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Article published In:
Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 12:2 (2022) ► pp.292–317

Uncovering the structure of metaphorical lay theories of teaching II

What do different teaching metaphors imply about students?

| Duke University
| SUNY Purchase College
| Duke University

Metaphor plays a critical role in how people communicate and conceptualize complex activities like teaching. For example, a professor might be described as molding impressionable students (teacher as a sculptor), or helping students grow (teacher as a gardener). Prior research has largely focused on what metaphors like these communicate about the role of teachers, but many teaching metaphors simultaneously describe the role of students (e.g., students as clay; students as plants). We aimed to extend previous work with a recently developed method for mapping the structure of metaphorical concepts to examine the metaphorical entailments associated with students, rather than teachers. We presented participants recruited online with one of four common metaphors for the teacher-student relationship and found that different metaphors consistently bring to mind distinct, coherent clusters of student attributes and different intuitions about teacher and student responsibility and power – a finding we replicated with a larger sample and pre-registered analysis. Together with previous findings, this research suggests that teaching metaphors can efficiently capture and communicate structured beliefs about both teacher and student attributes.

Keywords: metaphors, lay theories, concepts, teaching, students
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Metaphors for teaching: Popular metaphors and their entailments
    • 1.2What about students?
    • 1.3The present studies
  • 2.Study 1: What are the student entailments of different metaphors for the teacher-student relationship?
    • 2.1Methods
      • 2.1.1Participants
      • 2.1.2Measures and procedure
    • 2.2Results
      • 2.2.1How do student characteristics vary across metaphors?
      • 2.2.2Are different metaphors associated with different intuitions about responsibility?
      • 2.2.3Are different metaphors associated with different intuitions about a teacher’s power to influence?
      • 2.2.4What was the relative popularity of the different metaphors?
    • 2.3Discussion
  • 3.Study 2: Replicating our findings
    • 3.1Methods
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Measures and procedure
    • 3.2Results and Discussion
      • 3.2.1How do student characteristics vary across metaphors?
      • 3.2.2Are different metaphors associated with different intuitions about responsibility?
      • 3.2.3Are different metaphors associated with different intuitions about a teacher’s power to influence?
      • 3.2.4What was the relative popularity of the different metaphors?
  • 4.General discussion
    • 4.1Metaphorical Conceptions of College Students
    • 4.2Limitations
    • 4.3Implications for Research and Practice
    • 4.4Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 April 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.21008.har
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