Curriculum orientations and professional teaching practices reported by Korean secondary school home economics teachers and teacher educators

A descriptive and correlational research design was used to answer six research questions. The purpose in this study was to identify the curriculum orientation and professional teaching practice of Korean secondary school home economics teachers and teacher educators, and to determine the relationship between the curriculum orientation and professional teaching practice of teachers for developing home economics curriculum and changing their curriculum orientation and professional teaching practice.;A mail questionnaire booklet, including a cover letter and three instruments: Individual Curriculum Orientation Profile (ICOP) (Babin, 1979; revised by Cunningham, 1992); Professional Teaching Practice (PTP) (Chatraphorn, 1989; revised by Laster, 1996); and Personal and Professional Characteristics Questionnaire (PPCQ), was used to survey randomly selected home economics teachers and all home economics teacher educators. Respondents were 268 home economics teachers representing 5% of the population (n = 5,250) and 46 teacher educators, 55% of the population (n = 83). Reliability coefficients were.91 for ICOP and.93 for PTP.;Both home economics teachers (38.06%) and teacher educators (50%) agreed that the cognitive process was their predominant curriculum orientation. Customary-instrumental practice was the predominant type of teaching practice used by home economics teachers (57.14%) and teacher educators (64.44%). The two groups were significantly different on the academic rationalism orientation (...