Teachers Epistemic Authority Perceptions of Students and…教师认知权威对学生的看法和.pdfVIP

Social Psychology of Education 6: 17–42, 2003. 17 © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Teachers’ epistemic authority: perceptions of students and teachers 1,∗ 2 3 2 AMIRAM RAVIV , DANIEL BAR-TAL , ALONA RAVIV , BRAHA BIRAN and ZVIA SELA2 1Department of Psychology, 2School of Education, 3Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Tel Aviv University, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel Abstract. The present study examines students’ perception of the teacher’s role as epistemic authori- ties, that is, a source of determinative influence on the formation of individuals’ knowledge, from three perspectives. First, it examines 7th and 10th graders’ perception of their teachers as epistemic authorities. The results showed that a teacher’s subject matter, as well as students’ age and gender, influence perception of him/her as an epistemic authority. In addition, interest in the subject matter was found to be an important predictor of students’ perception. The second part focuses on teachers’ self-perceptions as epistemic authorities. The results indicated that teachers’ personal efficacy is the most powerful predictor of their self-perception. Finally, the study compares students’ perceptions of teachers as epistemic authorities, teachers’ self-perceptions in these terms and teachers’ perceptions of how their students perceive them. Two main findings showed the following: (a) teachers perceive themselves as being more of an epistemic authority than their students consider them; (b) teachers believe that students perceive them as being more of an epistemic authority than the students actually think. 1. Introduction One of a teacher’s principal roles is to transmit knowledge to students (Strauss, 1993). Whether or not they are successful in this depends, amo