Investigation on the Teachers’ Morality in Universities: A Comparative Study of Teacher-Student Evaluations* ()
1. Introduction
Teachers’ morality is the professional ethics of teachers, and refers to the sum of relatively stable moral concepts and behavioral norms formed by teachers in the process of engaging in educational activities to regulate the relationship between teachers and students, between teachers, and with collectives and society. It is a special manifestation and an important part of social general morality in the field of teachers’ profession, and it is the sum of “the way of being a teacher” and “the virtue of being a teacher”. Teachers’ style, that is, teachers’ professional style, is the consistent attitude and behavior of teachers in their own professional activities. It is the comprehensive reflection of teachers’ professional ethics, professional knowledge level, teaching methods, teaching skills (Li, 2016).
In recent years, in terms of theoretical research, China mainly summarizes the cultivation and construction of teachers’ morality based on policy documents and combined with its own educational work experience. It can be summarized as follows: First, the importance of teachers’ morality construction is discussed in combination with relevant national policies and document spirit (Bai & Bao, 2021). The second is to summarize the problems existing in contemporary teachers’ morality based on our own work experience (Wei, 2021). The third is to put forward theoretical guidance and suggestions for the construction of teachers’ morality based on work and practical thinking (Li, 2021). Foreign researchers focus on the connotation of teachers’ morality and the exploration of the training mechanism. A representative one is that Canadian researchers have integrated relevant policies on the construction of teachers’ morality in various regions, and extracted five core professional values for teachers: respect for democratic rights, respect for human rights, being honest and upright, having the ability to guide, and having good moral standards. According to the Canadian Code of Ethics for Teachers, three main conditions for cultivating teachers’ morality are proposed: first, teachers should obey independently rather than passively; second, the establishment of the system should be open, flexible and discussable; third, compulsory provisions of preaching should be avoided (Maxwell et al., 2016).
In terms of empirical research, domestic and foreign researchers are mainly based on the current situation survey. Through the self-designed questionnaire, the current situation of the construction of teachers’ morality is investigated, so as to put forward problems and improvement suggestions in the construction of teachers’ morality. For example, a survey conducted by scholars of Capital University of Economics and Business shows that there are certain differences in the cognition of teachers and students in “teacher career aspiration”, “soft power” of teachers and the importance of other evaluation indicators of teachers’ morality (Wang et al., 2018). Scholars from Zhejiang University conducted surveys, analysis and interviews, and found that there are certain problems in the construction of postgraduate tutors’ morality in organizational leadership, system construction, and tutor subjects (Zheng & Zhang, 2017). The young teachers of a college in Shaanxi inspected the actual situation of the construction of teachers’ morality, and the results showed that there are problems such as lack of responsibility and team concept among young teachers (Li et al., 2017). Researchers at Auburn University selected the Defining Issues Test (DIT) as the research tool to explore teachers’ moral tendency in the way of dealing with dilemma situations. The results show that most of the tested teachers choose to maintain the normative problem-solving method, that is, most educational managers or educators prefer to be conservative in morality (Greer, 2014).
In summary, the author puts forward the following thoughts and prospects:
1.1. Strengthen Empirical Research
According to the retrieval results of literature database, the current research on teachers’ morality is mainly based on theory, which is relatively lack of data support. In the future research, supplementary data can be used to explore the current situation, existing problems and aspects that need to be strengthened in the construction of teachers’ morality in universities, so that the construction of teachers’ morality can be based on experiences, and the practical significance can be strengthened.
1.2. Develop Evaluation Tools with Higher Reliability and Validity
At present, there is no standardized tool for evaluating teachers’ morality, and self-designed questionnaires are mostly used in existing research. For example, Israeli researchers compiled their own questionnaires in the form of a combination of literature research and qualitative interviews. The preliminary test results found that teachers’ professional ethics and values were related (Fisher, 2013). The existing survey tools provide a valuable reference for the research on the current situation of teachers’ morality. Therefore, based on the previous research results, combined with the management system of university teachers and relevant national policies, effective survey tools of teachers’ morality can be developed to provide scientific support for the construction of teachers’ morality in universities.
1.3. Comprehensive Consideration of Teacher Self-Evaluation and Student Evaluation
Among the existing empirical researches on the status quo of teachers’ morality, most of them are based on teacher self-evaluation, and comparative studies that consider evaluation from teachers’ perspectives and students’ perspectives are relatively few. For example, according to the in-depth interviews conducted by scholars in Zhejiang University, teachers and students generally believe that the current postgraduate tutors have the following common problems in the construction of teacher morality: postgraduate tutors tend to emphasize scientific research rather than teaching, and the phenomenon of academic utilitalism is relatively serious; poor team spirit and interdisciplinary cooperation; lack of love for postgraduates and indifferent relationship between teachers and students (Zheng & Zhang, 2017). Romanian researchers used a self-designed questionnaire to ask students to evaluate teachers’ morality. The results found that students generally have higher standards for teachers’ moral evaluation (Ghiaţău, 2015).
To sum up, empirical researchers should be further supplemented, effective evaluation tools should be developed and dual evaluation from the perspective of teachers and students should be strengthened to provide effective research support for the construction of teacher ethics. Therefore, based on the limitations of the existing researchers and the above-mentioned thinking, this research will conduct a survey of the current situation from the perspectives of teachers and students through the self-designed questionnaires for teachers and students, in order to explore new ideas and methods for the construction of teachers’ morality in universities. Therefore, the self-designed Questionnaire of Teachers’ Morality for students and teachers is used to understand the current situation of teachers’ morality in universities from different perspectives of teachers and students and conduct comparative researchers.
2. Research Methods
2.1. Research Objects
This study takes the teachers and students of a university as the research object to distribute the questionnaire. Students were surveyed anonymously online, and teachers were surveyed with real names online.
2.2. Research Tools
The tools used in this research are the self-designed student version and teacher version of the Teachers’Morality Questionnaire. Both questionnaires are self-report scales, using a 1 - 5 five-point scale. The structure of the questionnaire is based on the eight aspects proposed in Professional Moral Cultivation of Teachers in Universities issued by Chinese Education Department in 2011 (Chinese Education Department, 2011). The Delphi expert method was used to compile the questionnaire. A research group was invited, including university presidents, personnel managers, senior teachers and psychologists, to determine the final questionnaire after 5 rounds of discussion and test in a small area. According to the research team’s actual investigation and summary of the characteristics of teachers’ work in colleges and universities, it is believed that teachers should guide students to maintain correct political thoughts in addition to teachers’ knowledge. Therefore, the questionnaire adds the dimension of teachers’ ideological guidance to students, so there are altogether 9 dimensions in this questionnaire. Among them, there are 5 questions about teachers’ professional ideal, 4 questions about teachers’ professional responsibility, 3 questions about teachers’ professional attitudes, 6 questions about teachers’ professional discipline, 4 questions about teachers’ professional skills, 3 questions about teachers’ professional conscience, 4 questions about teachers’ professional style, 3 questions about teachers’ professional honor and 3 questions about the role of ideological guidance, a total of 35 questions. The specific questions of the student version questionnaire are designed based on the teacher version questionnaire. The two questionnaires have the same structure and scoring scale. The overall reliability of the student version questionnaire is 0.94, and the overall reliability of the teacher version questionnaire is 0.87.
2.3. Data Analysis
After the survey data were sorted out and invalid data were removed to retain valid values, a total of 2589 valid student questionnaires (1034 males and 1555 females) were distributed and recovered, a total of 2784 teacher questionnaires were distributed, with 2189 valid (1192 for males and 980 for females).
Spss20.0 was used for data analysis, and linear interpolation was used to deal with missing values. An independent sample T-test was conducted to analyze the scores of each dimension and question in the teacher version and the student version, and the evaluation differences between the teachers’ and students’ perspectives in each dimension of teacher ethics were compared. The differences in the evaluation of the teacher’s perspective and the student’s perspective in each dimension of the teacher’s morality and style were compared.
3. Research Results
3.1. Differences between Teachers and Students in Overall Scores
In terms of the total score of evaluation, the total average score of teachers’ self-evaluation is 4.19 ± 0.37, and the total average score of students’ evaluation on teachers’ morality is 3.38 ± 0.34. The total average score of teachers’ self-evaluation is significantly higher than that of students’ evaluation (t = 79.41, df = 4759, p < 0.001).
In terms of scores of all dimensions (Table 1), teachers’ scores were significantly higher than those of students, and the biggest difference was in the scores of vocational skills. In the dimension of professional responsibility, teachers’ self-evaluation and students’ evaluation were the lowest.
3.2. Differences between Teachers and Students in the Evaluation of Professional Ideal
According to the results, teachers’ evaluation on the dimension of Professional Ideal is significantly higher than that of students, but teachers’ evaluation on the issue of “whether there are teachers around who treat students as wage earners” is significantly lower than that of students (Table 2).
3.3. Differences between Teachers and Students in the Evaluation of Professional Responsibility
According to the results, the evaluation of teachers’ Professional Responsibility is significantly higher than that of students, but teachers’ evaluation of “whether college students should be responsible for themselves” is significantly lower than that of students (Table 3).
3.4. Differences between Teachers and Students in the Evaluation of Professional Attitudes
According to the results, teachers are significantly higher than students in the evaluation of Professional Attitudes (Table 4).
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Table 1. The effect size of the difference between teachers and students in each dimension.
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Table 2. Differences between teachers and students in the evaluation of Professional Ideal.
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Table 3. Differences between teachers and students in the evaluation of Professional Responsibility.
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Table 4. Differences between teachers and students in the evaluation of Professional Attitudes.
3.5. Differences between Teachers and Students in the Evaluation of Professional Discipline
According to the results, teachers are significantly higher than students in the evaluation of Professional Discipline, but significantly lower than students in the evaluation of “whether teachers are dismissive of students’ course evaluation” (Table 5).
3.6. Differences between Teachers and Students in Professional Skills
According to the results, teachers are significantly higher than students in the evaluation of Professional Skills (Table 6).
3.7. Differences between Teachers and Students in the Evaluation of Professional Conscience
According to the results, teachers are significantly higher than students in the evaluation of Professional Conscience (Table 7).
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Table 5. Differences between teachers and students in the evaluation of Professional Discipline.
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Table 6. Differences between teachers and students in Professional Skills.
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Table 7. Differences between teachers and students in the evaluation of Professional Conscience.
3.8. Differences between Teachers and Students in the Evaluation of Professional Style
According to the results, teachers are significantly higher than students in the evaluation of Professional Style (Table 8).
3.9. Differences between Teachers and Students in Professional Honor
According to the results, teachers are significantly higher than students in the evaluation of Professional Honor (Table 9).
3.10. Differences between Teachers and Students in Ideological Leading
According to the results, teachers are significantly higher than students in the evaluation of Ideological Leading (Table 10).
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Table 8. Differences between teachers and students in the evaluation of Professional Style.
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Table 9. Differences between teachers and students in Professional Honor.
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Table 10. Differences between teachers and students in Ideological Leading.
4. Discussion
Based on the large number of evaluation dimensions, the discussion will be organized and integrated in the following three parts: the first is the overall evaluation difference between teachers and students; the second is the analysis of explicit dimensions, including four dimensions of teachers’ professional ideal, professional attitude, professional conscience and professional honor; the third is the analysis of implicit indicators, including five dimensions of professional responsibility, professional discipline, professional skills, professional style and thought leading belong.
4.1. Differences between Teachers’ Self-Evaluation and Students’ Evaluation of Teachers’ Morality
The results show that teachers’ and students’ overall evaluation on teachers’ morality in universities is above the average level, and there are significant differences in the evaluation of teachers and students in all dimensions. This result is quite different from other research results. In the existing research on dual evaluation of teachers and students, the phenomenon of scoring differences is relatively common, but there are still dimensions of consistency between teachers and students, such as teachers’ professional orientation, teaching performance and teachers’ morality, and there are differences in teachers’ professional aspirations and soft power (Wang et al., 2018). However, in this study, teachers’ self-evaluation scores are significantly higher than students’ evaluation scores in overall evaluation and all dimensions of evaluation.
On the one hand, from an objective point of view, the survey results may be due to different evaluation tools. In the existing research, the questionnaires of students and teachers are not prepared separately in the same dimension, or only the evaluation of one group is investigated. The specific topics of the student version of the self-designed questionnaire are based on the teacher version. The structure and scoring scale of the two questionnaires are the same, but there are slight differences in the specific expressions. Although the results are not the same as those of other studies, it still provides reference for subsequent related studies and reminds scholars to pay attention to the differences in evaluation between teachers and students.
On the other hand, from a subjective point of view, significant differences may result from the existence of subject effect and social desirability effects caused by different test methods (Wang & Che, 2019). In this study, students’ questionnaires were conducted anonymously, while teachers’ questionnaires were conducted with their real names to ensure teachers’ participation and cooperation. Because of the testee effect, teachers are more inclined to make evaluation that meets the expectation of the tester. In addition, the research topic of teachers’ morality is closely related to teachers themselves, so teachers will give higher marks to themselves due to the influence of social approval, which is expected to reflect the generally good status of teachers’ morality, resulting in higher overall scores of teachers.
4.2. Analysis of the Current Situation of the Implicit Dimension of Teachers’ Morality
In psychology, ideals and beliefs, morality and honor are all emotions related to social needs, and emotions themselves have the characteristics of depth, stability and implicitness. Therefore, among the dimensions of teachers’ morality defined in this study, the four dimensions of teachers’ professional ideal, professional attitude, professional conscience and professional honor belong to the implicit indicators of teachers’ morality, that is, teachers’ longing for their own work, moral constraints, social evaluation and self-awareness of professional social values, which are mainly reflected in teachers’ psychological state, not easily perceived or embodied by others. Due to the characteristics that the implicit index itself is not easy to detect (Shen, 2012), in the evaluation of the above implicit dimensions, teachers’ introspective evaluation of themselves is more clear and definite, while students are more likely to evaluate with relatively insignificant explicit behavior, so students’ score is lower than teachers’ score.
From the perspective of teachers, the above four dimensions all focus on the super-ego part of teachers’ spiritual structure, which is internalized by social norms, ethics, ideals and values, and guides teachers to continuously improve their self-requirements and self-reflection ability. Research shows that, based on the different perspectives of the public and teachers, it is found that compared with teachers, the public has higher expectations for the quality of teachers’ morality in all aspects, so the scores in multiple dimensions are lower than teachers’ self-evaluation (Zhu et al., 2019). From the perspective of students, their own expectations and evaluation standards for teachers’ morality will be relatively high, and they will be more affected by social evaluation (Pang et al., 2019). Due to the social status, social expectation and the particularity of the authoritative role for students, teachers in universities have higher requirements and expectations and stricter scores.
To sum up, the differences in the scores of the three dimensions of professional ideal, professional conscience and professional honor do not mean that college teachers themselves lack ideals, beliefs or moral honor. The reasons for the differences may come from the characteristics of implicit indicators, teachers’ self-requirements at the level of super-ego and students’ higher evaluation standards.
4.3. Analysis of the Current Situation of the Explicit Dimension of the Teacher’s Morality
Among the dimensions of teachers’ morality in this study, the five dimensions of professional responsibility, professional discipline, professional skills, professional style and thought leading belong to the explicit dimensions. Explicit indicators can generally be evaluated through external performance and behavior, and are easier to detect and evaluate than implicit indicators. Therefore, explicit indicators can be felt and perceived by students through interaction with teachers, and students are significantly lower than teachers in the scores of explicit dimensions, which is more likely to reflect the actual problems of teachers’ morality.
Students believe that teachers need to be strengthened in fulfilling their professional responsibilities and abiding by professional discipline. As for the role identity of teachers, teachers themselves are more likely to identify with peer groups than students, so they are relatively tolerant in the performance evaluation. Teachers tend to regard college students as independent subjects and think that students should take the primary responsibility for their own growth. However, students may still remain passive and compliant to their role identity in middle school, expecting teachers to be responsible for them. In addition, when encountering setbacks and mistakes, teachers are more adult, that is, they can make an overall evaluation and have a certain tolerance for mistakes. However, students are more likely to be in adolescence, and still remain in the stage of dualistic evaluation. Because of the “black or white” thinking, the tolerance for mistakes is low, and the evaluation standards are relatively absolute. In addition, teachers themselves may be under too much pressure, leading to emotional teaching in the actual work, self-achievement motivation is too high and neglect social responsibility and other problems. Statistics show that the time of college teachers’ job burnout is getting earlier and earlier. Emotional exhaustion is the core component of job burnout and the dimension of individual stress. Irrational behaviors such as out of control of bad emotion management and imbalance of words and deeds may have occurred before teachers are aware of themselves, resulting in violation of professional discipline standards and being sensitive to teaching objects (Guo, 2021). Therefore, this difference in the evaluation of teachers and students indicates that the self-adjustment ability of college teachers needs to be strengthened.
5. Inspirations and Limited
5.1. Humanistic-Based Management Mechanism of Teachers’ Morality
The construction of teachers’ morality is also the work of people, so we should return to the idea of “people-oriented”, that is, including teacher-oriented and student-oriented. Based on the discussion of this research and humanistic thoughts, the following suggestions are put forward for the construction of the management mechanism of teachers’ morality in the future: The first is to strengthen the cultivation of the dual morality of teachers and students. In addition to strengthening the education of teachers’ morality, it is also necessary to strengthen students’ understanding. In addition to strengthening teachers’ morality, we should also strengthen students’ understanding. Carrying out lectures on teachers’ morality for students or strengthening the publicity of teachers’ morality on campus can help the management supervise teachers’ morality in universities from bottom to top, and provide strong support for the improvement of the construction mechanism of teachers’ morality. Second, strengthen the psychological care for teachers, help teachers alleviate psychological pressure, and let teachers learn how to master the ability to care for students, strengthen their humanistic care for students in student work, and comprehensively improve the “hard power” and “soft power” in teachers’ morality. The third is to build a dynamic evaluation mechanism of double evaluation between teachers and students and supplement the evaluation from the perspective of students, which is conducive to discovering the deficiencies in the construction of teachers’ morality In the future, we should continue to pay attention to the dynamic evaluation from the perspective of students, further revise the evaluation tools, and treat the evaluation differences between the two sides rationally, objectively and comprehensively, so as to promote the benign development of the construction of teachers’ morality.
5.2. Two-Way Transformation of the Intersubjective Relationship between Teachers and Students
This paper makes an overall analysis based on the theory of intersubjectivity in psychology. Intersubjectivity refers to the realization of the same frequency of ideological cognition by means of dialogue, communication and understanding between subjects on the premise of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect (Adler, 2021). Teachers should not only strengthen their own professional cultivation, but also actively pay attention to the new characteristics of college students in the new era that require independence, freedom, equality and democracy, take the initiative to build equal teacher-student relationship in the new era, promote mutual understanding and identification, and enhance mutual trust and tolerance between teachers and students. At the same time, students should be encouraged to enhance their understanding of the teacher profession, respect their right to know about the ethics of the teacher profession, implement the idea of subject coordination, have transposition thinking, improve the subjective initiative of students in the interaction between teachers and students, and promote the construction of teachers’ morality through the transformation of the relationship between teachers and students.
5.3. Vertical Transformation of the Intersubjective Relationship between Teachers and Students
Students’ expectations and positioning of teachers’ roles are always changing, and the relationship between subjects will also change gradually with the psychological maturity of subjects. At the first stage of enrollment, students are still in the chaotic stage of self-identity, so teachers should act as life mentors and give more help and instruction in the teacher-student relationship. At the early stage of enrollment, students are in the exploration stage of self-identity. Teachers need to assume the role of companions to reflect the synergistic role of subjects and accompany students to experience and grow together. For students in the middle period of learning, the subject function of teachers begins to gradually weaken, and more responsibility is returned to students, encouraging them to improve their subjective initiative and establish and improve their subject function in the important stage of the development of self-consciousness. In the later stage, students tend to be psychologically mature and develop strong subjectivity. Teachers and students are relatively independent and students’ self-selection and future development as independent subjects are fully respected. Therefore, combined with the characteristics of students’ psychological development, the vertical transformation of the subject relationship between teachers and students may improve students’ overall evaluation of teachers’ morality, and become an important reference for the construction of teachers’ morality in the future.
5.4. Research Tools Need to Be Optimized
At present, there is no standardized teacher ethics evaluation tool at home and abroad, and the tool used in this study is only a preliminary exploration. The overall reliability of the student version questionnaire is 0.94, and the overall reliability of the teacher version questionnaire is 0.87. The effectiveness of this tool remains to be validated in future studies.
6. Conclusion
The results showed that the total average score and each dimension score of teachers’ self-evaluation were significantly higher than those of students. The differences in the scores of the three dimensions of professional ideal, professional conscience and professional honor do not mean that college teachers themselves lack ideals, beliefs or moral honor. The main reason for this result may be the differences in understanding and standards of different dimensions between teachers and students. To sum up, the construction of teachers’ morality in colleges and universities is a long-term arduous task. Based on the evaluation of the current situation by students and teachers, the quality of teachers’ morality can be comprehensively improved in the future in terms of improving the management mechanism, optimizing effective evaluation tools, and strengthening the construction of a benign relationship between teachers and students.
NOTES
*This study was funded by the Research Base of the Consolidation of Chinese National Community Consciousness, Jinan University-China (JDGTT202108).