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Perceptions of Motivation Among School Counselors and Teachers

Posted on: Saturday, 9 July 2005, 03:01 CDT

ABSTRACT

The authors examined perceptions of the motivation concept among 69 teachers and 77 counselors from Israeli secondary schools. Participants responded to 3 questionnaires that the authors constructed for this study on the basis of goal theory (e.g., C. Midgley, 2002). The authors also interviewed 10 counselors and 10 teachers. Results showed that counselors, as compared with teachers, viewed the task orientation as more representative of motivation to learn and the ego orientation as less indicative of motivation to learn. Counselors' perceptions of motivation also were more multi- dimensional than were those of teachers. Finally, similarity between the 2 types of educators grew when counselors had concurrent or prior teaching experience. Theoretical and practical educational implications of findings are discussed.

Key words: perceptions of motivation, secondary school counselors and teachers, task orientation versus ego orientation

Teachers conduct an array of consultations with school counselors in a variety of settings such as staff meetings, planned individual conferences, and chance encounters in and out of school. Frequently, consultations relate to students-their academic strivings and behavior, their personal and social lives, their relationships with teachers, and many other topics. Throughout those conversations, teachers and counselors use basic educational concepts such as achievement, learning, adjustment, and motivation. To realize effective consultations between counselors and teachers, collaborating parties must attach similar connotations, at least in an ad hoc manner, to the educational concepts under consideration (see Green, 1971). If teachers and counselors are unaware that they attribute dissimilar meanings to an educational concept, it is likely that they will encounter misunderstandings that will have deleterious effects on student goal attainment, as well as on their willingness to enter into meaningful collaborative activities in the future (Keys, Bemak, Carpenter, & King-Sears, 1998; Little & McLaughlin, 1993).

Some scholars (e.g., Keys et al, 1998; Shoffner & Briggs, 2001) have implied that the professional thinking and beliefs of teachers and counselors differ meaningfully and that the differences may yield dissimilar perceptions of educational concepts. Our informal observations of interactions between the two groups of school professionals indicate that they seem to have distinctive understandings of some basic educational concepts that are related to another fundamental distinction. Teachers' perceptions of educational concepts are shaped significantly by their focus on student academic learning and achievement, whereas counselors have more multifaceted conceptions fashioned by an assortment of cognitive, social, emotional, behavioral, and situational factors. Those differences appear to flow from at least three major sources: (a) the distinct nature and goals of the two professions, (b) divergent preservice education and predispositions, and (c) dissimilar professional experiences and conditions.

Nature and Goals of Teaching and Counseling

Teachers in some schools expose students to a variety of educational goals. For example, teachers in career and technical education programs (Castellano, Stringfield, & Stone, 2003) and in classes with large numbers of minority or lowsocioeconomic status children (Oakes, 1985) or those who are motivated by ideological considerations (e.g., Rubin, 2003) may highlight multiple purposes of education. However, there is little doubt that teachers in virtually all types of schools at every level of schooling greatly emphasize academic and cognitive aspects of school life (Good, Clark, &. Clark, 1997; Rich, 1993). At the elementary school level, emphasis on mastery of basic skills and facility in accessing and managing knowledge places academic activities at the center of classroom life, although there are indications that this aspect of schooling is more evenly balanced with other purposes as compared with later stages of schooling (Rich). Spurred by the pressure of mandated standards of learning outcomes or matriculation or college- qualifying examinations, secondary teachers tend to perceive learning outcomes as especially important; they spend more time on teaching the academic curriculum than on any other school task (Klaasen, 2002; Schofield, 1982). Even at the middle school, which is designed to be especially concerned with student social and emotional development, teachers place great emphasis on cognitive performance, as measured by standardized tests (Good et al.).

In contrast, school counselors probably have a more multifaceted perspective than do teachers because counselors are enjoined to relate to students in a holistic manner by attending to students' cognitive, social, emotional, behavioral (e.g., Campbell &. Dahir, 1997), and even spiritual (Bruce et al., 1999) dimensions. Counselors also provide services that foster student development in a wide variety of school activities and settings, thereby broadening students' points of view (e.g., Burnham & Jackson, 2000). Even recent training programs that underline the school counselor's role in enhancing student learning and achievement advocate a multidimensional holistic perspective (e.g., Stone & Hanson, 2002). Thus, we hypothesized that teachers focus primarily on academic aspects of the meaning of educational concepts, whereas counselors have more comprehensive and multidimensional perceptions.

Preservice Education and Predispositions

Although certification requirements for teachers and counselors in different nations and states vary considerably, mastery of subject matter and acquisition of instructional cognitions and strategies that presumably facilitate student learning (see Cochran- Smith, 2001; Feiman-Nemser, 2001) are the foci of most pre- and inservice programs for K-12 teachers. These foci stem from the widely accepted view that teachers need professional knowledge that enables them to enhance student academic learning (see Hiebert, Gallimore, &. Stigler, 2002). Preservice education for elementary school teachers emphasizes the child's personal and social development more than does teacher education for secondary schools but usually in an instrumental manner that underscores implications for student learning. Also, in most cases, teacher education occurs at the undergraduate level.

In contrast, school counselor preservice education usually entails a graduate program based on a first degree in education or the social sciences. Thus, selection processes, both personal and institutional, play a greater role in determining who will enter the ranks of counselors. Professors use educational, psychological, and other behavioral science perspectives when they present subject matter to counseling students who study a variety of topics such as (a) normal and abnormal development; (b) diagnosis of problems of individuals and groups in varied domains; and (c) theories and practices of helping strategies for individuals, groups, and organizations. Generally, a significant part of the preservice counseling program aims to improve one's awareness of self and others. Lectures, supervised practica, and small-group work are common forums for learning (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, 2001). Thus, the counselor education curriculum probably encourages thinking about school- related situations and concepts in a more comprehensive manner than the narrower perspective emphasizing student learning nurtured by professional teacher education.

Professional Experiences and Conditions

One also expects diverse perceptions of basic educational concepts between schoolteachers and counselors because of the dissimilar conditions that characterize their work environments. Teachers' most important work setting is the classroom, where there are many children and where numerous activities occur simultaneously (Sabers, Gushing, & Berliner, 1991). Teachers must coordinate children, activities, and physical settings and wield enough control to facilitate effective learning. Frequently, teachers feel pressured by multiple demands. When problems arise, and they often do, they can threaten the smooth operation of the entire class. Resolution must be swift, even if that requires a superficial solution, to maintain the order necessary for students to learn (e.g., Doyle, 1986). Furthermore, teachers constantly evaluate their students, whether formally or informally, which often involves social comparison with other students (McCaslin & Good, 1996).

In contrast, counselors work in a variety of settings that include the classroom and relatively private offices with small groups of students. Because counselors commonly interact with only one individual or a small group, they often have the luxury of reflecting before acting, and they experience less urgent pressure to orchestrate complex situations in ways that lead to immediate but superficial responses to problems. Furthermore, counselors' work conditions enable them to focus on the individual student and to minimize use of social comparison among students. As a result, counselors' thinking about problems in school, as compare\d with teachers, is probably characterized by multiple considerations with more comprehensive and developmental perspectives.

Professional Overlap Between Teachers and Counselors

Despite the important differences between teachers and counselors, considerable overlap remains between the two groups. For example, many school counselors previously worked as teachers and, in some countries such as Israel where this study was conducted, school counselors are encouraged or even required to serve simultaneously as teachers. Furthermore, some counselors' professional activities include an instructional component that is intended to improve student learning or mental health. That also may narrow the gap between counselors and teachers concerning their perceptions of educational concepts. Finally, counselors frequently interact with teachers on a host of schooling activities, which may lead counselors to assimilate teachers' cognitive perspectives in their own educational world view. Those and other reasons make it likely that as counselors assume more characteristics of the teacher role, the two groups of professionals will have greater shared perceptions of basic educational concepts.

Teacher and Counselor Understandings of Motivation to Learn in School

We concentrated on the concept of motivation to investigate the possibility of different perceptions of basic educational concepts between teachers and counselors. We selected motivation because (a) it is an important concept for counselors and teachers, (b) counseling and teaching literatures deal with it extensively, (c) it has multiple meanings in scientific and professional writings (Murphy & Alexander, 2000), and (d) it is a topic that arises frequently among teachers and counselors when they discuss student functioning and progress.

There are many ways to conceptualize motivation. We adopted goal theory (e.g., Harackiewicz, Barren, Pintrich, Elliot, & Thrash, 2002; Midgley, 2002; Urdan, 1997; Wigfield, Eccles, & Rodriguez, 1998) as a convenient conceptual framework to guide our research. Goal theory is concerned with student and staff beliefs about the purposes for learning; it asserts that the learning goals that a student embraces influence the quality of his or her investment in learning, preferred means of learning, and desired and actual learning outcomes. Also, the goals prevalent in the school and classroom, the instructional methods used, and the socioemotional climate pervading the school, separately and in interaction with one another, influence the learning goals that students adopt. Researchers have examined several different purposes of learning, two of which have been investigated most extensively: task and ego goals. Task goals, also known as mastery goals, refer to learning for improving knowledge, skills, or understanding. Ego goais, sometimes called ability goals, relate to learning for demonstrating one's greater ability or value as compared with others.

In addition to differences in purposes for learning, the two goal orientations vary on many other important features. For example, students with task goals define success in learning as understanding or as creative application of knowledge, whereas persons with ego goals perceive success as receiving high grades or other forms of recognition. For persons with task goals, mistakes are learning opportunities to increase understanding, whereas for individuals with ego goals, mistakes are evidence of failure that should be avoided. According to persons whose orientations are task goals, ability is flexible and can be boosted through effort, whereas persons whose orientations are ego goals believe that ability cannot be improved significantly (see Anderman & Maehr, 1994).

Research Plan

Analysis of the differences between teachers and counselors regarding the nature and goals of the two groups, their preservice education, and their work experiences suggests that teachers' perceptions of student motivation are probably closer to the ego- goal orientation, whereas counselors more likely conceptualize motivation as being more similar to the task-goal orientation. We investigated that general hypothesis in several ways. First, we examined differences between teachers and counselors regarding their evaluations of ego- versus task-goal orientations as expressions of students' motivation to learn. second, we asked teachers and counselors to evaluate the ability of various teacher activities that represent ego or task orientations to enhance student motivation. In both cases, we anticipated that teachers, as compared with counselors, would evaluate the ego orientation more favorably, whereas counselors would evaluate the task orientation more positively.

In another examination of differential perceptions of student motivation, we investigated the strategy domains that teachers and counselors recommend to teachers to solve students' motivational problems. A variety of personal, social, and academic strategies is available to teachers for this purpose (McCaslin & Good, 1996; Wentzel, 1999). Examples of such strategies include individual quasi- therapeutic conversations for the personal domain, interventions to shape classroom social norms supporting learning for the social domain, and challenging tasks in which reallife sources in the academic domain are used. Assuming that counselors have a more multidimensional approach to motivation, whereas teachers are more narrowly focused on the academic dimension, we anticipated that teachers, as compared with counselors, would rate academic strategies to solve motivational problems more positively, and counselors would evaluate personal and social strategies as more helpful. We also anticipated that counselors would endorse more varied strategies to improve motivation, as compared with teachers.

A final issue that we raised was the relationship between perceptions of motivation and the extent to which certain teacher attributes characterize the counselor. Years of classroom experience shape teachers' perceptions of school life. In addition, traces of those perceptions likely remain even after a teacher begins to serve as a counselor. Thus, we predicted that the longer an individual served as a teacher prior to working as a counselor and the more hours he or she taught in addition to his or her counseling position, the more similar his or her perception would be to that of persons who served only as teachers. The present study enabled the investigation of this hypothesis in a typical counselor population because many counselors in Israel begin their careers as teachers and only later move on to counseling positions. Often, after assuming the primary role of school counselor, they continue to devote at least a few hours weekly to classroom instruction of subject matter.

Method

Participants

A convenience sample (Kiess, 1989) of 69 teachers from 7 schools and 77 counselors from more than 40 schools responded to questionnaires. Most participants were recruited at brief staff development programs unrelated to the research topic. Virtually all respondents were women who worked in two mostly middle- and lower middle-class urban districts in Israeli Jewish public schools. About one third of the teachers and the counselors worked in elementary, junior, and senior high schools, respectively. We solicited teachers and counselors from that pool to participate in an interview. The first 10 teachers and 10 counselors who agreed to participate were selected; few declined. Participating teachers averaged 14.7 years of teaching experience. Counselors had a mean of 17.3 years of teaching experience and 11.6 years of concurrent counseling experience. Counselors worked an average of 16.3 hr weekly in counseling and 5.9 hr weekly as teachers (20-24 weekly hr was a full- time position).

Instrumentation

The Student Motivation Scale (SMS). We developed the SMS especially for this study to examine teachers' and counselors' evaluations of task and ego motivational orientations, as reflections of student motivation to learn. We gathered a large number of statements that characterized task and ego orientations written by goal theory scholars. In addition, we explained the two orientations to 3 teachers, 3 school counselors, and a school psychologist and asked them to generate brief statements illustrating the orientations. We selected 20 statements from the combined list and rewrote them as questionnaire items. We presented the statements individually to another 3 teachers and 3 counselors who responded to the scale while verbally expressing their thoughts about the items. On the basis of teacher and counselor comments on the content and clarity of the items, we adopted some of the items, discarded others, and rewrote yet others, which left a total of 15 items. We distributed the items to 60 teachers and counselors; their responses were subjected to factor analysis. The final version of the scale included 10 items; 6 items represented a task orientation and 4 items signified the ego orientation. Each item presents a student who is involved in a classroom activity: (a) task orientation, for example, "The student chooses challenging learning activities" and (b) ego orientation, for example, "The student tries to show that he is the best in class." We asked respondents to evaluate the extent to which each item reflects motivation to learn on a 6-point, Likert-type scale ranging from (1) not at all to (6) very much. Principal components factor analysis explained 63.6% of the variance and revealed two factors that represented the task and ego orientations. Internal reliabilities were alpha = .83 and .86, respectively.

Teacher Activities Fostering Motif ation Scaie (TAFM). The TAFM examined teachers' and counselors' evaluations of the effectiveness of various teacher activities for enhancing student motivation. We designed the activities to reflect task or ego moti\vational orientations. The process of developing the TAFM was similar to that used for the SMS. First, we generated a list of 20 teacher activities that was scrutinized hy 3 teachers and 3 counselors who selected 12 items that best reflected the orientations. We administered the list to 60 teachers and counselors and factor analyzed their responses. The final form of the scale comprised 12 teacher activities; 6 activities reflected the task orientation and 6 activities represented the ego orientation. An example of an ego item is "encourage academic competition between students," and an example of a task activity is "emphasize the importance of deep understanding and application to real life." We recorded teacher and counselor evaluations of the effectiveness of the teacher activities for enhancing student motivation on a 6-point, Likert-type scale. Principal components factor analysis explained 48.4% of the variance and uncovered two factors that reflected the two motivational orientations. Internal reliability alphas for ego item and task activity were .76 and .74, respectively.

Teacher Strategies Scale (TST). Development of the TST for examining preferences for teacher strategies from the academic, social, and personal domains for solving motivation problems was similar to our development of the previous instruments. We generated 30 items that represented a variety of pedagogical tactics to enhance motivation from the professional literature and from discussions with teachers and counselors. Ten teachers and 10 counselors categorized each of the items as reflecting an academic (e.g., "present a wide variety of learning materials"), social ("provide for a supportive social climate in the class"), or personal ("spend time with the student to understand the problem from his perspective") domain. We eliminated items that were depicted as belonging to more than one category. We administered the 17 remaining items to 60 teachers and counselors; the items were subjected to principal components factor analysis. We extracted three factors that conformed to the three domains, explaining 61.9% of the variance. Internal reliabilities were .85 (academic), .91 (social), and .77 (personal).

In addition to the questionnaires, we conducted interviews with 10 counselors and 10 teachers. We wanted the interviews to complement the quantitative data by gathering information in areas in which adequate data could not be obtained from the questionnaires, for example, the uni- or multidimensionality of motivation; or that needed deeper analysis, such as reasons for lack of motivation among students. Because we sought information on topics that were largely predetermined, we used a semistructured format. Following the advice of Miles and Huberman (1994), the interview began with general themes from the literature. Those were supplemented by other themes suggested by teachers and counselors in the initial stage of instrument development. Additional themes were added as information, and insights emerged from the early interviews.

We designed interview questions according to Lortie's (1975) suggestion to raise issues that elicit concrete, detailed responses that include affect. We conducted two preliminary interviews, one with a counselor and the other with a teacher, to determine how well the interview encouraged meaningful analysis of motivation topics and to examine procedural matters, such as time required. Examination of the interviews led to several changes in the interview contents and form. One important modification was to ask direct questions regarding the multidimensionality of motivation and reasons for lack of student motivation if the topics did not arise spontaneously in the interview. After spending a moment in "small talk," the interviewer asked the interviewee to describe her encounters with one or two students with motivation problems. In the discussion that emerged, the interviewer directed special attention to the reasons for the problems and possible ways of treating them. The interviewer held an open conversation with limited interruptions. The predetermined questions were presented in a particular order only when the topics did not arise naturally from the discussion. The second author, an experienced teacher and counselor, conducted the hour-long interviews, usually in the participant's home.

Principles of grounded theory and constant comparison (Strauss &. Corbin, 1998) guided analysis of information from the interviews. Analysis involved a search for the predetermined topics and themes by means of repeated listening to tapes of the interviews and readings of the protocols. We analyzed specific interview data by means of an iterative process of selecting from the transcripts specific utterances and direct or indirect mentions of the predetermined themes and research questions. Following lieblich, TuvalMashiach, & Zilber (1998), we noted the direct and unambiguous references first, followed by interpretation of indirect or uncertain allusions to the topic. That activity was conducted independently by one researcher who presented the results of the selection and justified them to a second researcher who served as an outside critic of the reasons for excluding or including the items (see Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997). Both researchers had experience as teachers and counselors. We made minor changes in the list of utterances for analysis following the justification process. Throughout the interview analysis process, our primary interest was in participants' understandings of the uni/multidimensionality of motivation and reasons for problems of motivation and how they should be treated.

TABLE 1. Means, Standard Deviations, F Values, and Effect Sizes for Teacher and Counselor Evaluations of Task and Ego Orientations (SMS)

Results

The first hypothesis predicted that counselors, as compared with teachers, evaluate task orientation as more indicative of student desire to learn and ego orientations as less suggestive of motivation to learn. We conducted a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) that examined teachers' and counselors' evaluations on the two SMS scales and revealed significant differences between the two school professions, F(2, 134) = 9.24, p < .001, η^sup 2^= .12. We followed that procedure by analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures on each of the orientation scales. Means, standard deviations, F values, and effect sizes are shown in Table 1. Those statistics confirmed that counselors, as compared with teachers, evaluated the task orientation as more indicative of motivation to learn, whereas no difference between them was evident for evaluation of the ego orientation. Further investigation of the means showed that counselors evaluated the two orientations as indicating a similar level of desire to learn, whereas teachers perceived the ego orientation as representing greater motivation to learn than the task orientation.

In the second hypothesis, we investigated teacher and counselor evaluations of teacher activities that we designed to reflect the task or ego orientation. Respondents indicated how effectively they fostered student motivation. Means and standard deviations for the TAFM scales appear in Table 2. Results of a MANOVA revealed significant differences between teachers and counselors, F(2, 133) = 13.80, p < .001, η^sup 2^ = .17. As indicated in Table 2, ANOVA revealed significantly higher scores for teachers than for counselors on the ego-orientation scale only. Also, a repeated- measures ANOVA found a significant interaction for Role (Teacher vs. Counselor) X Orientation Type (Task vs. Ego), F(I, 134) = 18.56, p < .001, η^sup 2^ = .12. Table 2 clearly indicates that teachers and counselors viewed activities representing the task orientation as more capable of promoting student motivation than the ego orientation. However, teachers, in comparison with counselors, evaluated activities reflecting the ego orientation as more able to enhance student motivation to learn.

TABLE 2. Means, Standard Deviations, F Values, and Effect Sizes for Teacher and Counselor Evaluations of Effectiveness of Task and Ego Orientation Teacher Activities (TAFM)

TABLE 3. Means, Standard Deviations, F Values, and Effect Sizes for Teacher and Counselor Preferences for Teacher Strategies From Three Domains (TST)

The third hypothesis predicted that teachers, more than counselors, prefer academic strategies to solve problems regarding lack of student motivation to leam, whereas counselors prefer personal and social strategies more than teachers. A MANOVA conducted on the TST scores revealed significant differences between teachers and counselors, F(3, 133) = 6.71, p < .001, η^sup 2^ = .13. Means, standard deviations, F values, and effect sizes are presented in Table 3 for teacher and counselor preferences for the three strategies.

To determine the source of differences between teachers and counselors, we conducted a MANOVA with repeated measures on types of strategies. That procedure yielded a significant main effect, F(2, 270) = 27.43, p < .001, η^sup 2^ = .17, and a significant Role x Strategy interaction, F(2, 270) = 9.70, p < .001, η^sup 2^ = .07. Table 3 suggests a tendency for teachers to express relatively balanced preferences for the three strategies, whereas counselors preferred the personal strategy. That finding was corroborated by a simple main effect analysis that revealed significant differences between strategies for counselors but not for teachers, F(2, 134) = 32.86, p < .001, η^sup 2^ = 33. Thus, the hypothesis was partially supported, with differences emerging between teachers and counselors for personal, but not academic and social, strategies.

In the qualitative analysis, we investigated teacher and counselor perceptions of motivation as a uni- or multidimensional concept by focusing on teacher and counselor un\derstandings regarding the reasons for student motivation problems and how they should be treated. Analysis of the interviews showed that counselor conceptions of motivation were more multidimensional than were those of teachers. That finding was apparent in several ways. Initially, counselors offered about twice as many reasons for motivation problems than did teachers. Explaining why their students encountered motivation problems, teachers usually suggested one, and sometimes two, reasons. All counselors raised at least two reasons, and most counselors offered several possibilities. Also, teachers focused on descriptions of their students' motivational problems, whereas counselors almost always attended to the problems' underlying reasons as well. Furthermore, teachers tended to speak about direct cause-effect relations, whereas counselors often related to indirect effects triggered by multiple factors in complex, indeterminate relations. For example, almost all counselors related to the school as a system and included school policy, climate, and staff relations as factors for consideration when treating motivation problems of individual students. Teachers rarely mentioned those factors.

TABLE 4. Pearson Correlations Between Counselor Professional Experience and SMS Scores

Another issue that distinguished teachers and counselors was the kind of reasons that they offered to explain motivation problems. Both groups related to family dynamics as a major cause of problems and as a positive factor in treatment. In all cases, however, counselors also raised internal psychological attributes of the child, such as self-esteem, anxiety, and coping styles as relevant concerns. Rarely did teachers speak of such internal factors; poor family relations was (almost) a necessary and sufficient cause of motivation problems among their students.

Differences in teacher and counselor preferences for domains of treatment also demonstrated their varied perceptions of motivation. As reported in the quantitative results, counselors favored the personal domain for treating motivation problems, whereas teachers' preferences were balanced. Yet, that was not the only difference regarding treatment domains. Teachers and counselors spoke of the importance of a personal relationship between the student and the teacher as a powerful motivating factor. However, the meaning of personal relationship was very different for the two groups of educators. When teachers spoke of a personal encounter or relationship, they almost always referred to one-on-one meetings dealing with the academic subjects studied in class. One teacher's comment exemplified that difference: "He knows that he is going to meet privately with me during the day on some class topic. . . . We get together every day for a personal session ... it deals with books; everything has to do with books."

In contrast, when counselors spoke of a personal relationship, they meant that affective issues are foremost in the encounter and solutions are sought by means of greater insight. As one counselor said,

I have talks with him that try to get him to accept himself. ... In order to get his attention I start from his lessons, from how he's working and things like that. . . . From there I go on to show him how he can solve these problems for himself ... he really causes himself to fail because he's so eager to succeed. . . . It's important for me to work with him on his self-awareness, together with him, to discover his strengths.

The virtual identity between the academic and personal domains for teachers helps explain the strong correlation (r = .73) found between teacher preferences for academic and personal solutions to motivational problems.

Finally, we investigated the relationship between counselor perceptions of motivation and the extent of counselors' teaching experience. We computed Pearson correlations between the ego and task scales on the SMS, along with a series of variables that included (a) weekly hours working as counselor, (b) weekly hours working as teacher, (c) years of experience in teaching, (d) years of experience in counseling, and (e) years of teaching experience before beginning work as a school counselor. The correlations are presented in Table 4.

The correlations corroborate the assumption that the more a counselor is characterized by professional teaching experience, the more likely that his or her understanding of motivation will be similar to that of teachers. Results indicated that a counselor's evaluation of the task orientation as reflecting motivation to learn was related positively to the number of hours that he or she currently worked as a counselor and related negatively to his or her overall years of teaching experience and to years of teaching experience prior to beginning work as a counselor. Furthermore, the counselor's evaluation that the ego orientation indicates motivation to learn was related negatively to the number of hours that he or she was working as a counselor and related positively to years of teaching experience.

Discussion

Results of this research should be applied with caution to educational systems that differ meaningfully from the investigated setting. Nevertheless, the results provide evidence indicating that teachers and school counselors differ in many of their perceptions of motivation. Compared with teachers, counselors viewed the task orientation as more indicative of motivation to learn. In a complementary fashion, counselors evaluated teacher activities reflecting the ego orientation as less effective for fostering student motivation than did teachers. Also, counselors clearly preferred personal strategies over academic and social approaches to solve problems of motivation, whereas teachers perceived the three strategies as equally appropriate. Perhaps the most important difference that emerged was that counselors' understandings of motivation were considerably more multidimensional than were those of teachers.

Negative and Positive Aspects of Misunderstanding

Differences between teachers and counselors can be a source of misunderstanding in professional interactions between the two groups. Both groups might use the same terminology in a discussion but mean something very different. Or they may seem to disagree when using different terms to express motivation, but they really attribute similar meanings to them. Such misunderstandings can lead to unnecessary mistrust between teachers and counselors and reduced effectiveness with students. However, if teachers and counselors are aware of possible misunderstanding caused by varying conceptions stemming from professional differences, they can act to minimize it. Furthermore, the diversity also can serve as a source for intellectual enrichment and enhanced treatment. If the two groups strive to clarify their meanings and those of their professional counterpart, alternative perceptions of the situation will be available for analysis. That richer data set can lead both groups of professionals to generate more appropriate and creative ways of helping students. Thus, flawed understandings are not inevitable outcomes of professional interactions between counselors and teachers; rather, they are likely products when each individual perceives the situation in his or her way only while remaining insensitive to the possibility of alternative explanations.

Multi- Versus Unidimensional Understandings of Motivation

The finding that counselors have more multidimensional understandings of motivation than do teachers poses a meaningful problem. That divergence appears to stem mainly from differences in the nature of the educational activities, settings, and pressures that teachers and counselors encounter in their work. Teachers lack opportunity for meaningful reflective thought in the interactive phase of instruction and often sense the need to do something to correct a problematic situation arising unexpectedly in the class. That need encourages teachers to seek uncomplicated solutions that fix the problem even if they know that the situation is complex and that multiple factors are operating (cf. Doyle, 1986). Over time, nonexpert teachers may adopt unsophisticated, unidimensional ways of thinking about pedagogical matters.

In contrast, work conditions of counselors enable them to (a) be more reflective; (b) consider alternative hypotheses; and (c) relate to educational problems in a relatively complex manner, taking into consideration the idiosyncrasies of the individuals and the settings involved. For many counselors, solutions to problems are rarely simple or straightforward, and the change process has to be monitored carefully because alternative treatments are available and may prove superior to the one presently used. Two divergent cultures of thought may co-exist in a school in which many teachers relate to complex situations in straightforward, uncomplicated ways, but their counseling colleagues deal with situations in a more intricate and elaborate manner. In such conditions, rudimentary clarification of diverse intentions and meanings might prove insufficient in a consulting relationship.

Hargreaves (1986) raised the "two cultures problem" in reference to teachers in the British middle school who identified with different pedagogical traditions. We concur with his call for extensive collaboration in such situations but caution that the collaboration should not be superficial or merely procedural. To bridge the conflicting cultures of thought among teachers and school counselors, protracted and intensive intercultural negotiations of meaning may be necessary, similar to what transpires in culturally sensitive clinical interviews between a therapist and a client from diverse cultural environments (see e.g., Takushi & Uomoto, 2001).

Counselor and Teacher Understandings of Educational Concepts

Regardless of the degree to which school counselorsand teachers are steeped in different professional educational cultures, several important theoretical and research issues are relevant. For example, results of the present research, combined with findings from a study by Kuperstein and Kashtacher (2002), suggest that counselors and teachers hold differing understandings of other central educational concepts, such as achievement, learning, and adjustment. Those investigators found several important differences between high school counselors and teachers regarding attitudes toward awarding class grades. As compared with counselors, teachers believed that cognitive matters related to achievement were more appropriate to consider when assigning grades. In contrast, counselors considered the process of learning as more relevant for determining grades than did teachers who emphasized learning outcomes. Differences found between school counselors and teachers regarding conceptions of motivation and considerations for assigning grades raise the distinct possibility that they also maintain discrepant understandings of other important educational concepts.

What causes those differences? Three possible interrelated sources are (a) the varying nature and goals of the professions, (b) diverse predispositions and preservice education, and (c) dissimilar professional experiences. We emphasized the latter cause, but this was speculative because there are only limited research results to guide our thinking. If divergent educational experience is the primary cause of the differences between teachers and counselors, then teacher and counselor perceptions may not differ meaningfully in educational settings that provide teachers with conditions similar to those of counselors; for example, instruction in elite schools with small classes of culturally homogeneous children presenting minimal discipline problems. More extensive investigation of the influence of all three sources on the professional thinking of counselors and teachers, as well as on other educators, can add to theoretical understanding and can contribute to the design of effective activities that enhance understanding between various school professionals.

Effects of Teaching Experience on Counselor Perceptions

An interesting result of this study was that counselor and teacher thinking regarding motivation were increasingly similar when counselors also had significant concurrent or prior teaching experience. That finding raises intriguing questions about the professional identity and behavior of school counselors who have considerable teaching experience. For example, which professional identity-teacher or counselor-will activate or dominate in different social and educational situations? To some extent, that question echoes similar issues addressed many years ago by guidance and counseling scholars (e.g., Tiedeman & Field, 1962) that were never resolved adequately. Presently, abundant theoretical guidance is available to analyze that topic, especially from social identity and social categorization theoretical perspectives (e.g., Turner, 1999; Worchel & Coutant, 2001). Those perspectives help delineate the personal, group, and situational attributes that affect the emergence of a particular identity from the repertoire of identities available to the individual. The counselor-teacher consultation encounter is especially interesting because concurrent opposing forces pressure the counselor to seek professional kinship with the teacher, while accentuating his or her unique professional identity and distancing him or her from the teacher role. Those and other identity theories (e.g., Gee, 2000/2001) also might contribute to the design of work conditions and role relationships that can attenuate misunderstandings between counselors and teachers.

Note of Caution

Finally, a recurrent finding here deserves mention, namely, the perception of teachers and counselors that the ego orientation is indicative of motivation to learn. In other words, teachers and counselors believe that students are well motivated if they strive to excel in educational tasks to demonstrate their superiority over their classmates even if they are not interested in improved academic knowledge. Apparently, only students who avoid effort and challenges are perceived as poorly motivated (see Harackiewicz et al., 2002). That idea was expressed clearly by one of the counselors interviewed who declared,

As long as you are motivated to achieve, to get good grades, it doesn't matter if it's because of this or that reason-whether your parents are pressuririg, or you want to show your classmate that you're better than him, or you like the teacher-as long as that motivation exists it's going to move you to learn. That's the way I think about it.

Educators socialized in Western competitive societies seem to develop the belief that it is appropriate when a student's aspiration to excel on an intellectual task expresses itself as a desire to do better than fellow classmates. Teachers and counselors might consider once again whether that belief is worthy of being passed on to our children.

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YISRAEL RICH

Bar Ilan University, Israel

ZISA SHIRAM

Ha'Yovel School, Israel

Address correspondence to Yisrael Rich, School of Education, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. (E-mail: richyi@mail.biu.ac.il)

YISRAEL RICH is an associate professor, School of Education, Bar Ilan University, Israel. He also is the director of the Stern Institute for the 'Study and Advancement of Religious Education at the same university. He is interested in the beliefs of counselors and teachers, work-family relations, and school effects on religious identity. ZISA SHIRAM is a school counselor, Hayovel School, Israel. Interests include individual and organizational educational treatments and developing resilience among teenagers.

Copyright HELDREF PUBLICATIONS Jul/Aug 2005

Source: Journal of Educational Research, The

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