An Investigation of the Concept of Teacher Among Prospective Teachers through Metaphor Analysis

Abstract This study examines and classifies the metaphors that prospective teachers formulated to describe the concept of "teacher". 485 male (39.7%) and 737 female (60.3%) teacher candidates (n = 1222) participated in the study. Specifically, the following questions guided this study: (1) What metaphors do prospective teachers use to describe the concept of "teacher"? (2) What conceptual categories can be derived from these metaphorical images? (3) How do these themes differ across participants' program type and gender? Participants completed the prompt "A teacher is like . because . " by focusing on only one metaphor to indicate their conceptualization of teaching and learning. The data were analyzed both qualitatively (i.e, inductive analysis) and quantitatively (i.e., chi-square test). According to the results, 111 valid personal metaphors and 10 main conceptual categories, based on the participants' metaphorical images, were identified. Also, significant differences were detected between participants' gender and program type with regard to the six dominant conceptual themes. The study concludes that metaphor is a powerful research tool in gaining insight into prospective teachers' professional thinking about teaching and learning. Key Words Prospective Teachers; Images of Teaching and Learning; Metaphor Analysis. In the last two decades, mostly inspired by the work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980), a "cognitive theory of metaphor" has evolved, which considers metaphors as mental constructs that shape human thinking about the world and reality. From the standpoint of the cognitive theory, metaphors act as powerful mental models through which people understand their world by relating complex phenomena to something previously experienced and concrete. And it is this process of building linkages between two dissimilar ideas (the known and the abstract) or the projection of one schema (the source domain of the metaphor) onto another schema (the target domain of the metaphor) that makes a metaphor an effective cognitive device. In this sense, metaphors allow one to see something as something else by making one's mind move itself from a way of understanding to another. Using the popular movie "The Matrix" as a point of reference, for example, Cook-Sather (2003) discusses two main metaphors that, the author thinks, have dominated the notions and practices of formal schooling in the United States since early in its history. They are "education as production" and "education as cure", both of which characterize schools as forms of social control and cast students in a dependent role as either a raw material to be manufactured or a diseased creature in need of remedy. The overarching metaphor of "education as production", for instance, generates a whole set of associated metaphors such as "school as a factory", "teacher as a factory worker", "curriculum as an assembly line", and "student as a product". Again, the root metaphor of "education as cure" also formulates a set of related metaphors such as "school as a hospital", "curriculum as a prescription", "teacher as a doctor", and "student as a sick patient". And within these two conceptual frameworks, there is no incentive to attend to whether or not learning is meaningful and satisfying for the students. What is even more disturbing, according to the author, is that most educators have not yet succeeded in freeing their minds sufficiently to embrace or imagine other metaphors of teaching and learning to live by. Based on this understanding, the author goes on to argue that educators must free their minds to seek other metaphors for education, and, specifically, they must "seek or create metaphors to support students in freeing their own minds" (p. 948). Purpose The present study was conducted within the framework of Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) "cognitive theory of metaphor". The study is based on the assumption that if we (teacher educators) examine our teacher trainees' personal metaphors about teaching and learning, we may be able to gain a good understanding of how prospective teachers in different socio-cultural backgrounds see themselves, their students, and their work (i. …