What Is My Teaching Philosophy Quiz
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- It should remain outside the curriculum unless it directly illustrates required subject content
- Students could study it as one optional example without pursuing a shared response
- The class could examine multiple perspectives and consider possible forms of civic participation
- Students should investigate the underlying inequities and design an informed action with affected community voices
- Students accurately understood the required concepts and evidence
- Students clarified their own views and could explain them thoughtfully
- Students evaluated competing perspectives and identified realistic civic options
- Students worked collectively with relevant communities to pursue a well-researched response to injustice
- Identify the content students must receive, then select the clearest way to present it
- Plan the required content first and add a practical activity where it fits
- Set key objectives, then gather student questions to shape part of the learning sequence
- Start with a meaningful problem or experience and design opportunities for inquiry, collaboration, and reflection
What Is My Teaching Philosophy Quiz - Description and methodology of the test
Teachers, teacher candidates, and reflective learners can use the What Is My Teaching Philosophy Quiz to examine how beliefs shape classroom choices. It is useful when planning lessons, reviewing practice, or clarifying what education should accomplish. This teaching philosophy assessment can make broad ideals more concrete by showing how your priorities relate to knowledge, freedom, inquiry, experience, and social purpose.
What This Assessment Explores
This educational philosophy test examines classroom priorities; results show philosophical affinities across five traditions, not teaching skill. These are the dimensions reported in the result:
- Essentialism (0-12) measures structured instruction and shared foundations: Selective affinity (0-4), Moderate affinity (5-8), Strong affinity (9-12).
- Existentialism (0-12) measures freedom, meaning, responsibility, authenticity, and learner choice: Selective affinity (0-4), Moderate affinity (5-8), Strong affinity (9-12).
- Perennialism (0-12) measures enduring questions, influential works, and disciplined reasoning: Selective affinity (0-4), Moderate affinity (5-8), Strong affinity (9-12).
- Progressivism (0-12) measures experiential learning, inquiry, collaboration, and problem-solving: Selective affinity (0-4), Moderate affinity (5-8), Strong affinity (9-12).
- Social Reconstructionism (0-12) measures education focused on injustice, civic life, and social change: Selective affinity (0-4), Moderate affinity (5-8), Strong affinity (9-12).
Methodology and Scientific Basis
Each item presents a classroom or curriculum scenario with four response choices. Across the items, the response choices express differing emphases on direct instruction, personal meaning, enduring knowledge, experiential inquiry, and civic transformation. The teaching philosophy questionnaire therefore produces a comparative self-report profile with five separate scores rather than one winner.
The questionnaire is conceptually consistent with Ryan’s 2008 work on philosophical orientations in teacher education, but it is not that published survey. Its scenarios ask readers to consider planning, discussion, practice, assessment, student autonomy, historical ideas, and public issues. Together, these choices make broad educational commitments visible in concrete classroom decisions.
The result combines response patterns into five scale scores, allowing more than one orientation to show affinity. Exact point contributions should not be inferred from option wording. The displayed bands indicate philosophical alignment rather than teaching effectiveness, so the profile is best read as a structured reflection on priorities rather than a measure of classroom competence.
- Ryan, Thomas G. (2008). “Philosophical homogeneity in pre-service education: A longitudinal survey.” Issues in Educational Research, 18(1), 73-89.
- Ryan, Thomas G. (2008). “Philosophical orientation in pre-service.” Journal of Educational Thought, 42(3), 247-260. 10.55016/ojs/jet.v42i3.52423
- Parkay, Forrest W., and Beverly Hardcastle Stanford. (2001). Becoming a Teacher (5th ed.). Allyn and Bacon.
- Sadker, Myra Pollack, and David Miller Sadker. (1997). Teachers, Schools, and Society (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Updated: