De-Programming Our Responses: The Effects of Personality on Teacher Responses.

Written responses to student writing assignments often can take the form of being directives which seem to try to control the student, and student response to such directive comments appears ambivalent. A logical question concerning such modes of response is to ask how a teacher's comments are influenced by his or her personality type. A study was described to investigate this relationship in the work of seven respondents. The study used two scales from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, namely, the Thinking and Feeling ways of making decisions, and the Judging and Perceiving ways of managing the environment. Results indicated that Judging types tended to focus more than Perceiving types on word or phrase level problems, while Perceiving types focused more on larger level revisions. Other significant differences were seen between these two types of readers. When grouped according to Thinking and Feeling preferences, the differences are less pronounced. Thinking types gave more advice, especially for essay level problems. Through experience, it appears that teachers of writing change in their attitudes toward the teacher student relationship, while maintaining the marks of their type. In short, teacher type preferences do show up among even experienced teachers. Thus, training and experience both certainly affect responding habits, but personality also continues to have an enduring influence. (Three figures showing responses are attached.) (HB)