Secondary teachers' attitudes about changes in the public vocational industrial high schools in Taiwan

Abstract

This study investigated: (a) teachers' attitudes about their vocational school teaching environment, especially changes involving new technologies, (b) teachers' current and preferred roles in decision making, and (c) teachers' attitudes about their teaching assignments. The study also explored possible effects of the predictor variables (age, whether or not the teacher had an administrative position, educational level, and the respondent's specialty area) on the three dependent variables. Questionnaires were sent to 960 teachers at 24 public vocational industrial high schools in Taiwan. A 77.50% response rate was achieved (744 respondents). Among the 690 useable returned questionnaires, 275 were general teachers (38% male, 62% female); and 415 were vocational teachers (93% male, 7% female). Six of the items for attitudes about the teaching environment were significantly different between general and vocational teachers. For teachers' attitudes in regard to their current and preferred roles in decision-making, vocational teachers had significantly more involvement on both current instructional and managerial scales. For both general teachers and vocational teachers, preferred involvement was significantly higher than current involvements on the instructional and managerial scales. Age had a significant but low relationship with the dependent variables, teachers' attitudes toward technological changes. It appeared that older vocational teachers seemed to feel less comfortable with technological changes. For current involvement in instructional decisions, the youngest vocational teachers had less involvement in decision-making than the older ones. There were some differences among the departments of the vocational teachers in regard to their attitudes about the vocational teaching environment. For the item "90% of the vocational high schools should be abolished", the IT teachers disagreed less than the other five groups. For "I feel stress to learn new technology", the automotive and architecture groups of teachers disagree more than the other four groups. For "Vocational high schools will be more competitive in recruiting new students if they become comprehensive high schools", the chemical teachers agreed more than the mechanical group. There was no difference among the different departments on the current or preferred roles in decision-making. Recommendations are presented which may be beneficial for both the Ministry of Education decision-makers and secondary teachers in Taiwanese vocational education.