Metaphors we teach by
Uncovering the structure of metaphorical lay theories of teaching
Teaching is a complex activity that people often discuss metaphorically, as when a professor is described as a
sculptor molding impressionable students. What do such metaphors reveal about how people conceptualize teaching? Previous
work has addressed related questions largely via researcher intuition and qualitative analyses of teacher attitudes. We sought to develop a
more principled method for mapping the entailments of metaphorical concepts, using teaching metaphors as a case study. We presented
participants with one of four common metaphors for the teacher-student relationship (identified in a preliminary study) and asked them to
rate the degree to which a series of teacher attributes fit the metaphor. We then used iterated exploratory factor analysis to identify a
small number of dimensions that underlie people’s conceptions of teachers and examined whether the metaphors systematically differed along
these dimensions. We found that teaching metaphors bring to mind distinct, coherent clusters of teacher attributes and different intuitions
about teacher responsibility and power – a finding we replicated in a larger, pre-registered follow-up study using a new set of
participants. This work provides a novel method for mapping the entailments of metaphorical concepts and sets the stage for educational
interventions centered on shifting lay theories of teaching.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Metaphors in education
- 1.2Mapping metaphorical entailments
- 1.3The present research
- 2.Study 1
- 2.1Participants
- 2.2Procedure
- 2.3Results
- 2.3.1Factor structure of teacher characteristics
- 2.3.2How do teacher characteristics vary across metaphors?
- 2.3.3Are different metaphors associated with different intuitions about responsibility?
- 2.3.4Are different metaphors associated with different intuitions about teacher’s power?
- 2.3.5What was the relative popularity of the different metaphors?
- 2.4Discussion
- 3.Study 2
- 3.1Participants
- 3.2Materials & procedure
- 3.3Results
- 3.3.1Replicating the factor structure of teacher characteristics
- 3.3.2How do teacher characteristics vary across metaphors?
- 3.3.3Are different metaphors associated with different intuitions about responsibility?
- 3.3.4Are different metaphors associated with different intuitions about teachers’ power?
- 3.3.5What was the relative popularity of the metaphors?
- 3.4Discussion
- 4.General discussion
- 4.1Metaphorical conceptions of college teachers
- 4.2Limitations and future directions
- 4.3Conclusions
- Notes
-
References
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