Relationship of Role Preference to Teaching Effectiveness During Student Teaching

This study was designed to provide information regarding the relationship be tween role preference and teaching effectiveness of home economics student teachers. Usable data was obtained from 45 home economics student teachers, cooperating classroom teachers, and university supervisors at nine universities in Texas. Before and after the student teaching experience, student teachers com pleted an instrument designed to measure role preferences. Cooperating teachers completed the instrument once during the semester. At the end of the student teaching experience, cooperating teachers and university supervisors rated the student teachers on teaching effectiveness and on overall teaching performance. A significant relationship existed between preference for the Advice‐Information Giver role and teaching effectiveness ratings given by cooper ating teachers. The more a student showed a preference for this role, the higher she was rated by her cooperating teacher. During student teaching, student teachers became significantly more oriented to the roles of Disciplinarian and Referred although in order of preference these were the two least preferred roles. By the end of student teaching, student teachers were also significantly more oriented toward the role of Disciplinarian than were their cooperating teachers.