to pupils everyday life; others merely focus on the transmission of dry facts. However, both of these role definitions entail the transmission of knowledge as part of the realization of teachers functions and, in both cases, the perception of teachers as epistemic authorities is of importance to perform satisfactorily. Developmental studies comparing attribution of epistemic authority to various agents of socialization in different knowledge areas have found that for young children teachers serve as generalized epistemic authorities in several areas. In comparison to parents and friends, children rely on teachers mostly in the area of science, but also in the emotional domain, social relations and rules/laws (Raviv,

3 TEACHERS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY 19 Bar-Tal, Raviv, & Houminer, 1990). As children grow older, entering preadolescence and adolescence, the perception of teachers as generalized epistemic authorities decreases. While teachers continue to be regarded as epistemic authorities in specific knowledge areas related to school, such as science, their influence is considerably reduced in other knowledge areas (Kutnick, 1980; Raviv, Bar-Tal, Raviv, & Peleg, 1990; Bar-Tal, Raviv, Raviv, & Brosh, 1991). The first objective of the present study was to examine students perception of their teachers as epistemic authorities and elucidate those variables that influence that perception. One of the variables studied was the subject matter (i.e., discipline) taught by the teachers. It has been well established that subject matters belonging to the humanities and social sciences differ considerably from subject matters belonging to biological and exact sciences (Schulman & Quinlan, 1996). The former have long been viewed as more subjective, inaccurate in data collection, unable to yield definite rules, plagued by uncertainty and characterized by contradictory theories (Kuhn, 1970; Zuckerman & Merton, 1971; Yoels, 1974). These views correspond to teachers understanding of the nature of knowledge in the subject matter they teach. Yaakobi and Sharan (1985) found that while science teachers believe that the knowledge in their discipline exists out there, and is factual and valid, humanities teachers believe that the knowledge in their discipline is based on subjective, personal invention, reflecting individual creativity. When interviewing teachers in both types of disciplines, Donnelly (1999) found that science teachers express common goals, an emphasis on factual contents, and hesitancy in handling intellectual skills. They also exhibit a tendency to ground relevance in instrumentality and to perceive uncertainty and lack of factual knowledge as threatening. In contrast, teachers of humanities (historians in this case) emphasize personal judgment, case-making, and interpretation as well as transmitting inherently uncertain evidence. Following the present line of reasoning proposed here, it can therefore be assumed that the differential nature of the subject matter and of its object of knowledge, influences students perception of their teachers as epistemic authorities. Because of the welldefined, unequivocal answers and solutions, as well as the unambiguous rules that students typically encounter in the exact and biological sciences, students will tend to perceive teachers of these subjects as epistemic authorities in their disciplines more than they perceive teachers of social sciences and humanities as such. However, the opposite is predicted with regard to students perception of their teachers as generalized epistemic authorities. This prediction is based on the fact that teachers of the social sciences and humanities discuss a wide range of issues and topics due to the nature of their subject matter. Their lectures may include psychological, sociological, cultural or political themes, which are, moreover, often relevant to real-life issues (e.g., Husbands, 1996). Such teachers may project an understanding of a wide range of issues, supporting students perception of them as generalized epistemic authorities. Bar-Tal, Darom and Sorek (1978) indeed found that teachers of the social sciences and humanities who emphasize the application of learned material to everyday life, define their role more as educators, whereas teachers

4 20 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL. of the exact and biological sciences tend to define their role as experts rather than educators. These role definitions probably affect the way teachers present lectures and, in turn, influence students perception of them. This assumption is confirmed by a study by Raviv, Bar-Tal, Raviv and Abin (1993), who found that university students of statistics perceive their professors as epistemic authorities in their disciplinary knowledge more than do students of psychology. However, the latter, more than the former, perceive their professors as epistemic authorities in general domains of knowledge. In addition, students age is an important factor that influences students perception of teachers as epistemic authorities. As they grow older, children develop independent and cognitive and social skills and, consequently, tend to rely less on adults, become more differentiated in their reliance on sources of information, are more skeptical and critical in their selection of sources of information and depend increasingly on their own knowledge (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958; Kassin, 1981; Damon, 1983). The tendency to rely more on ones own knowledge, judgment, and decisions is a result of the increased self-perception as an epistemic authority with age. A study by Bar-Tal, Raviv, Raviv and Brosh (1991) showed that the perception of external information sources as epistemic authorities (e.g., parents, teachers, siblings) depends on the development of self-perception and the consequent view of oneself as an epistemic authority. As adolescents develop self-consciousness and a sense of identity, they tend to formulate their own opinions about reality and begin to perceive themselves as authoritative sources of knowledge (Offer, Ostrov, Howard, & Atkinson, 1988). This development leads to a decreased reliance on other sources of knowledge, including teachers. As a result, the perception of teachers as epistemic authorities can be assumed to decrease with age, while students perception of themselves as an epistemic authority increases with age. Gender is another factor that may affect students perceptions of teachers as epistemic authorities. This originates from the differential gender roles in society, with males being expected to be more autonomous, rebellious, achievement oriented, critical, and challenging of authority than females (Ruble & Martin, 1998). Due to various political, cultural, and religious reasons, gender differentiation in Israel is still very widespread and salient (Izraeli, Friedman, & Shift, 1982; Izraeli et al., 1999). Moreover, it has been well established that female and male students maintain differential interactions with their teachers (Irvine, 1986; Darom & Rich, 1988; Jules & Kutnick, 1997). Also, male students perceive their teachers differently than do female students. For example, Good, Biddle and Brophy (1975) found that female high school students evaluate their teachers more favorably than do male high school students. Similarly Raviv, Bar-Tal, Raviv and Peleg (1990) found that female pre-adolescents and adolescents overall attributed more epistemic authority to various sources than did male pre-adolescent and adolescents. In this study, analysis showed that in the 12th grade girls attributed more epistemic authority to teachers in the domain of social knowledge than did boys. Thus we hypothesize

5 TEACHERS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY 21 that female students, more than male students, perceive their teachers as epistemic authorities. In addition, we hypothesize that the perception of teachers as epistemic authorities is dependent on students interest in the subject matter as well as on their evaluation of their own knowledge and academic performance in that subject matter. This assumption is based on well established findings indicating that interest and academic success in a subject matter affect students perception of teachers. That is, students who find a subject matter interesting and who succeed academically in it evaluate the teacher of that particular subject matter positively and likewise respect him/her (Brophy & Good, 1986; Goodenow, 1992). The second part of the study focuses on teachers perception of themselves as epistemic authorities. Two influencing variables were investigated: subject matter taught and teachers self-efficacy. The first variable has already been discussed and we assumed that teachers know the nature of their subject matter (Yaakobi & Sharan, 1985). Thus, it was predicted that teachers of the exact and biological sciences would more readily perceive themselves as epistemic authorities in disciplinary knowledge than would teachers of the humanities and social sciences. Regarding the general knowledge domain, we offer a polar hypothesis, such that teachers of the humanities and social sciences do more readily perceive themselves as epistemic authorities in generalized knowledge than do teachers of exact and biological sciences. Self-efficacy has been defined as the extent to which the teacher believes he or she has the capacity to affect student performance (Berman et al., 1977, p. 137). It reflects how teachers perceive their own capacities in their role enactment vis-à-vis their students. Therefore, the concept is related to the specific perception of oneself as an epistemic authority and the assessment of one s own role performance (Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). The scale developed by Gibson and Dembo (1984) demonstrates that self-efficacy consists of two factors: personal efficacy, which refers to one s own skill or capacity to bring about student learning, and teaching efficacy, which refers to one s beliefs about the ability of teaching, as a profession, to make a change. According to this conception, self-efficacy, in general, concerns teachers evaluation of their abilities, both as individuals and as professional teachers, to bring about positive change in their students. Selfperception as an epistemic authority, on the other hand, refers to teachers evaluation of themselves as being able to serve as reliable sources of knowledge, knowledge that students trust and accept as valid. Furthermore, teachers selfefficacy was found to be related to enthusiasm and commitment to teaching (e.g., Guskey, 1984; Coladarci, 1992; Allinder, 1994), willingness to invest more effort in teaching (e.g., Ashton & Webb, 1986), and to achieve better outcomes (e.g., Ross, 1992). It can be assumed that these variables likewise influence teachers perceptions of themselves as epistemic authorities to their students. Finally, the present study compares three perspectives on epistemic authority: students perceptions of teachers, teachers perceptions of themselves, and

6 22 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL. teachers perceptions of how their students perceive them. Past research has found that teachers tend to see themselves in a more positive light than students view them (Abraham, 1974). They also tend to think that students perceive them in a more positive light than students actually do (Abraham, 1974). For example, Raviv, Raviv and Reisel (1990) found that teachers tend to perceive the classroom environment in which they teach, especially their own involvement and support, more favorably than their students do. These findings are related to another line of research about positive self-bias, which shows that people in general and teachers in particular tend to take personal responsibility only for positive outcomes (i.e., their students successes) and not for negative ones (Johnson, Feigenbaum, & Wiley, 1964; Abraham, 1974; Bar-Tal & Guttmann, 1981). This ego-enhancement tendency is also expected to play a role in the present comparisons. Hence, we expect teachers to perceive themselves more as epistemic authorities than students perceive them to be, and that teachers believe their students perceive them as being more of an epistemic authority than students actually do. 2. Method 2.1. PARTICIPANTS Two groups of participants took part in the study: students and teachers. Students were 1465 junior high and high school students from the central region of Israel: 786 from twenty-five 7th grade classes (aged 12 13; 389 boys and 397 girls), and 679 from twenty-five 10th grade classes (aged 15 16; 315 boys and 364 girls). The two groups came from similar socio-economic backgrounds, that is, middle class families. Teachers were drawn from different schools than were the students. This was done for ethical and methodological reasons. Some of the teachers of the classes taken by the students in our sample expressed reservations about participating in the study. Taking only those teachers who agreed to participate would have created a problem with the study design, since only a small part of the classes were matched with all four teachers of the examined subject areas. We made special efforts to match the schools of participating teachers and students. The schools from which students and teachers were drawn respectively, were the same geographical area, all were secular public schools with the same Ministry of Education curriculum, and similar with regard to socio-economic status of the students and teachers. Participants were 131 female teachers (32 literature teachers, 52 mathematics teachers, 12 biology teachers, and 35 history teachers) from 10 junior high and high schools in the central and southern regions of Israel. The participating teachers had a mean age of 38.5 (ranging between 24 and 60), with mean teaching experience of 12.6 years (ranging between 1 and 37).

7 TEACHERS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY Students Instrument The instrument used for the students contained several parts. The first measured students perceptions of their teachers epistemic authority. The second assessed their own self-perceived epistemic authority, and the final part measured selfevaluation. Following is a description of each of these parts Epistemic authority measurement. The measurement of epistemic authority was based on the Epistemic Authority Scale (EAS) an instrument developed by Raviv, Bar-Tal, Raviv and Abin (1993). The EAS consists of 17 items referring to different aspects of a person s reliance on a source s knowledge. The present instrument contains only nine items, with responses given on a 6-point rating scale ranging from 1 (definitely disagree) to 6(definitely agree). The nine items of the scale administered to students were as follows: (1) He/she has a great deal of knowledge, (2) I do not trust his/her knowledge, (3) I accept what he/she says as correct, (4) He/she is no great expert, (5) He/she is careful to give accurate facts, (6) His/her arguments are based on verified knowledge, (7) When asked a question, he/she knows what the right answer is, (8) His/her knowledge is not greater than that of other teachers, and (9) It is possible to rely on his/her knowledge wholeheartedly. The items were selected from the original EAS by five teachers, who were instructed to select those items that would allow students to best evaluate their teachers epistemic authority. The items in the original instrument that were related to change of attitude or behavior under the influence of the authority were omitted. We left intact the items attributing knowledge and trustworthiness to teachers. Two items were greatly modified and, at the suggestion of high school students who participated in a pilot study, several slight changes were made to clarify the items. The described instrument was used to assess the students attribution of epistemic authority to teachers in four subject matters: literature, mathematics, biology, and history. Teachers were assessed in two domains: (a) as epistemic authorities in the knowledge of their particular discipline (disciplinary domain), and (b) as nonspecific epistemic authorities in various domains of knowledge (general domain). The questions were formulated as follows: What is the extent of epistemic authority that you attribute to your teacher (a) in the domain of the discipline she is teaching, (b) in general, in various other domains of knowledge. Thus, each student rated four different teachers (literature, mathematics, biology, and history), regarding their epistemic authority in the disciplinary and general domains. The reliability of the instrument used to measure teachers attributed epistemic authority in the four subject areas and the two domains of knowledge (disciplinary and general) was examined by means of Cronbach s alpha. The eight alphas varied between 0.81 and In addition, the students were asked to assess their own epistemic authority regarding various school subjects. The assessments were made using the same nine items, modified to measure self-attribution (self epistemic authority = self EA). Cronbach s alpha of this scale was 0.77.

8 24 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL Self-evaluation. Students were asked to evaluate their interest, knowledge, and performance in each of the four subject areas (literature, mathematics, biology, and history). They were asked: (a) To what extent does (e.g., literature) interest you? with answers ranging from 1 (not interesting at all) to 6(very interesting), (b) How well do you know (e.g., literature)? with answers ranging from 1 (I have no knowledge) to6(i have much knowledge), and (c) My grades in (e.g., literature) are usually... with answers given on a scale ranging from 1 (fail) to 6(very good/excellent). Computation of Cronbach s reliabilities for the three questions yielded 0.68, 0.79, 0.81, and 0.76 for literature, mathematics, biology, and history, respectively. The average scores for the above three questions, calculated for each subject area constituted the self-evaluation scores for the four subject matters. Finally, the students were asked to note the level of education of their parents Teachers Instrument The teachers instrument consisted of three parts: a scale for measuring teachers self-perceptions of their epistemic authority, a scale for measuring teachers perceptions of how their students perceive their epistemic authority, and a scale for measuring teachers self efficacy Teachers perceptions. The self-perception of teachers as epistemic authorities was measured with the same scale as that used in the case of the students. The nine items were used to assess the epistemic authority which teachers attribute to themselves (self-attributed epistemic authority) in the two domains: disciplinary and general. In addition, using the same instrument, teachers perception of students attribution of epistemic authority to them (perceived students attribution of teachers epistemic authority) was assessed in these two domains. Reliabilities (Cronbach s alpha) were α = 0.76 for self-attribution in the disciplinary domain, α = 0.77 for self-attribution in the general domain, α = 0.81 for perception of students attribution in the disciplinary domain, and α = 0.86 for perception of students in the general domain Teacher self-efficacy scale. This instrument was developed by Gibson and Dembo (1984) and translated into Hebrew by Eylon (1995), who validated it and used it with a sample of 254 Israeli teachers. The scale included 16 items with answers ranging from 1 (I definitely do not agree)to6(i definitely agree). The two factors that emerged in those studies (Eylon, 1995; Gibson & Dembo, 1984) are personal efficacy, including 9 items, and teaching efficacy, including 7 items. In our study, reliabilities were α = 0.80 for personal efficacy, α = 0.65 for teaching efficacy, and α = 0.77 for the total score of all the 16 items. Finally, the teachers were asked for some background information: their age, teaching experience (years), and level of education.

9 TEACHERS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY PROCEDURE The questionnaires were administered to students in their classrooms by a female researcher. The study was presented as research on the extent of children s and adolescents reliance on things that their teachers tell them in the domain they teach and in other domains. All the instructions appeared in print in the questionnaire, and they were also read aloud in class. The researcher elaborated on two domains by providing examples of each and she asked the students whether they had understood the instructions. Students were promised anonymity (they were not asked to write down their names) and asked to express their sincere opinions. Teachers were individually approached by a female researcher in the teachers common room at their schools. They were given a stamped envelope with the request to complete and return the questionnaire, presented as a study about teachers self-perception and students perception of them. They, too, were assured anonymity and requested to give their sincere response. 3. Results The reporting of the results will be divided into three main parts. First, the results pertaining to students perception of their teachers as epistemic authorities will be reported. Next, the results concerning teachers self-perception as an epistemic authority will be presented. Finally, comparisons of the perception of students about their teachers and the self-perception of teachers with teachers perception of how students think about them, all with regard to epistemic authority, will be reported STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS Attribution of Epistemic Authority to Teachers (Teacher EA) The scores indicating the extent of attributed epistemic authority are the average scores from the nine questionnaire items, to which answers were given on a 6-point scale. Each respondent received eight scores derived from his/her evaluation of the teachers in the four subject matters: literature, mathematics, biology, and history, each in the two knowledge domains: disciplinary and general. Since students in each class evaluated the epistemic authority of the same four teachers, the class was used as a grouping factor nested in the two age groups. Thus, evaluation of teacher EA was analyzed using a MANOVA, with gender and age as grouping factors, class as a grouping factor nested in age, and the two knowledge domains (disciplinary v.s. general) and four subject matters as within-subject factors. 1 Table 1 presents 1 In order to take into consideration the fact that all the students in one class evaluated the same four teachers, another analysis was conducted, using class means of boys and girls as the observations (N = 50 classes). A MANOVA was used, with age as the grouping variable (n = 25 classes in each age group) and gender, domain, and subject matter as within-subject variables. Results yielded the same conclusions as those reported here, although F -values were not the same, of course.

10 26 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL. Table I. Means and standard deviations of teacher EA in the disciplinary and the general domain, reported by students, by subject matter and age (class scores, N = 50 classes) Disciplinary knowledge General knowledge 7th grade 10th grade 7th grade 10th grade History Mean 4.79 c 4.71 b 4.36 c 4.17 b SD Literature Mean 4.57 a 4.40 a 4.09 b 3.78 a SD Mathematics Mean 4.70 bc 4.66 b 3.89 a 3.72 a SD Biology Mean 4.60 ab 4.36 a 3.97 a 3.83 a SD Note. Means of subject matters within a column having the same subscript letter are not significantly different at p<0.05 by the Bonferroni correction. the classes means and standard deviations of teacher EA scores, where each class score is an average of the scores given by the students in the same class. It should be noted that means based on the students scores are merely the weighted average of the classes means, depending on class size. Class within age group was found significant as a main effect and also when interacting with the within-subject factors. For example, the class (within age) domain subject matter interaction resulted in F(144, 4239) = 2.66, p<0.01 (with error mean square of 0.17). This indicates that students in different classes differed in their evaluation of teachers epistemic authority (even when evaluating teachers of the same subject matter in the same domain). Results show a main effect of gender, F(1, 1413) = 16.12, p < 0.01, with no interaction of gender with any of the other variables. This suggests that girls attribute more epistemic authority to teachers than do boys (overall means are 4.55 and 4.63 for boys and girls, respectively, regarding disciplinary knowledge, and 3.92 and 4.04 regarding general knowledge). The main effect for age, F(1, 1413) = 39.44, p<0.01, suggests that, overall, the younger students (7th grade) tended to attribute more epistemic authority to their teachers than did the older students (10th grade). However, the age by subject matter by domain interaction, F(3, 1411) = 12.56, p<0.01, suggests that age differences are not the same for each subject matter or domain. The appropriate means are presented in Table 1, and the interaction is illustrated in Figure 1. Significant

11 TEACHERS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY 27 Figure 1. Teachers EA means by age group, domain (disciplinary v.s. general), and subject matter, as reported by students. main effects of domain, F(1, 1413) = , p < 0.01, and subject matter, F(3, 1411) = 76.21, p<0.01, were also found, as well as a domain subject matter interaction, F(3, 1411) = 98.04, p<0.01. In view of the three-way interaction of age by domain by subject matter, we examined subject matter differences for each domain within each age group separately. In addition, both age and domain differences were tested for each of the four subject matters. All the tests were done accounting for class within age group, and significance was decided by using the Bonferroni method correction for multiple comparisons, with α = Age difference. For disciplinary knowledge, literature and biology teachers were attributed with a significantly higher level of epistemic authority by 7th graders compared to 10th graders (see Table 1). Regarding general knowledge, teachers in all the four subject matters were attributed a higher level of epistemic authority by 7th graders students than by 10th graders (see Table 1) Domain difference. The evaluation of teachers epistemic authority in disciplinary knowledge was higher than in general knowledge for all four subject matters in the two age groups. The three-way interaction of domain by subject matter by age suggests that these domain differences are not the same for all subject matters in the two age groups (see Figure 1) Subject matter differences. Regarding disciplinary knowledge, older students (10th grade) attributed more epistemic authority to their history and mathematics teachers than to their literature and biology teachers (see Table 1). The younger students (7th grade) also rated the epistemic authority of their history teachers as higher than that of their biology and literature teachers, while

12 28 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL. mathematics teachers were rated higher than literature teachers, but no different than biology teachers. Regarding general knowledge, the older students rated their history teachers higher as epistemic authorities than they did their mathematics, literature, and biology teachers, while the younger students rated their history teachers the highest, literature teachers second, and biology and mathematics teachers last Self-attribution of Epistemic Authority (Self EA) Because of the positive correlations between students self EA and their parents level of education, an ANCOVA was conducted on self EA with gender and age as grouping variables and parents education (combined mean of father s and mother s education) as a covariate. The results showed a significant effect of the covariate, F(1, 1460) = 30.95, p < 0.01, with a positive relationship between parents education and self EA. They also showed a main effect of gender, F(1, 1460) = 15.59, p<0.01, suggesting that boys have higher self EA scores than do girls (M = 4.36, SD = 0.70 for boys, and M = 4.22, SD = 0.70 for girls); and a main effect of age group, F(1, 1460) = 14.41, p<0.01, suggesting that younger students have higher self EA scores than do the older ones (M = 4.35, SD = 0.73 for 7th grade, and M = 4.21, SD = 0.66 for 10th grade). The means adjusted for the covariate are very similar to those mentioned above because parents education does not vary as a function of gender or children s age group Relationships Between the Variables Although we found that teacher EA was evaluated as higher in the disciplinary domain than in the general domain, high positive correlations were found between teacher EA in the two domains for all four subject matters (r = 0.66, 0.61, 0.75, and 0.72 for literature, mathematics, biology, history, respectively, all significant at the 0.01 level). Correlations between evaluations of teacher EA in the different subject matters were much lower, though significant, due to the large sample. In Table II we see that the correlations between teacher EA and self EA are relatively low. In addition, Table II presents correlations between teacher EA in the disciplinary domain and students self-evaluation in the same subject matters. All correlations presented are positive, but it seems that the variable most strongly correlated with teacher s attributed epistemic authority is the respondent s reported interest in the subject matter, followed by the respondent s self-evaluated knowledge, with performance in the subject matter reported as last. In addition, the epistemic authority attributed to mathematics teachers is not as strongly related to student s self-evaluation as the epistemic authority attributed to teachers of the other subject matters. The background variables of the students were found to affect their perception of teachers epistemic authority. The three self-evaluation scores are correlated

13 TEACHERS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY 29 Table II. Pearson correlations between teacher disciplinary EA and self-evaluation items in the teacher s subject matter, and correlations between teacher disciplinary EA and self EA (N = 1465 students) Teacher s disciplinary EA History Literature Mathematics Biology Self EA Self-evaluation Interest Knowledge Performance Note. All correlations are significant at the 0.01 level. with the background variables and among themselves. Thus, in order to control for background variables and isolate the specific contribution of each of the selfevaluation items to the prediction of the perceived teacher EA, we conducted regressions of teacher s disciplinary EA (for each of the four subject matters separately) on the variables: gender, age group, parents education, self EA, and the three self-evaluation items (interest, knowledge, and performance) in that same subject matter. The regression analyses were carried out hierarchically, in a stepwise manner. The results are presented in Table III. In addition to this analysis, we conducted an analysis taking into account the classes to which the students are affiliated. This was done using MANOVAs with gender and class (nested in the two age groups) as grouping factors and parents education, self EA, and the three self-evaluation as covariates. The results were almost identical to the multiple regression above, thus we decided on reporting the stepwise regression. It seems that the relations between EA and the explanatory variables here did not depend on the students class affiliation. In all four subject matters, the first selfevaluation variable to enter into the regression was the degree of interest in the subject matter. For literature and biology, this was the only self-evaluation variable that was entered into the regression. For history teachers, self-evaluation of school performance in history entered into the regression of the disciplinary domain as well. For mathematics teachers, self-evaluation of knowledge in mathematics entered the regression of the general domain. Table III also shows that student s self EA is an important variable explaining teacher s epistemic authority. Thus, the results of the above analyses suggest that in all four subject matters, the respondent s degree of interest contributes most to the prediction of a teacher s attributed epistemic authority, which means that the more a student is interested in the subject matter, the more he/she attributes epistemic authority in that discipline to the teacher.

14 30 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL. Table III. Summary of stepwise regressions predicting students perceptions of teachers EA (N = 1465 students) Disciplinary knowledge General knowledge Step Variable β t Step Variable β t History (R 2 = 0.113, p<0.01) History (R 2 = 0.109, p<0.01) 1 Interest Interest Self EA Self EA Gender Gender School performance Literature (R 2 = 0.109, p<0.01) Literature (R 2 = 0.126, p<0.01) 1 Interest Interest Age group Age group Self EA Self EA Math (R 2 = 0.078, p<0.01) Math (R 2 = 0.093, p<0.01) 1 Interest Interest Self EA Self EA Gender Gender Knowledge Biology (R 2 = 0.129, p<0.01) Biology (R 2 = 0.117, p<0.01) 1 Interest Interest Age group Parents education Note. Only the significant variables are presented in the table. Age group is coded as: 1 = 7th grade, 2 = 10th grade; Gender is coded as: 1 = Boys, 2 = Girls. p<0.05. p< TEACHERS PERCEPTIONS Analysis of teachers self-attributed EA scores was conducted by a 2 4 (2) MANOVA, with school (junior high school, high school) and subject matter (literature, math, biology, and history) as grouping factors, and domain (disciplinary, general) as a within-subject factor. The results showed that the school factor did not yield any effect. The means of EA scores by subject matter are presented in Table V, column 2 (the two school levels together). The obtained domain effect indicates that teachers gave higher self EA scores for the disciplinary than for the general domain, F(1, 123) = 73.69, p < In addition, domain by subject matter interaction was found, F(1, 123) = 4.87, p<0.01. The various comparisons conducted showed that teachers of all the subject matters attributed more self EA to the disciplinary knowledge domain than to the general knowledge domain. Also, mathematics teachers had higher disciplinary self-ea scores than did history teachers. Teachers of different subject matters did not differ in their

15 TEACHERS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY 31 Table IV. Summary of stepwise regressions predicting self EA scores reported by teachers (N = 131 teachers) Step Variable β t Disciplinary domain 1 Personal efficacy School Mathematics R 2 = 0.195, p<0.01 General domain 1 Personal efficacy R 2 = 0.045, p<0.01 Note. Only the significant variables are presented in the table. School is coded as: 1 = Junior-high, 2 = High; Subject matter dummy variables in the regression were indicators of literature, mathematics, and history. p<0.05. p<0.01. general self EA. Thus, the obtained interaction is a result of the greater difference between disciplinary self EA and general self EA for mathematics teachers than for teachers of the other subject matters (see Table V, column 2). A correlation calculated between self-perception of disciplinary EA and general EA shows that the two scales strongly correlate, r(131) = 0.52, p<0.01. In addition, scores of teacher efficacy were analyzed with 2 4 (2) MAN- OVA, where the two factors of the scale, personal efficacy and teaching efficacy, are the within-subject factors, and school (junior high school, high school) and the four subject matters are the grouping factors. The results did not yield any grouping differences. However, the factor personal efficacy was rated higher than the factor teaching efficacy, F(1, 123) = 74.12, p < The means are M = 4.52, SD = 0.66 for personal efficacy and M = 3.72, SD = 0.79 for teaching efficacy. To examine the relations between teachers self EA scores and teaching efficacy, controlling for background variables, regressions were conducted on the self EA scores. Results show that personal efficacy, school, and subject matter were the only variables explaining the variability of teachers self EA scores (see Table IV). They indicate the following: (a) higher self-perception of EA in the disciplinary domain relates to higher personal efficacy, to high school teachers as compared to junior high school teachers, and to mathematics teachers as compared to the other teachers; (b) higher self-perception of EA in the general domain relates to higher personal efficacy only Comparison Between Perceptions of Students and of Teachers The collected data allowed comparisons to be made among the three following perspectives related to perceptions of teachers epistemic authority: (a) students

16 Table V. Means and standard deviations of teachers epistemic authority: (1) Students perception of teachers, (2) Teachers self perceptions, and (3) Teachers perceptions of students (1) (2) (3) (1) versus (2) (1) versus (3) (2) versus (3) Students Teachers self- Teachers perception perception perception df t df t df t of teachers of students (two-sample) (two-sample) (paired) Disciplinary EA History 4.75 (0.35) 5.06 (0.59) 5.37 (0.41) Literature 4.49 (0.30) 5.15 (0.46) 5.48 (0.56) Math 4.68 (0.47) 5.35 (0.42) 5.53 (0.45) Biology 4.48 (0.68) 5.22 (0.38) 5.33 (0.37) General EA History 4.27 (0.41) 4.74 (0.61) 5.04 (0.57) Literature 3.93 (0.36) 4.72 (0.56) 5.26 (0.63) Math 3.80 (0.48) 4.64 (0.56) 5.09 (0.66) Biology 3.90 (0.58) 4.70 (0.57) 5.05 (0.55) p<0.05 (corrected for 24 comparisons by Bonferroni). 32 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL.

17 TEACHERS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITY 33 perception of their teachers as epistemic authorities in disciplinary and general knowledge domains, (b) teachers self-perception as epistemic authorities in the two domains of knowledge, and (c) teachers perception of how students perceive their epistemic authorities in the two domains of knowledge. The first comparison was conducted between the two latter perceptions: teachers self-perception and teachers perception of how students perceive them. This comparison was conducted by a 2 4 (2 2) MANOVA, analyzing these two perceptions as a within-subject factor (perception object), in addition to the former school by subject matter by domain factors used previously in the MANOVA design analyzing the teachers data. The results showed that teachers perceptions of how students perceive their epistemic authority are higher than teachers self EA perceptions, F(1, 123) = 50.26, p<0.01. An interaction of perception object by domain was also found, F(1, 123) = 9.57, p<0.01, due to a greater difference between the two domains in self-perception than in attribution to students. The means of attribution to students are presented in Table V, column 3. Comparisons between teachers self-perception and teachers attribution to students (columns 2 and 3 of Table V) were also conducted for the disciplinary and the general domain of knowledge in all the four subject matters. The analyses were conducted by paired t-tests, with the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. The results, shown in Table V, show that teachers perception of self EA is indeed significantly lower than their attribution to students in all the subject matters, except biology (see Table V). The comparisons of the data collected from students and from teachers could not be performed by MANOVA because students evaluated each of their four teachers (in the four subject matters) while the reports of the teachers of different subject matters are all independent. Thus, subject matter is a within-subject factor in the students data, while it is a grouping factor in the teachers data. Therefore, two sets of comparisons between students perceptions of teachers epistemic authorities and teachers self-perception of their own epistemic authority, as well as between students perceptions of teachers epistemic authorities and teachers of how students perceive them as epistemic authority, were calculated separately for each subject matter and for each knowledge domain. For these comparisons, the scores of students perceptions of teachers epistemic authority used were the means of the scores given to the teachers by the students in their classes. Thus, the means in column 1 of Table V are means of N = 50 class scores, and columns 2 and 3 are the means of the teachers sample grouped by subject matter. Comparisons between students and teachers were done by two-sample t-tests, separately for each subject matter, using unequal variances. In order to control for the error rate, significance was decided by using the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (see Table V). The comparisons show that for all the four subject matters and the two knowledge domains, students perceptions of their teachers epistemic authority are lower than the self-perceptions of the teachers themselves (column 1 vs. column 2),

18 34 AMIRAM RAVIV ET AL. which are, in turn, lower than teachers perceptions of how students perceive them (column 2 vs. column 3). Similarly, students perceptions of their teachers epistemic authority are lower than the teachers perceptions of how students perceive them (column 1 vs. column 3). There are three exceptions to these results: for history teachers, the comparison of students perception of teachers to teachers selfperception (column 1 vs. column 2) was non-significant in the disciplinary domain, and for biology teachers, the comparison of teachers self-perception to their perception of how students perceive them (column 2 vs. column 3) was non-significant in the disciplinary as well as in the general domains. 4. Discussion The present study was designed to illuminate the perceived role performance of teachers as transmitters of knowledge from the perspective of lay-epistemic theory. This theory, proposed by Kruglanski (1989), introduced the concept of epistemic authority, which allows the present examination of the perception of teachers as valid sources of information in the discipline they teach and in general knowledge domains. This examination was performed in three parts. First, students perceptions of their teachers as epistemic authorities were assessed. The study investigated the influence of several important variables on these perceptions: teachers subject matter and students age, gender, self-evaluation and perception of themselves as epistemic authorities. Second, teachers perceptions of themselves as epistemic authorities were measured and the effects of self-efficacy, teaching experience, and subject matter taught on this perception were investigated. Finally, the study compared three perspectives on teachers perceptions as epistemic authorities: students perceptions, teachers self-perception and teachers perception of how students perceive them. Following is a discussion of the three parts of the study STUDENTS PERCEPTION OF THEIR TEACHERS AS EPISTEMIC AUTHORITIES The study showed that, when we use absolute measures, students perceive their teachers as moderate epistemic authorities. The mean scores of teachers perceptions as epistemic authorities on a 7-point scale ranged between 4.36 and 4.79 in the disciplinary knowledge and between 3.72 and 4.36 in the general knowledge domain. These results are in line with the findings by Raviv, Bar-Tal, Raviv and Peleg (1990) and Bar-Tal, Raviv, Raviv and Brosh (1991) which showed that adolescents rely moderately on teachers knowledge of science, somewhat less than they rely on their father for the same information. These studies also showed that during adolescence, the perception of teachers as epistemic authorities in other areas of knowledge (e.g., values, social relations, future, planning, past-time) is low. That is, although teachers, in comparison to other sources of knowledge, function as