Attributions and emotional competence: why some teachers experience close relationships with disruptive students (and others don’t)

ABSTRACT

Disruptive student behaviour is a major concern for teachers, causing classroom conflict and emotional fatigue. Whilst student-teacher closeness is known to reduce student aggression and improve behaviour, it is not yet known why some teachers experience close relationships with disruptive students and others do not. This qualitative study therefore examined relational closeness between elementary teachers and disruptive students in Sydney, Australia. Using a teacher speech sample task, we identified eight disruptive students with ‘complicated’ student-teacher relationships: high in both closeness and conflict. Eleven classroom teachers and seven support teachers each spoke about their relationships with the eight students. Speech samples were analysed using an inductive content analysis to determine characteristics that may facilitate relational closeness in spite of student-teacher conflict. Findings revealed two characteristics of teachers’ speech that guided relational closeness: attributions for disruptive behaviour and emotional competence. Not all teachers, however, described a close relationship. These findings provide new directions for interventions that aim to improve student-teacher relationship quality.     

Checklist for assessment of science teachers and its use in a science preservice teacher education project

The purposes of this study were to develop instruments to assess the nature of student-teacher relations and classroom activities, and the personal adjustment of preservice science teachers in two concurrent programs and to see if the two groups differed significantly in the three areas measured by the Checklist for Assessment of Science Teachers (CAST). The CAST was completed by university supervisors, cooperating teachers, and classroom pupils in terms of 92 secondary student teachers at the completion of three student teaching quarters. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to detect differences between treatment groups. The major differences between the two groups of science student teachers were the types of classroom activities used and the nature of their student-teacher (teacher-pupil) relations.     

Factors Underlying Unpredicted Scholastic Achievement of College Freshmen

This study examined the relationship between classroom seating preference and student personality characteristics. Previous research has revealed front and center seating positions are characterized by high student-teacher interaction. In this study it was suggested that one explanation for the high interaction is that students with similar personality characteristics prefer to sit in the central seats. The 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire was administered to 285 undergraduates in two treatment conditions: preference seating and random seating. Analyses of variance and t tests were performed on the data. The research hyotheses were partially supported in that several personality factors were significantly different for those who chose action seats and those who did not.     

Finding Voice: Debating in Secondary School English

ABSTRACT

This essay explores the place of debating, talk and group work in the Secondary English classroom. It discusses the ways in which pupils in one student teacher’s year 7 class thrive in the dialogic classroom against the backdrop of curricular and attitudinal change. It considers the importance of talk and debate amongst the ‘communities of practice’ in schools and universities in empowering teachers to challenge and navigate policies, theories and practices. In exploring the role of play, student experiences and different forms of talk, this essay highlights their vital importance in relation to teaching and learning in English and in the formation of English teachers.     

Classroom talk: co-constructing a ‘difficult student’

Background: Research on teacher–student relationships has focused logically on classroom talk. Investigations of classroom talk range from broad consideration of the structures of such talk to a somewhat narrower focus on the interpersonal dimensions of such talk, and their consequences for student achievement and motivation.

Purpose: This study explores a relationship that the teacher defined as ‘difficult’, and attempts to understand, through analysis of classroom talk, how the complexities of full-class discussion contributed to the manifestation of a difficult relationship.

Sample: The analysis focuses primarily on one teacher and one student in a 31-student, grade seven (age 12–13) English/Language Arts class. The study was conducted in a seventh-grade language arts/social studies block class in Midwest Middle School (a pseudonym), a middle school of around 700 students in a mid-sized suburban community in the Midwest, USA.

Design and methods: The study draws from nine weeks of participant observation, isolating classroom episodes between the teacher and the specific student with whom she had a ‘difficult’ relationship. Interactions were transcribed and then analysed, using a mixed approach which drew upon research methods from conversation analysis (CA), classroom discourse analysis and Goffman's discussion of participation frameworks.

Results: Analysis suggested that the difficulty of the relationship between teacher and student was less the result of particular behaviours on the part of either participant and more the result of complications of interaction in full-class discussions.

Conclusions: In effect, the teacher, the particular student and the other students cooperated to create a difficult relationship. Despite that difficulty, however, other decisions the instructor made in structuring the classroom environment mitigated those complications, allowing the student to feel some success in the class and to continue to attempt to participate successfully in full-class interactions.     

Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs for teaching math: Relations with teacher and student outcomes

Social cognitive theory posits that teacher self-efficacy beliefs should be related to not only their own well-being outcomes but also classroom processes and student outcomes in the general ecology of the classroom environment. However, little research has directly examined the associations of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs with these teacher and student-level outcomes simultaneously. The present study proposes and tests an integrative model of the relations of teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching math with their job satisfaction and student math achievement both directly and indirectly via interaction quality as a critical dimension of the quality of classroom processes. Additionally, student level relational and motivational predictors of math achievement, including individual perceptions of student-teacher interaction quality and math self-concept, are included per the ecology of the classroom environment. Based on data from over 6000 4th grade students and 450 teachers, results of multilevel structural equation modeling revealed that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs for teaching math were positively associated with teachers’ job satisfaction and class levles of math achievement and interaction quality. At the individual student level, individual levels of math self-concept were positively associated with math achievement, and individual perceptions of interaction quality were positively associated with math self-concept. However, a negative association between residualized interindividual perceptions of interaction quality and math achievement was observed.     

The Utilization of Psychoanalytic Concepts for Assessing Classroom Transaction

Abstract

The problem was to determine the usefulness of psychoanalytic theory for analyzing classroom verbal transaction. Five concepts : interpretation, transference, counter-transference, resistance, and discoverance were formulated from psychoanalytic theory. A curriculum class of 19 students was recorded and the verbal interaction was classified by the author and another researcher according to indicators developed for these concepts.

Reliability of the raters varied from 84 percent to 92 percent. Validity evidence is based upon the fact that all the verbal interaction of a classroom was able to be classified according to categories formulated from psychoanalytic theory.

It is clear from this analysis that classroom transaction may be a complexly related intellectual and emotional activity. Approximately 25 percent of the verbal interaction consists of resistance, transference and counter-transference. Classroom interaction is not emotionally neutral verbal interaction. It is also clear that classroom activity can be analyzed from concepts drawn from psychoanalytic theory.     

The link between student-perceived teacher talk and student enjoyment,anxiety and discursive engagement in the classroom

This study seeks to understand the emotional connection of teachers' academically productive talk (APT) with student learning from the students' perspective. Using a sample of 2,225 students (N_{7th grade} = 1,146 and N_{8th grade} = 1,079) from 16 middle schools in a city of China, we investigate the relationship between students' perceptions of their teachers’ APT, student emotions (enjoyment and anxiety) and their discursive engagement with others in the mathematics classroom. Results from structural equation modelling and mediation analysis show that after controlling for gender, family resources and mathematics achievement, student-perceived teacher APT was positively associated with their discursive engagement with classmates. Furthermore, student enjoyment and anxiety in class mediated the relationship between student-perceived teacher APT and student discursive engagement with classmates. Multi-group analysis revealed that the model was invariant across genders and grades, indicating that the associations were applicable to male and female students as well as to seventh and eighth graders. These findings shed light on the emotional relationship of teacher APT with the discursive engagement of their students. Although prior research observes a positive relationship between teacher productive classroom talk and student discursive engagement primarily through classroom observations and teacher reflections, this study provides evidence from the students’ perspective and highlights the mediating role of student emotions in the relationship.     

A Study of The Effectiveness of A Summer Remedial Course In English For College Freshmen

Abstract

Elementary school teachers (N= 260)employed by a suburban St. Louis school district responded to the Pupil Control Ideology Form (PCI). Twenty teachers were selected to comprise two experimental groups. Groups were determined by high and low scores on the PCI. The investigation was undertaken to determine if the pupil control ideology of teachers differentially affects their operational behavior in the classroom. There was no significant difference among the proportions of indirect verbal behavior, direct verbal behavior, or student verbal behavior. However, the humanistic and custodial Ss differed in the frequency of use of verbal behaviors categorized as (1) accepting and developing student ideas (3-3 cell); (2) lecturing, giving facts or opinions (5-5 cell); and (3) student initiated verbal behaviors (9-9 cell). In each case, the humanistic group utilized significantly more verbal behaviors classified as indirect than did the custodial group.     

Ideological composition of the classroom: testing the effects of polarization on perceptions of open classroom climate among students in five countries

Abstract

This quantitative study tests the relationship between ideological classroom composition and perceptions of open classroom climate. Using data from the 2016 International Education Association’s International Civic and Citizenship Study, the study uses latent class analysis and multilevel regression modelling across five countries. First, latent class analysis identified students as low or high socioeconomic status. To assess ideological polarization, the gap between support for gender equality and ethnic rights was calculated between groups. Finally, a multilevel regression model measured the relationship between ideological polarization and students’ perception of open classroom climate. Across three countries, results found negative associations between increased polarization and perception of an open classroom climate. Additional testing identified that polarization modified the relationship between student socioeconomic status and perceptions of open classroom climate in Croatia.     

An analytical framework for analyzing student teachers’ verbal interaction in learning situations

This paper focuses on the study of student teachers’ verbal interaction in learning situations generated in a classroom corresponding to a mathematics methods course. In our work, we incorporate two ‘ways of seeing’ a group: as an entity or as a set composed of individualities. We present an analytical framework that considers two dimensions connected with these ways of seeing the group and four variables corresponding to these dimensions, through which the verbal interaction between student teachers in a group can be considered. As regards the first dimension, the variables included are specific language, cognitive processing, social processing; the second dimension considers the relational variable. We describe each of the different variables that form the framework, and how this framework allows us to analyse the verbal interaction in three groups of student teachers. We believe that building analytic frameworks that allow the study of verbal interaction in detail is worthwhile in the educational field due to their important role in the analysis of learning-teaching processes.     

Humanizing and conducive to learning: an adolescent students’ perspective on the central attributes of positive relationships with teachers

The aim of this qualitative study was to identify central attributes of positive relationships with teachers from the adolescent students’ perspectives that could help delineate the meaning of student–teacher connectedness while exploring to what extent its main attributes were similar or different in England and Spain. As part of the EU-funded project “Well-being among European youth: The contribution of student-teacher relationships in the secondary-school population”, we conducted focus groups in England and Spain with 42 students aged 11 to 18 years. Using a bottom-up approach for thematic analysis, we identified two main attributes that were linked to positive relationships with teachers as seen by our participating students from England and Spain: humanizing relationships, in which the students are acknowledged and respected as individuals and feel understood and supported by their teachers; and relationships conducive to learning, encompassing aspects such as a perception of a genuine commitment with their learning on the part of the teachers, a positive classroom management, and teachers motivating students. This study contributes to the conceptualization of student–teacher connectedness and provides useful insights for teachers and educational professionals. In addition, the study findings pointed to the importance of power and authority dynamics in student–teacher relationships that foster or undermine connectedness, and they revealed some cross-cultural differences in the role of emotions in the class, two important aspects which deserve further attention in future research.

     

Boys and their reading: Conceptionsof young people about the successof the full on magazine

ABSTRACT

Design and technology is a relatively new subject in the National Curriculum for England and Wales. This paper presents a theoretical consideration of design and technology and argues that it has the potential to provide a classroom context which encourages critical thinking and analytical competence in pupils. This claim is based on the view that design and technology requires a type of classroom interaction that is different from that most commonly practised in our schools, both primary and secondary. Learning in design and technology depends upon collaboration between teacher and pupils, and between the pupils themselves, and as such is ideally suited to the development of collaborative learning, a method of learning which encourages decision making after a period of critical enquiry and experimentation. We further argue that the successful implementation of the design and technology curriculum hinges upon the development of classroom talk, because talk plays the central role in the development of critical thinking, reflection and evaluation, all important features of design and technology.     

Teacher–student interaction in contemporary science classrooms: is participation still a question of gender?†

We show that boys still have a greater access to the space for interaction in science classrooms, which is unexpected since in Sweden today girls perform better in these subjects than boys. Results from video-recorded verbal communication, referred to here as interaction, show that the distribution of teacher–student interaction in the final year of lower secondary school follows the same patterns as in the 1980s. The interaction space for all kinds of talk continues to be distributed according to the two-thirds rule for communication in science classrooms as described by previous research. We also show that the overall interaction space in science classrooms has increased for both boys and girls when talk about science alone is considered. Another finding which follows old patterns is that male teachers still address boys more often than girls. This holds true both for general talk and for talk about science. If a more even distribution of teacher–student interaction is desirable, these results once again need to be considered. More research needs to be undertaken before the association between girls’ attitudes and interest in science in terms of future career choice and the opportunity to participate in teacher–student interaction is more clearly understood.     

Measuring Attitudinal Outcomes of Child Psychology with The Parental Attitude Research Instrument

Abstract

The assumption that laboratory training in specific teaching skills is directly related to classroom performance was tested for a sample of 32 elementary student teachers. Eight to 20 weeks after laboratory training of experimental groups and testing to verify initial training effect" samples of teaching performance of all Ss were recorded in the student teaching classrooms. These recordings were coded for exhibition of target skills by application of a low-inference category instrument which yielded scores representing rates of occurrence of the target skills per minute of teacher talk. Using a two-way analysis of variance, a statistical comparison of the rates of exhibition of the target skills by the experimental and control groups revealed no significant differences. These results are discussed in terms of the possible causes of such a lack of significant relationships between groups.     

Teacher knowledge and discourse control: Quantitative evidence from novice biology teachers' classrooms

This article describes the effects of science teacher subject-matter knowledge on classroom discourse at the level of individual utterances. It details one of three parallel analyses conducted in a year-long study of language in the classrooms of four new biology teachers. The conceptual framework of the study predicts that when teaching unfamiliar subject matter, teachers use a variety of discourse strategies to constrain student talk to a narrowly circumscribed topic domain. This article includes the results of an utterance-by-utterance analysis of teacher and student talk in a 30-lesson sample of science instruction. Data are broken down by classroom activity (e.g., lecture, laboratory, group work) for several measures, including mean duration of utterances, domination of the speaking floor by the teacher, frequency of teacher questioning, cognitive level of teacher questions, and student verbal participation. When teaching unfamiliar topics, the four teachers in this study tended to talk more often and for longer periods of time, ask questions frequently, and rely heavily on low cognitive level questions. The rate of student questions to the teacher varied with classroom activity. In common classroom communicative settings, student questions were less common when the teacher was teaching unfamiliar subject matter. The implications of these findings include a suggestion that teacher knowledge may be an important unconsidered variable in research on the cognitive level of questions and teacher wait-time.     

Impact of Verbal Praise on College Students' Time Spent on Homework

Abstract

Verbal praise, a type of external reward addressed in many theories of motivation, has often been recognized as an important mediator in the development of students' motivation in the classroom. However, the lack of consistently replicated findings regarding students' reactions to verbal praise, combined with the paucity of research on post-secondary students, prompted the current investigation. Using an experimental design, the author found that college students exposed to well-administered verbal praise by a professor spent significantly more time doing homework than did students who received no verbal praise. Characteristics of effective verbal praise that contributed to the results, the potential usefulness of verbal praise as an enhancer of student motivation, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Mapping the territory: Research methods and approach

Abstract

This article describes the development of an intervention for Rory, a thirteen year old male student diagnosed with verbal dyspraxia. The intervention took place in a secondary classroom. The stages in which the consultant to the classroom engaged in the development and delivery of a short‐term intervention are presented. The intervention involved the use of visual cues as a scaffold to writing and the provision of immediate feedback through conferencing. The student was also encouraged to use self monitoring. The aim of the intervention was to improve writing skills, demonstrated by increased sentence length and complexity. Significant progress was made by the student during the trial of the intervention. The process used by the consultant ‐ examining the situation and developing an intervention to specifically match the need of the student, has the potential to provide a model for those engaged in the development of responsive intervention in inclusive settings.