Combination of All Three Role Orientation Variables

If we combine all three measures of a collaborative orientation towards work—informal professional contacts with teachers at the same school, professional interactions with teachers at other schools, and participation in leadership activities—the differences in constructivist practice are very substantial between teachers with a classroom orientation and those with a collaborative orientation (r=.38 for an integer-level variable combining the three continuous measures).  In addition, the relationship between role orientation and pedagogical change towards a constructivist practice is at least modest (r=.19).

Tables 9 and 10 present those results using ordinal variables which emphasize, in particular, the upper-end of the work-orientation scale, collaborative leadership.  We classified teachers into four groups using successively stricter criteria that combine the three role orientation variables. Only three percent of teachers met the three strict criteria ¹² across the three variables and we refer to these teachers as "Collaborative Leaders."  An additional 12% of the teachers meet a slightly less strict criteria ¹³ across the variables and we refer to them as Collaborative Teachers. In some of the charts we group the top 15% together as Collaborative Teachers and Leaders (Teacher Professionals).  For the teachers who met neither criteria, we divided these teachers (85% of the full sample) into two groups based on whether a teacher was above or below the mean on a continuous variable combining the three aspects of role orientation (within-school professional contacts, beyond-school contact, and leadership activities).  Teachers above the mean we label as "Interactive  Teachers"; those below the mean are listed as "Private Practice" teachers. Table 9 and Figure 1 help us examine the differences in pedagogy between Teacher  Professionals and other teachers.  They show that more than 50% of the Collaborative Leaders fall into the upper one-fourth of teachers with the most constructivist-compatible pedagogy, and more than 40% of the Collaborative Teachers do as well.  However, fewer than 20% of all other teachers do, and in particular, only 13% of teachers whom we classified as Private Practice Teachers.  In contrast, very few (5%) of the Collaborative Leaders  are in the bottom quartile on constructivist practice.  Even when controlling for philosophy and school level, the partial correlation remains strong (.30, compared to r=.38).

These findings suggest a dramatic difference in teaching practice between teachers who focus almost solely on their own classroom responsibilities and those who assume leadership roles and are in frequent professional contact with other teachers.

Figure 1. Teacher Professional Role Orientation by Teacher Pedagogy

Changes in Pedagogy and Role Orientation.

We found similar results when examining what teachers said about how extensively they had changed their teaching practice during the past three years. Collaborative Leaders and Teachers are much more likely to report having made substantial changes in their own pedagogy towards a more constructivist practice. ¹⁴   For example, 41% of the Collaborative Leaders appear to have made substantial changes in many of the areas we asked about (or some change in most areas).  In contrast, only 11% of the Private Practice Teachers reported that level of change during the past three years (Table 10).

Table 10: Teacher Professional Role Orientation by Extent of Recent Change Towards Constructivist Pedagogy
Extent of Teacher Professional Orientation	RECENT CHANGES TOWARDS CONSTRUCTIVIST PEDAGOGY
	Little or no change; (or change to traditional practice)	Change in a few areas	Change in many areas	Substantial change in many or some change in most areas			Total (N)
Teacher Professionals
Collaborative Leaders	19%	11%	30%		41%	100% (67)
Collaborative Teachers	23%	18%	26%		33%	100% (291)
Other Teachers
Interactive Teachers	17%	24%	35%		24%	100% (636)
Private Practice Teachers	37%	24%	28%		11%	100% (945)
Total	31%	23%	30%		16%	100%

In addition to examining teacher pedagogy as a unitary dimension, we divided the index of constructivist pedagogy into a number of sub-scales through a series of exploratory factor analyses.  Here we present results concerning the relationship of Teacher Role Orientation to two of those sub-scales, Deep Thinking and Project-Based Activities. ¹⁵   These sub-scales represent distinct components of the Constructivist Pedagogy index—one reflecting a concentration on higher-order thinking and writing; the other reflecting a focus on students doing project work, hands-on activities, making products, and demonstrating their work to an audience, as opposed to doing individual seatwork. Table 11 shows that both of these elements of constructivist practice are associated, and to very similar degrees, with Teacher Role Orientation.  The Deep Thinking sub-scale is somewhat more associated with informal teacher contacts within the same school (r=.28 vs. .19) than is Project-Based Activities, while the latter is somewhat more associated with the extent of a teacher's leadership activities (r=.24 vs. r=.18).  The two sub-scales have almost equal correlations (r=.31 and r=.29) with the combined Role Orientation index.  These findings also hold when controlling for teacher philosophy and school level.

Table 11: Correlations between Pedagogy Sub-scales and Teacher Role Orientation Variables
[Partial correlations control for Teacher Philosophy and School Level]
	Within-School Interactions  with  Teachers		Beyond-School Teacher Contacts		Leadership Activities		Combined Role Orientation Index
Teacher Pedagogy	Corr.	Partial	Corr.	Partial	Corr.	Partial	Corr.	Partial
Full Pedagogy Scale	.30	.27	.23	.17	.25	.21	.38	.33
Deep Thinking	.28	.24	.18	.12	.18	.14	.31	.26
Project-Based Activities	.19	.17	.16	.12	.24	.19	.29	.25

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