Attitudes of teachers and mental hygienists about behavior problems of children

Abstract

One of the basic goals of the American educational system is t o meet the needs of the individual student. The stated intent is to provide for the maximum growth and development of his capabilities and personality. Responsibility and concern for the development of good student mental health has traditionally been divided between the classroom teacher and the professional mental health worker (school psychologist, guidance couselor, etc.) . However, despite their common goal, research during the past fifty years has tended to suggest that these two professional groups show little agreement on those classroom behaviors which constitute good student mental health.Wickman (1926) pioneered the research in this area with his study of the attitudes of elementary teachers and mental hygienists toward certain behavior problems of children. Variations of his study have been conducted by Stendler (1949), Sparks (1952), Stouffer (1952Stouffer ( , 1956, and Hunter (1957). Their findings tended to confirm the results found earlier by Wickman; that is that teachers and mental hygienists vary widely in their appraisal of the classroom behavior of students.The purpose of this study is to replicate Wickman's procedures with a current group of secondary teachers and "mental hygienists" or mental health workers. These results will then be compared with the earlier findings. At issue is whether teachers and mental hygienists show greater agreement today than they did in 1926 on those classroom behaviors thought to constitute good mental health. METHOD SampleThe 22 secondary teachers participating in this study came from a small Midwestern consolidated high school located in an agricultural area. Of these teachers, 16 were male and 6 female. Ten teachers had completed Master's degrees. Teaching experience ranged from 1 to 25 years with the average number of years taught being 8 years.The 7 "mental hygienists" were all Ph. D. counseling psychologists currently teaching in university counselor education programs. There were 6 males and 1 female in this group. I n total they possessed 40 years of experience in this field. InstrumentAs in the Wickman study, each of the teachers and mental hygienists was asked to rate a list of 50 student behavior problems. Examples of the behaviors included such things as disorderliness in class and restlessness. Each trait was rated in answer to the question, "How serious (or undesirable) is this behavior in any child?" The ratings for each of the 50 behaviors were made by placing a mark on a continuum that went from "of no consequence" t o "an extremely grave problem." Following Wickman's procedures, the continuum was then divided into 20 equal segments and the ratings converted to scores ranging from .5 to 20.5. An

Secondary teacher and mental health professional views of students with school adjustment problems.

“…Nevertheless, certain findings are worthy of consideration. The findings support earlier investigations which showed that teachers in the upper grades are more concerned with pupils who disrupt the teaching process (Edwards, 1976/1977; Sack & Sack, 1974; Wheeler, 1971/1972). If, in fact, secondary teaches are more subject-matter oriented than are their counterparts at the earlier grade levels, school psychologists should be aware of secondary teachers' tendency to be relatively less sensitive to covert, intrapsychic variables that may effect their students' learning potential and facilitate an appreciation for the role that covert, emotional factors play in learning.…”

“…Wickman found that mental hygienists were primarily concerned with personality and emotional problems, whereas teachers were more concerned with misbehavior in the classroom and with sex problems. Although recent replications of Wickman's study suggest a shift from a low-negative to a low-positive correlation between teachers' and clinicians' ratings, teachers continue to express more concern about acting-out behavior, and clinicians maintain that behaviors characteristic of intrapsychic problems are more serious (Edwards, 1976/1977; Kotleba, 1976; Sack & Sack, 1974; Wheeler, 1971/1972; Woodruff, 1973/1974; Ziv, 1970). The literature also suggests that secondary school teachers are highly aware of acting-out, disruptive behavior and are relatively less sensitive to indicators of emotional problems (Edwards, 1976/1977; Sack & Sack, 1974; Wheeler, 1971/1972).…”