Personal and Professional Needs of Technology Teachers

In 1987, the Research Committee of the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) initiated a study of the personal and professional needs of technology teachers. The Committee felt that the planning of educational programs for preservice and inservice technology teachers should be based on their needs, both personal and professional. Their rationale was that if teachers' needs were not met, teacher performance and educational effectiveness would suffer. Some needs can be addressed with educational solutions, others with changes in management, and still others by looking at factors of the teachers' lives that lie outside the professional arena. This needs assessment was organized on the basis of extrinsic and intrinsic factors in the workplace of the technology teacher.