Teachers’ self-concept : finding main factors and clusters by EDA models

Abstract

The self-concept has been considered as a very important dimension onteacher’s personality, practice and development (MARKUS; WURF, 1987;SIMÕES, 2001). The present research concerns a sample of 281 teachersof Natural Science of the Third Cycle of Basic Education from Portugalthat responded to the I.C.A.C. – Self-Concept Clinical Inventory (VAZSERRA,1986). In the analysis of the questionnaires different multivariatedata analysis methods have been used. This paper describes some resultsissued from correspondence analysis and hierarchical clustering modelsbased on the affinity coefficient. The results obtained: 1) confirm theimportance of two general main factors / types which are present in selfconcept:social acceptance and self-efficiency; 2) characterise these mainfactors when teachers’ clinical self-concept is concerned and 3) show howdeterminant these factors are for the building of self-concept that allow us to differentiate teachers.