Images of school through metaphor development and validation of a questionnaire

Abstract

People’s images of the world and parts of it are important influences on their behaviour in school and elsewhere. Metaphors can be used as tools to enable school leaders and others to gain some insight into these images, and “Images of school through metaphor” (ISM) is a questionnaire, consisting of 26 metaphors, which can be employed to this end. The development of ISM in its actual and ideal forms involved extensive field testing. ISM was used in a large study and the resulting data were subjected to a number of tests to assess further the validity of the instrument. Six clusters of metaphors were identified. ISM is simple, economic, easy to use and is sufficiently valid and reliable for use with teachers in schools, and its potential as a workshop stimulus appears to be considerable.

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