Abstract:
Teachers are moral agents who inevitably transmit values to their students, be this overtly or covertly. In Australia, teachers are increasingly expected to play a key role in students’ character development. Such values education is thought to go hand in hand with quality teaching. Indeed, values have been shown to impact on students’ goal priorities and achievement motivation. They are also hypothesised to be important in fostering student engagement. Therefore, a good understanding of values endorsed by teachers as part of each classroom’s hidden curriculum could benefit student outcomes. However, there is little quantitative data about values which Australian teachers actually aim to communicate as important. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ value priorities by means of a high school teacher sample from Far North Queensland. Three research questions guided the study’s methodology: 1. Which values do high school teachers in Far North Queensland endorse? 2. Do value priorities differ between teachers with different demographic background? Data was collected with a modified version of Schwartz’s (1994) Portrait Values Questionnaire, measuring the relative importance of nine values on four value dimensions: (1) openness to change, including stimulation, creativity and independence, (2) self-transcendence, including social concern and benevolence, (3) self-enhancement, including hedonism and power, and (4) conservation, including humility and conformity. The sample comprised 102 high school teachers working in state, independent and Catholic schools in the Cairns region. Overall, teachers tended to endorse self-transcendence and openness-to-change values most. These values are thought to promote self-growth and positive achievement goals of students. Values of the self-enhancement dimension, in particular power, were endorsed least. Teachers’ value hierarchy appeared similar to value hierarchies found in larger samples from teachers across 56 nations. Specific value preferences were associated with gender, age, teaching experience and teaching area. The findings of this study allow educators to reflect on and evaluate endorsed values. Implications on quality teaching and student outcomes are discussed.