Teaching styles and psychosocial development among school teachers in Hong Kong : a mixed-method design

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to investigate whether teachers’ teaching styles, based on the theory of mental self-government (Sternberg, 1988), could be explained by their identity according to Erikson’s (1950) theory of psychosocial development. The research also aimed to explore the variables underlying the association between these two constructs by the use of a mixedmethod design. To achieve the above purposes, three studies were conducted. Study 1 (N = 93) was a preliminary study conducted among elementary and secondary school teachers to explore the association of teaching styles and psychosocial development, measured by the Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory (TSTI; Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1993) and the Measures of Psychosocial Development (MPD; Hawley, 1988), respectively. Study 2 was conducted a year later with a larger teacher sample (N = 254), assessed by the same aforementioned instruments. In Study 3, follow up semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the beliefs and perspectives of teachers on their use of teaching styles and identity formation. Teachers from Study 2 who were identified with high Type I (N = 4) and high Type II (N = 4) were selected to take part. Results of the quantitative data revealed that teaching styles that are characterised by autonomy, creativity-generating and high cognitive complexity (i.e. Type I teaching styles) positively contributed to psychosocial development; teaching styles that denote conformity, higher levels of structure and cognitive simplicity (i.e. Type II teaching styles) negatively contributed to psychosocial development among teachers. Moreover, interview data revealed a similar developmental pattern among the Type I teachers, who encountered past events that signified a sequence of challenges, breakthroughs, an exploration of identity, and renewed perspectives towards their life missions, which contributed to their choice of teaching styles; among the Type II teachers, a lack of exploration was reported throughout their developmental years, which contributed to their norm-favouring styles in teaching and ambiguous self-concepts. Results of the current research supported the theoretical frameworks and were in agreement with previous empirical findings. This research pioneered the investigation of the psychosocial development among teachers, and rendered important implications at both the theoretical and practical levels.