Metaphors for Teaching: How Health and Physical Education Teachers Describe Their Roles.

One method of determining teachers' beliefs about teaching is through investigation of their personal teaching metaphors. Delaware health and physical education teachers (N=391) were surveyed with 104 responding (26.6 percent) to "A teacher is like...". Additionally, two factors were also explored: grade level taught and accumulated teaching experience. Seven metaphor categories emerged with parent/protector and group leader predominating (totaling 69 percent of responses). Results indicated that parent/protector was predominant in elementary and middle school and for teachers with 1-25 years of experience; group leader was dominant in high school and college and for teachers with over 25 years experience. It is concluded that an understanding of one's personal metaphor for teaching would assist in reflection about one's practice, which would provide potential for more effective teaching. (Contains 38 references.) (ND)