The Teaching Perspectives Inventory measures teachers' orientations to their roles as managers of the learning process. The Inventory yields five alternative points of view (perspectives) on teaching by asking structured questions about teachers' actions in the teaching setting, their intentions how they organize the learning situation, and their beliefs about fundamental principles of teaching and learning.

The TPI is the result of two decades of teaching and research in Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States. Over the years, more than 250 teachers in vastly different settings have been interviewed, observed, evaluated, and re-interviewed. Each teacher was asked what it meant "to teach": including questions about learning, motivation, the goals of education, their role in the process, the nature of the learners they taught, the influence of context on their teaching - and a great many more questions.

Their answers revealed much about their experiences as coach, friend, parent, expert, or mentor in both formal and informal learning contexts.

Collectively, their responses revealed five qualitatively different perspectives on teaching which form the conceptual backbone of the Teaching perspectives Inventory.

Subsequently, these different views on teaching have been translated into a 45 item questionnaire which yields numerical scores on each of the five perspectives.

Once you have answered the TPI questions, your scores will be automatically profiled and you can print off your profile sheet.  As well, additional brief descriptions of what your scores mean are available for you to view and print out.