Teacher Responsibility From the Perspective of Attribution Theory

• In Event: A Decade of Teacher Motivation Research: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework
Teachers’ personal responsibility has motivational consequences, as teachers are likely to invest effort in their professional lives commensurate to their sense of personal responsibility for various educational outcomes (Authors, 2011, 2014). Weiner’s (1986) attribution theory is the predominant theoretical framework used to study the implications of teachers’ responsibility judgments for teachers’ interactions with their students, particularly in the face of academic failure (Reyna & Weiner, 2001; Weiner, 1995). Yet, the theory’s primary focus has been on teachers’ judgments of their students’ responsibility (as a predictor of teachers’ sympathy or anger towards a failing student, as well as of teachers’ intended actions such as punishment or help), leaving the role of teachers’ self-judgments of responsibility in the attributional process relatively unexplored (Authors, 2011, 2014; Matteucci, 2007; Matteucci & Gosling, 2004).
Accordingly, (1) we review prior evidence on teachers’ personal responsibility and (2) examine whether teachers’ affect (sympathy, anger, guilt) and behavioral intentions (punitive or helpful feedback and willingness to help a failing student) are influenced not only by their judgments of student responsibility, but also by their personal responsibility (Figure 1).

Methods
In addition to a review of available evidence (expanding upon a previous review in Authors, 2014), we present new data from German pre-service (n=224) and in-service teachers (n=134). We modify two vignettes used in prior research (Reyna & Weiner, 2001) to study teachers’ self-judgments of responsibility for a student’s failure, while controlling for other teacher characteristics and student-related beliefs (see vignettes in Table 1 and measures in Table 2).

Results and Discussion
Mixed ANOVAs and path analyses show that teachers’ judgments of student responsibility are more powerful predictors of student-directed emotions (anger or sympathy) and reactions (punitive or helpful feedback to the student) than their self-judgments, whereas self-judgments of responsibility are more powerful predictors of self-directed emotions (guilt) and of own behavioral intentions (willingness to help the student through personal time investment and increased effort) than student-related judgments. Judgments of teachers’ and students’ responsibility were only weakly related. In-service relative to pre-service teachers were less likely to assume personal responsibility and to report feelings of guilt.

Regarding the three guiding questions: (1) In addition to their beliefs about students, teachers’ own motivations (e.g., responsibility) must be examined, in order to better understand their own instructional behaviors (e.g., willingness to provide help). (2) Teachers’ professional responsibility is unique in that teachers assume responsibility for others (students) and not just the self, which limits the applicability of prior research and necessitates further theory development regarding interpersonal and shared responsibility. In addition, evidence suggests that due to their professional roles, teachers’ responsibility judgments and attributions can differ systematically from judgments of individuals asked to play the role of teachers (e.g., Reyna & Weiner, 2001); more research with in-service teachers is therefore needed. (3) Evidence on teachers’ motivations (including personal responsibility) is largely limited to correlational studies; understanding the causal links between teachers’ motivations, behaviors, and educational outcomes is a key challenge for future research.

Authors

• Fani Lauermann, University of Bonn

• G. Michael Evers, University of Bonn

• Daria Katharina Benden, University of Bonn