Teacher Role Survey (TRS)

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Teachers will never be able to negotiate for satisfactory personnel policies. b) It appears that teachers are just now on the brink of a period of improved negotiations over personnel policies.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Teachers are given recognition in proportion to the quality of their performance. b) Given society’s attitude toward teaching, there is really very little a teacher can do to gain the recognition deserved.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) If I work hard and perform effectively, administrators are very supportive of my work. b) I find that principals and superintendents base their support of a teacher more on whim and hearsay than on quality of work.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Parents will cooperate with teachers if teachers put forth skillful effort. b) Teachers have reason to be pessimistic about getting parents “on their side.”

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) One of the rewards of teaching is the chance to put one’s abilities to work. b) School systems seem to invent obstacles to keep teachers from doing their best.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) In this day and age, teachers are deprived of a strong sense of personal responsibility. b) Teaching is a profession that enables one to develop a strong sense of personal responsibility.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) The more one teaches effectively, the more one is delegated responsibility for classroom management. b) With all the “snoopervisors” in schools, teachers are watched over regardless of their competence level.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) To get duly recognized, a teacher needs only exert the effort to perform well. b) One of the problems with teaching is that there is little recognition even when it is earned.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Teachers touch the lives of pupils and parents in effective ways, and a natural by-product is personal and professional recognition. b) One certainly does not choose teaching for the professional recognition it offers.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) It is clear that a teacher can take delight in creative development of learning experiences. b) More and more learning experiences are “canned” and mandated for the teacher.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Schools have been and perhaps always will be rather uninteresting, oppressive places in which to work. b) The fact that teachers are so influential at the building level enables them to greatly affect their working conditions.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) All about that is required of a teacher is the ability to follow directions from above. b) The longer I stay in teaching, the more I feel that my presence in the classroom makes a difference.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) The long-term negative attitude of our society toward teachers need not persist into the future. b) The negative attitude of society toward teaching is something that just has to be endured.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Students are becoming increasingly independent and unruly. b) If teachers really put themselves into the task, it is possible for them to exert meaningful influence on students.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) There is always more work to be done by a teacher than can possibly be finished. b) Careful planning and scheduling of time makes the job of teaching more manageable.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) I feel that I am delegated the responsibility to do my job as I see fit. b) I feel that my responsibility as a teacher is eroded by too many guidelines and supervisors.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Because a teacher’s best efforts go unobserved behind closed doors, it is natural that due recognition is not received. b) In spite of the criticism leveled at schools, effective teachers receive due recognition from within and outside of schools.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Teachers will be treated as responsible professionals to the degree that they earn such treatment. b) There is too great a tendency to treat teachers like children.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Teaching is a profession in which a sense of achievement is often missing because it is difficult to know the effect of one’s work. b) One of the advantages of teaching is that one is the “manager of the classroom” and thus can arrange things so as to get a clear sense of what has been accomplished.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Being “a part of the group” of teachers in a building depends on one’s behavior. b) Every school has its pecking order which determines those teachers who are accepted and those who are not.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Teaching is one of the last remaining job fields that permits genuine giving to others. b) It is increasingly difficult for teachers to realize the joy of giving to others when they receive so little in return.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) Parents are easily incited to discontent toward teachers. b) I have never met a parent who couldn’t be won over by a sincere approach.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) It seems inevitable that parents are quick to give negative feedback to teachers, but reluctant to dispense praise. b) Parents appreciate teachers for work well done.

Choose the statement that best describes your belief: a) School administrators are highly responsive to directives “from above” but not very responsive to influence from teachers. b) Teachers are heard and responded to by administrators to the degree that they effectively plead their case.