Secondary Stage Student's Self- Concept in Tulkarm Governorate its Relationship with Their Teachers' Educational Practices from the Students' Point of View

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between teachers' educational practices and secondary school students' self-concept from the latter's point of view. To this end, the study raised the following questions: What's the level of secondary school student's self-concept in Tulkarm governorate? What is the degree or secondary school teachers' educational practices from the students' point of view? To answer these two questions, the researcher designed a questionnaire of 107 items; of these 70 items were slated for the self. concept questionnaire distributed among the following domains: behavior, intellectual and school status; physical appearance, external look, anxiety, reputation and popularity, satisfaction and happiness. The second part of the questionnaire, devoted to educational practices, had 37 items distributed among five domains: meeting students' psychological needs; punishment and reward methods; understanding and guiding students; health relations with students, and teacher's behavior in teaching and learning process. The population of the study were 10 th and 11 th literary, scientific and vocational stream students of both sexes in Tulkarm governorate in northern Palestine. In the year 2000/2001, the school population amounted to 3,217 students. The questionnaire was administered to a systematically random sample representing 37% of the study population. The subjects of the study amounted to 1,200 men and women students during first semester of 2000/200 J • After using arithmetic means to calculate the level of secondary school students' self-concept, it was found that the level of self-concept was high on domains of behavior, intellectual and school status, and satisfaction and happiness. However, on the remaining domains, the level of self-concept was averaged, namely the domains of physical appearance, external look, anxiety, and reputation and popularity. The total degree of self-concept was average. The degree of response was 67.66%. By using Wilks-Lambda Test for differences, it was also found that there were statistically significant differences among the high school students' self-concept domains. And to determine between which domains the differences were, the researcher used Sidak Test for dual comparisons among arithmetic averages. Statistically significant differences were found between the domains of behavior and intellectual and school status, in favor of the latter, and between behavior and physical anxiety, reputation and popularity, and satisfaction and happiness in favor of intellectual and school status. There were also statistically significant differences between physical appearance and satisfaction and happiness in favor of satisfaction and happiness. Finally, it was found that there were significant differences between reputation and popularity, and happiness and satisfaction in favor of the latter. However, the other differences were not statistically significant. After using means to measure the degree of educational practices on the five domains, it was found that the degree of educational practices was high on the domains of meeting the students' psychological needs, methods of punishment and reward, understanding and guiding students and health relations with students. However, the high degree of educational practices indicates that there were statistically significant differences among the domain of students' psychological needs and the domains of health relations with students and teacher's behavior in the teaching and learning process in favor of the former and between the teacher's behavior in the teaching and learning process and health relations with students, and methods of punishment and reward in favor of the latter. Other statistically significant differences were found between understanding and guiding students and the domains of health relations with students and teacher's behavior in the -teaching and learning process in favor of the former, The differences among other domains were not statistically significant. After using T-test, no differences were found which might be attributed to grade variable. Moreover, no differences were found on the physical appearance and external look domains between males and females. However, there were statistically significant differences on the rernauung domains and on the total degree of self-concept. The differences were in favor of females on the domains of behavior, intellectual and school status, and reputation and popularity and the total degree of self-concept. Analysis of variance revealed that there were differences on domains of anxiety, reputation and popularity which might be attributed to specialization variable. It was found that there were differences between literary and scientific streams on anxiety domain in favor of the scientific stream, and also between the two streams on domain of popularity and reputation in favor of literary stream students. However, no other statistically significant differences were found among other domains. Further, there were no differences in self-concept which might be attributed to residence variable. However, statistically significant differences in the sel f-concept might be attributed to academic average on behavior domain. There were differences between 90% plus students and the 70-79% students in favor of the former, and between 80% - 89% and 70-79% students in favor of the former. The other differences were found to be not statistically significant. The physical appearance and external look showed differences between 90% plus students and 80-89% ; 70-79% and less than 70% in favor of 80-89%; 70-79% and less than 70%. The other differences were found to be statistically insignificant. Concerning satisfaction and happiness, differences were found between the 90% plus students and less than 700/0 students in favor of the former. The other differences were statistically insignificant. By using T-test, the statistical analysis of teachers' educational practices revealed that there were statistically significant differences on domains of meeting students' psychological needs and understanding and guiding students, (males and females) in favor of males. On the domains of meeting students' psychological needs, understanding and guiding students, teacher's behavior in the learning and teaching process and total degree of educational practices, between 11th and 1th grades, the statistically significant differences were in favor of the Till graders. The One Way Analysis of Variance revealed that there were statistically significant differences, on domain of meeting students' needs, among literary, scientific and vocational streams, in favor of scientific stream. However, there were no statistically significant differences between literary and vocational streams. On the domain of methods of reward and punishment, the differences were found between literary and scientific streams in favor of the latter. Other differences were not found to be statistically significant. On the domain of understanding and guiding students, differences among scientific, literary and vocational streams were found to be statistically significant in favor of scientific stream students. Between literary and vocational stream students, no statistically significant differences were found. On domain of health relations with students, differences, among literary, scientific and vocational stream students were statistically significant and in favor of scientific stream students. No differences of statistical significance were found between literary and vocational stream students. The total degree, among scientific, literary and vocational stream students, was in favor of scientific stream students. However, there were no statistically significant differences between literary and vocational stream students. Place of living variable had no statistically significant difference. The academic average variable revealed that there were statistically significant differences on the domain of meeting students' psychological needs between those who had averages of 90% and more 80-89%, 70-79% and less than 70% in favor of 80-89% students. Differences were also found on the domain of punishment and reward methods among the 90% plus students, 80-89%, 70-79% and less than 70% in favor of the 90% plus students and 80-89% and less than 70% in favor of the less than 70%, 70-79%; and less than 70% in favor of 70- 79% students. On the domain of understanding and guiding students, differences were found among the 90% plus, 80-89%, 70-79% and less than 70% students in favor of the 80-89%, 70-79% and less than 70% students in favor of 70-79%, and the less than 70% in favor of 70-79% students. Further, differences were also found on the domain of health relations with students among the 90% plus, 80-89%, 70-79% and less than 70% students in favor of the 900/0 plus students. However, the other differences were not statistically significant. In addition, on the domain of teacher's behavior in the learning and teaching process, differences were found among the 90% plus, 70-79% and less than 70% in favor of the 90% plus students. However, other differences were found to be statistically insignificant. Finally, there were statistically significant differences, in the total degree of educational practices, among the 90% plus, 80-89%, 70-79% and less than 70% students in favor of the 90% plus students. Other differences were statistically insignificant. In the light of these findings, the researcher has arrived at the following recommendations: 1- Developing distinct style in the teachers behavior and his relationship with his students' leads to a progress in the educational process holding courses for new teachers to show them the most preferable behaviors high school students wish to find in teachers. Veteran teachers need also to renew their spirit of giving and work. 2- It is necessary to take Students' self-concept into consideration at an early age because schools have a great role in cultivating the Students' personality. 3- Developing asupervision plan in schools to take the adolscence stage and it's requirements in the individual's self-concept into consideration.