Assessments »Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession
Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession (PTaP)

Developed by Wendy K. Adams, Taylor Plantt, Heather Taffe, Monica Plisch

Purpose To assess student perceptions about grade 7-12 math and science teaching as a profession.
Format Pre/post, Multiple-choice, Agree/disagree
Duration 10 min
Focus Beliefs / Attitudes (Personal Enjoyment, As a Career Choice, Others Support Me Teaching, My Department Values and Encourages, My Department Supports Me Teaching, Employee benefits and Stability, Teaching is Scientific, Nurturer, Back Up Plan, All Students Can Learn, I would if ...)
Level Upper-level, Intermediate, Intro college, High school

My department would be proud if I became a Grade 7-12 teacher.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Agree

I would become a Grade 7-12 teacher if the pay were equal to my other career options.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Neutral
  4. Agree
  5. Strongly Agree
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PTaP Implementation Guide

Everything you need to know about implementing the PTaP in your class.

PTaP: Developer's website
S. Logan, J. Breakall, R. Pearson III, and W. Adams, College faculty support for grade 7-12 teaching careers: survey results and comparisons to student perceptions, presented at the Physics Education Research Conference 2020, Virtual Conference, 2020.
RESEARCH VALIDATION
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Silver Validation
This is the second highest level of research validation, corresponding to at least 5 of the validation categories below.

Research Validation Summary

Based on Research Into:

  • Student thinking

Studied Using:

  • Student interviews
  • Expert review
  • Appropriate statistical analysis

Research Conducted:

  • At multiple institutions
  • By multiple research groups
  • Peer-reviewed publication

The statements on the PTaP were developed based on expert feedback on topics the developers found valuable. Students were interviewed about the statements, experts gave feedback on the statements, and they were revised. Additional students were interviewed about the revised statements. The PTaP was given to large numbers of students, and an item analysis and factor analysis were completed. Expert responses to the questions were collected, and experts gave feedback on the data and factor naming. The PTaP has been given to over 2000 students at over 40 institutions. The results have been published in one peer-reviewed publication. 

References

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Download the PTaP answer key.

Typical Results

To identify those who want to teach, those who chose either agree or strongly agree on the statement "I want to become a grade 7–12 teacher" were combined. For those who do not want to teach, students who chose disagree or strongly disagree with this statement were combined. If a student chose neutral, they were not included in this analysis. 

All scores are % agreement with what the experts identified as positive and accurate perceptions of the profession.

The most recent version of the PTaP, version 2, was released in 2017.