El. Forbes-jones et El. Cowen, Sarason's context of productive learning: Towards the development of a measure to assess teacher goals, J COMM PSYC, 29(4), 2001, pp. 381-390
The authors developed a 40-item teacher-completed measure designed to asses
s educational goals, including Sarason's concept of a context of productive
learning (COPL). Elementary-level teachers from school across a range of s
ociodemographic contexts rated the importance of each of several goals. Fac
tor analysis identified four factors: Traditional Learning, Context of Prod
uctive Learning(COPL), Teacher Control, and Meeting Requirements. Teachers
who reported high levels of enjoyment of teaching and those teaching in the
lower grades had higher scores on the COPL factor than their opposites. Al
so, teachers who reported that their teaching objectives had been shaped mo
re by personal values and experiences than by training and supervision had
higher COPL factor scores. Needed future steps include refinement of its it
em composition, replication with a larger sample, and exploration of its re
lationship to (a) actual teacher behaviors in the classroom and (b) pertine
nt child educational and behavioral outcomes. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, I
nc.