Comparing secondary teachers on logical consistency in educational philosophy and flexibility in teaching

This study of secondary inservice teachers was designed to measure the possible relationship between the consistency with which they logically relate philosophical views (theory) to educational ideas (practice) and their teaching flexibility (as demonstrated in actual teaching practice).Using the GNC Scale of Logical Consistency of Ideas about Education, two groups of teachers were identified, i.e., those who were logically consistent in their ideas about education and those who were not so. Each of the logically consistent teachers was found to be so within an empirical, rather than rationalistic framework of educational theory.Flexibility was ascertained by data gathered through the use of the Flanders Verbal Interaction System. Each teacher tape recorded his/her own classes and then completed a Flanders' Matrix.The Mann-Whitney U Test was used as a basis for the statistical analysis. Neither group was found to be either more flexible or to exhibit more indirect behavior within the classroom, i.e., being logically consistent in ideas about education (as measured by the GNC Scale) was not found to be related to being flexible in teaching (as measured by the FVIS).