Fark and Johnson (1997) report on a survey of professors of education taken in summer of 1997 and conclude that there is a large disparity between the views of education professors and those of the general public. A sample of 5324 education professors was drawn from a population of about 34,000 education professors in colleges and universities across the country. A letter was mailed to each professor in the sample in May 1997, inviting him or her to participate and to provide a number where he or she could be reached during the summer for a telephone interview. During the summer, a total of 778 interviews were completed by telephone. An additional 122 interviews were obtained by calling professors in the sample at work in August and September. To attempt to minimize question order effects, the survey was pretested and some questions were asked in random order.
Respondents were asked which in a series of qualities were “absolutely essential” to be imparted to prospective teachers: 84% of the respondents selected having teachers who are “life-long learners and constantly updating their skills”; 41%, having teachers “trained in pragmatic issues of running a classroom such as managing time and preparing lesson plans”; 19%, for teachers to “stress correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation”; and 12%, for teachers to “expect students to be neat, on time, and polite”.