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Students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style
¹eaching and ¹eacher Education, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 607—617, 1998 ( 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain. 0742-051X/98 $19.00#0.00
PII: S0742-051X(98)00011–0
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHER INTERPERSONAL STYLE: THE FRONT OF THE CLASSROOM AS THE TEACHER’S STAGE JAN VAN TARTWIJK, MIEKE BREKELMANS and THEO WUBBELS IVLOS (Institute of Education), Utrecht University, PO Box 80127, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands
DARRELL L. FISHER and BARRY J. FRASER SMEC (Science and Mathematics Education Centre), Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U 1987, Perth WA 6001, Australia
Abstract—In previous research, associations were shown between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and variables such as student outcomes and problems with order in the classroom. In the study described in this paper, associations are investigated between these students’ perceptions and judges’ ratings of the interpersonal aspect of videotaped teacher behaviour. Judges only saw one minute of videotaped teacher behaviour during either whole class teaching or individual seatwork. Strong correlations were established between students’ perceptions and judges’ ratings of teacher behaviour during whole class teaching. No significant correlations were found between students’ perceptions and judges’ ratings of teacher behaviour during individual seatwork. It is argued that students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style are primarily formed when the teacher is in front of the classroom. At those moments a working climate is created that lasts for the whole lesson and beyond. ( 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
In their ‘‘That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Like a Teacher’’, Weber and Mitchell (1995) describe students’ and teachers’ images of teachers using an analysis of drawings of teachers. They write: Even a cursory analysis of drawings done by children and teachers reveals the persistent and pervasive presence of traditional images of teaching as transmission of knowledge from all-knowing teacher into empty vessel students. Reminiscent of Goodlad’s (1984) study of over 1000 American schools, the typical teacher portrayed in the pictures drawn by both teachers and children, was a white woman pointing or expounding, standing in front of a blackboard or desk. (...) In reflecting and commenting on the pictures they drew, many prospective teachers became aware of the power that past experience and stereotypes seem to have on them. They expressed, often with consternation, their ambivalence in relation to the dominant transmission images of teaching culturally embedded in the teaching profession. (pp. 28—29)
What does this culturally embedded image of the role of the teacher mean for classroom prac-
tice? What, for instance, are the implications for teacher-students communication in classrooms if students’ perceptions of the teacher role are based on the mental image of a teacher standing in front of a blackboard, pointing and expounding? Walberg (1976) emphasises the importance of students’ perceptions, because they mediate the influence of the learning environment on student outcomes. Brekelmans and her colleagues (Brekelmans, 1989; Brekelmans, Wubbels & Levy, 1993) found that students who perceive the interpersonal style of their teacher as relatively dominant, have relatively high scores on standardised tests on cognitive performance. They also found that students who perceive their teacher as relatively ‘close’ to the students, score relatively high on questionnaires measuring their motivation for the subject and the lessons. Cre´ton, Wubbels and Hooymayers (1989) identified students’ perceptions of teacher
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interpersonal style as one of the most important indicators for problems with order in the classroom. Veenman (1984) showed that many of the problems faced by beginning teachers are related to classroom communication processes, i.e. establishing and maintaining ‘order’ in the classroom. In the study described in this article, we investigate the importance of the mental image of the teacher in front of the classroom for students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style. We compare associations between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and ratings of teacher behaviour during whole class teaching and during individual seatwork. The outcome of this comparison may have implications for, for instance, a teacher educator trying to provide assistance to a teacher who is coping with problems with order in the classroom. Should this teacher educator focus primarily on the behaviour in front of the classroom or should he or she also consider the teacher’s interaction with individual students in the classroom? First, we introduce an interpersonal perspective on teacher behaviour as the theoretical frame of reference of our study. In the Method section, we describe the research question and the data gathering. Following this, we report the results of our study. In the Discussion section, we interpret our results and formulate the implications of our results for the assistance of beginning teachers in the possible prevention of problems with order in their classrooms. An Interpersonal Perspective on Teacher Behaviour Perspectives on ¹eacher Behaviour When comparing the ¹hird Handbook of Research on ¹eaching with the two preceding volumes, it becomes evident that far more attention is devoted to the teacher in the 1980s than in the 1950s and 1960s. In much of this research, teacher behaviour is analysed from a methodological perspective: The plethora of technical strategies such as choice and organisation of teaching materials, instructional methods and assessment procedures are analysed. Wubbels and Levy (1993) distinguish between this pedagogical-methodological perspective,
and the interpersonal perspective on teacher behaviour. When studying teacher behaviour from an interpersonal perspective, the focus is on the impact perceptions of teacher behaviour have on the teacher—students relationship. A Systems Approach to Communication According to Wubbels, Cre´ton & Holvast (1988), Watzlawick’s systems approach to communication is a fruitful theoretical frame of reference for studying teacher behaviour from an interpersonal perspective (Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson, 1967). This approach was originally designed by Watzlawick and his colleagues in the context of family therapy. Studying teacher behaviour from this systems approach implies that the behaviour of an individual is not looked upon as a characteristic of a person, but as the characteristic of a communicative system that an individual forms with others. When individuals communicate, their behaviours will mutually influence each other. In a classroom, this means that the teacher behaviour is as much caused by the students’ behaviour as the reverse. For example, when one problematic student is sent out of the classroom, other students start behaving in a problematic way. The problematic behaviour is not a typical characteristic of this one student who is sent out of the classroom, but is characteristic of the communicative system the teacher and the class have developed. In the development of this system, teacher behaviour plays an important role, implying that the question, ‘Why is this student so irritating?’ should first be rephrased as, ‘Why is this student so irritating in my lessons?’ and thereupon as ‘Which feature of my teaching behaviour causes this student to be so irritating in my lessons?’ Through this reformulation, the problem becomes more teacher-oriented and thus easier to cope with. ¹hree ¸evels of Communication Within the systems approach to communication three levels of communication are distinguished. The lowest level consists of one single unit of behaviour. A major axiom of the systems approach is that all behaviour has a content and an interpersonal aspect, (also referred to as the report and the command aspects of
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behaviour compare La France & Mayo, 1979). This implies that teacher behaviour not only carries the content of the words being used, but also has an underlying interpersonal message. For instance, the words, ‘I want to help you to learn’, can be combined with either a smile or a frown. In the latter case, the interpersonal aspect of this communication may be perceived as: ‘I think you are too stupid to learn’ (Marshall & Weinstein, 1986). Given this axiom, every single unit of behaviour can be regarded as a message containing both these aspects. Therefore, the lowest level of communication is called the message level. In the rest of this article, we will refer to the interpersonal aspect of a short unit of behaviour as an ‘interpersonal message’. A series of interpersonal messages exchanged between persons is called an interaction. The interaction level is the second level at which communication can be described. An example of an interaction occurs when the teacher asks a specific student a question and the student ignores the teacher. The teacher then asks another student the same question, without paying any further attention to the first student. The students will probably understand from this interaction that the teacher wants to avoid a confrontation with the first student. Therefore, they will probably expect that they can determine their own activities without a very high risk of confronting the teacher. The longer the students and the teacher interact the more their behaviour will become predictable since their mutual expectations will be more and more refined. The more the mutual expectations get confirmed, the more they will be regarded as valid and the more they will form the basis for reactions. After a while the exchange of interpersonal messages will become cyclic in character, and action and reaction, cause and effect, are hard to distinguish. However, patterns can be identified in the exchange of interpersonal messages. Social systems in which the interaction proceeds according to such predictable patterns, are relatively stable. This is the highest of three successive levels of communication and is called the pattern level. In our research, teacher behaviour at the pattern level of communication is referred to as teacher interpersonal style.
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¹eacher Interpersonal Style Hansen (1993) emphasises that researchers often mean quite different things by style. He explicitly distinguishes teacher personal style and teaching style. We will now discuss how teacher interpersonal style relates to teacher personal style and teaching style. Quoting Goffman (1974), Hansen argues that a personal style can be interpreted as representing or revealing aspects of a person’s character and therefore as a ‘direct instance’ of the person’s qualities as a human being. In an ethnographic study, Hansen investigated how the personal styles of three teachers (their habitual way of conducting themselves) gave moral messages to students regarding their conduct and their disposition toward others and toward the purposes for being in the classroom. In our study, we use a systems’ approach to communication as the theoretical frame of reference. This implies that we do not regard teacher interpersonal style as a personal characteristic, but as a characteristic of the system that teacher and students form together. This means that teacher interpersonal messages are looked upon as both resulting from and causing students’ actions. According to Hansen, researchers concerned with teaching style are interested in general patterns of behaviour. He refers to Bennett (1976) as an example of a researcher focusing on teaching style, since he studies style as patterns in teachers’ methods of instruction and classroom management, and suggests that teachers can decide to adopt a particular style. Another author studying teaching style is Schultz (1982). Following Flanders (1970), Schultz distinguishes for example open, non directive teaching styles and directive teaching styles. These styles combine a description from a pedagogical-methodological and an interpersonal perspective. In our research, we also study general patterns in behaviour. However, we only use an interpersonal perspective. Therefore, we focus on a specific aspect of teaching style. Method The following research question was investigated in the study described in this article: ¼hat are the associations between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and
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teacher interpersonal messages during whole class teaching and during individual seatwork? Figure 1 presents this question diagrammatically. Data were gathered about teacher interpersonal messages by having judges rate fragments of the videotaped lessons of 34 in-service teachers. Since we are aiming at comparing whole class teaching with individual seatwork, lessons were videotaped in which the teacher expected to assist individual or groups of students. From each videotaped lesson, two minutes were selected: one during whole class teaching and one during individual seatwork. To gather data about students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style, a questionnaire was administered to the students at the end of the lesson. In the following section, first the teacher sample and procedures for videotaping and selecting videofragments are described, followed by a description of the methods of data gathering about teacher interpersonal messages and teacher interpersonal style. ¹eacher Sample The 34 in-service teachers in whose classes videotapes were recorded and questionnaires were administered, were all but one teaching the
subjects of science or mathematics. One social sciences teacher was involved. They were teaching at 12 Australian schools in the Perth metropolitan area. The procedure for approaching teachers began by contacting one teacher at a school by phone. Usually this was the chair of the science or mathematics department. After the purpose of the research was explained, this teacher was asked to participate by having a researcher videotape a lesson in which he or she expected to have individual seatwork. Also he or she was asked if we could administer a questionnaire at the end of this lesson. The teacher was told that he or she would be provided with a report on the data about the students’ perceptions of his or her interpersonal style. The teacher was also asked if colleagues might be interested in participating. If a teacher agreed, a letter was sent summarising the purpose of the research and the methods of data gathering. A week later the teacher was called again to make final arrangements with the participating teachers at that school. Teachers at 16 schools were approached in this way. We compared the data on teacher interpersonal style of the 34 teachers involved in our study with data gathered with the same questionnaire for two other samples of Australian teachers (Fisher, Fraser, Wubbels & Brekelmans (1993), N"46; Henderson (1996), N"28). No differences were found. »ideotaping and Procedure for Selecting Fragments
Figure 1. The research question presented diagrammatically.
The entire lessons were videotaped with one camera from the back of the classroom in order to disturb the lesson as little as possible. Teachers were equipped with a small radiographic microphone in order to record the conversations with individual or small groups of students. Two one minute fragments were selected from each of the 34 videotaped lessons: one in which the teacher communicated with the class as a whole and another in which the teacher communicated with one student or with a small group. It is assumed that the two selected one minute fragments are in the same degree representative of teacher behaviour in each of the two situations. The minute in which the teacher communicates with the class as a whole was taken
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towards the beginning of the lesson in which the teacher introduced or explained the subject of the lesson or the work assignments to the class. This minute was selected on a time sampling basis. The other minute was selected from the entire period of the lesson during which the teacher assisted individual students or small groups working on specific assignments. This minute was selected on a time sampling basis as well. Each selected minute was divided into six equal parts, with a two seconds interval between each of the fragments. Ratings of ¹eacher Interpersonal Messages Building on a systems approach to communication, Wubbels, Cre´ton, Levy and Hooymayers (1993) distinguish two dimensions of communication to describe teacher behaviour from an interpersonal perspective. These dimensions are labelled Proximity and Influence. The Proximity dimension designates the degree of cooperation, closeness or interpersonal warmth between those who are communicating. The Influence dimension indicates who is directing or controlling the communication, and how often. Using the Influence and Proximity dimensions as y and x axes of a coordinate system allows for a graphic representation of the interpersonal aspect of teacher behaviour. The coordinate system indicates perceptions of how cooperative a teacher is and perceptions of how much he or she is controlling the cause of events in the classroom (see Figure 2). While these dimensions have occasionally been given other names—Brown (1965) used Status and Solidarity, and Dunkin and Biddle (1974) used Warmth and Directivity—they have generally been accepted as universal descriptors of human interpersonal interaction (cf. Leary, 1957; Lonner, 1980; Cappella, 1985). The two dimensions have also transferred easily to education. Slater (1962) used them effectively to describe pedagogical relationships, and Dunkin and Biddle (1974) demonstrated their importance in teachers’ efforts to influence classroom events. Occasionally, researchers have found additional dimensions which have been described in a variety of ways, such as level of activation, intensity, dedication, independence, activity and inferiority (Brown, 1965; Carson, 1969; Bales,
Figure 2. A coordinate system with the Influence dimension as the y-axes and the Proximity dimension as the x-axes, allowing a graphic representation of the interpersonal aspect of teacher behaviour.
1970; Lonner, 1980). However, after a prolonged search for these additional dimensions Brekelmans (1989) and Wubbels, Cre´ton, Brekelmans, and Hooymayers (1987) concluded that its appearance can actually be caused by measurement error. They found that factor analyses performed on data with a very small measurement error (i.e. collected from a large number of students) yielded two dimensions, whereas three emerged when fewer students and larger errors were present. Therefore, they concluded that these two dimensions are both sufficient and necessary to describe teacher behaviour from an interpersonal perspective. In the research described in this article, we gathered data about teacher interpersonal messages by having judges rate fragments on two rating scales corresponding to the Influence and Proximity dimensions. Judges rated fragments of either whole class teaching or individual seatwork. The judges who rated whole class teaching had not seen the teacher during individual seatwork and vice versa. The judges were asked to consider the fragments from the point of view of an observer in the position of the camera, who estimates how the teacher is perceived by the students in the
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class. The ratings were given by means of scores on two Likert-type scales for each fragment. When scoring on each of the rating scales for each fragment they asked themselves questions like: ‘If I was a student in this class would I feel I need to do what the teacher says?’ (for Influence); or ‘If I was a student in this class, would I feel the teacher is angry with us or does not like us?’ (for Proximity). These rating scales are depicted in Figure 3. Because data on teacher interpersonal style were obtained at the teacher level, the judges’ ratings were aggregated to means per teacher. To decide how many judges were needed to get an acceptable reliability, the agreement between judges was established for each rating scale in each of the two situations we investigated. According to Nunnally (1978), in the early stages of research, on for instance hypothesised measures of a construct, reliabilities of 0.70 or higher will suffice. If significant correlations are found, corrections for attenuation will estimate how much the correlations will increase when reliabilities of measures are increased. For basic research, Nunnally regards increasing reliabilities beyond 0.80 as often wasteful of time and funds. Therefore in our research, a reliability of about 0.70 was regarded as acceptable. The Spearman—Brown formula was used to establish the number of judges needed to reach effective reliability for the mean ratings of these judges (compare Rosenthal, 1982). We established satisfactory agreement between two independent judges for both rating
scales when scoring for teacher behaviour during whole class teaching (r"0.82 for the Influence scale, r"0.74 for the Proximity scale). Because of these high correlations, it was possible to use the scores of only one judge to rate all the whole class fragments. The average agreement between three judges rating teacher interpersonal messages during individual seatwork was r"0.42 for the rating of the teachers’ influence and r"0.47 for the teachers’ proximity. Using the Spearman— Brown formula we determined that three judges were needed for a reliable rating of teacher interpersonal messages in individual work fragments: the reliability of the mean rating of three judges is 0.69 for Influence and 0.73 for Proximity. We therefore used the mean ratings of three judges for all the individual work fragments. The judges were Dutch and Australian research associates and assistants familiar with the Influence and Proximity dimensions. The highest correlations between pairs of judges we established in our study were between mixed pairs of Australian and Dutch judges. Therefore, we concluded that in our study the nationality of the judges had no effect on their ratings. Students’ Perceptions of ¹eacher Interpersonal Style To measure students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style, we administered the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) to the students (Cre´ton & Wubbels, 1984; Wubbels
Figure 3. The Influence and Proximity rating scales for teacher interpersonal messages.
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et al., 1993). The QTI is an operationalisation of the Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour which is based on the Influence and Proximity dimensions. In Figure 2, we depicted a coordinate system with the Influence dimension as the y-axes and the Proximity dimension as the xaxes, allowing a graphic representation of the interpersonal aspect of teacher behaviour. The model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour emerges after dividing this coordinate system into eight equal sections by drawing two diagonals through this coordinate system. The eight resulting sections are labelled DC, CD, etc., according to their position in the coordinate system. For example, the two sectors DC and CD are both characterised by Dominance and Cooperation. In the DC sector the Dominance aspect prevails over the Cooperation aspect, whereas the adjacent CD describes those aspects of behaviour which have a more cooperative and less dominant character. The sections of the model describe eight different aspects of behav-
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iour. The QTI consists of eight scales, with six items each, which conform to the eight sections of the model.1 In Figure 4 the model is depicted, including a typical item for each scale. Items imply an evaluation of teacher interpersonal style. Therefore, the QTI can be regarded as an operationalisation at the pattern level of communication. Each completed questionnaire yields a set of eight scale scores. Scale scores equal the sum of all item scores and are reported in a range between zero and one. Scale scores of students from the same class are combined to a class mean. Several studies have been conducted on the reliability and validity of the QTI with satisfactory results. These studies included Dutch (Brekelmans, Wubbels, & Cre´ton, 1990), American (Wubbels & Levy, 1991) and Australian (Fisher, Fraser & Wubbels, 1992) samples. In the study presented in this paper, we analyse teacher interpersonal style on the basis of
Figure 4. Section label and name for each of the eight section of the Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour. A typical item from the scale corresponding to each section is depicted within the section.
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dimension scores. To summarise the scale scores by means of dimension scores we used linear combinations of the scale scores. These linear combinations are calculated by first representing the eight scores as vectors in a two dimensional space, each dividing a section of the model in two and with a length corresponding to the height of the scale score, and then computing the two coordinates of the resultant of these eight vectors. We designated the two linear combinations of the eight scores as an Influence (DS)score and a Proximity (CO)-score. The higher these scores are, the more dominance (DS) or cooperation (CO) is perceived in the interpersonal style of a teacher. Results Our research question was: ¼hat are the associations between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and teacher interpersonal messages during whole class teaching and during individual seatwork? To answer this question we compared the correlations between the mean Influence and Proximity ratings of teacher interpersonal messages in one-minute fragments of each of these two situations, with the summary of the results of the QTI in Influence and Proximity scores. Correlations are considered significant given that p(0.05. The results are given in Table 1. We established a strong2 correlation (0.53)3 between the Influence ratings of teacher interpersonal messages during one minute of whole class teaching and the students’ Influence perceptions of teacher interpersonal style, and
a strong to medium correlation (0.42)4 between the Proximity ratings of teacher interpersonal messages during one minute of whole class teaching and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style in terms of Proximity. No other significant correlations were found. Discussion Interpretation The strong and strong to medium correlations we found between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and teacher interpersonal messages during whole class teaching, support a description of the position in front of the classroom as the stage for the teacher role. This is in line with observations by McLaren (1986) in the context of an ethnographic study in a Catholic Canadian school. He writes: Each teacher occupied what I half jokingly referred to as their ‘power spot’. These spots represented a ritual space which the teachers felt offered them the most advantageous position for instructing the class. Once, when I was asked to take over the class for one of the teachers, I decided to move towards that teacher’s spot. The instant I entered it, one of the students remarked: ‘Are you the teacher now?’. (p. 197)
Students’ perceptions of specific teacher interpersonal styles probably are based on their mental image of specific teacher roles, which in the students’ minds are primarily located in front of the classroom (compare Weber & Mitchell, 1995). No significant correlations were found between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and the ratings of teacher interpersonal messages during individual seatwork.
Table 1 Product Moment Correlations between Students’ Perceptions of Teacher Interpersonal Style and Judges’ Ratings of Teacher Interpersonal Messages in Two Situations Judges’ ratings of teacher interpersonal messages Whole class teaching
Individual seatwork
Students’ Perceptions of Teacher interpersonal style
Influence
Proximity
Influence
Proximity
Influence Proximity
0.53** 0.23
0.25 0.42*
0.06 0.02
!0.01 0.15
Note: N"34 *p(0.05, **p(0.01.
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Situations in which the teacher communicates with one or just a few students may have a more ‘back-stage’ character (e.g. Goffman, 1959) and may be less important for the perception of a person in his or her role as a teacher. In the introduction to this article, we posed the question what the implications are ‘‘if students’ perceptions of the teacher role are influenced by the mental image of a teacher standing in front of a blackboard, pointing and expounding’’ (cf. Weber & Mitchell, 1995). Our findings suggest that teachers who present themselves as a teacher with a specific interpersonal style at moments when they have a central position in the classroom interaction, will probably create a working climate that lasts for the whole lesson and beyond. When students are working on assignments independently, they may remember a teacher as he or she was in the central position. For instance, the image that dominant teachers project in the short periods that they address the students centrally, has the effect of the students submitting themselves to the rules (of order) drawn up by teachers at other times. Thus, they do not have to assert their power to enforce the set of rules continually. This provision of short moments to establish a learning environment is important. This idea is theoretically supported by the concepts of schemas and social categories described by Fiske and Taylor (1991). Schemas are defined as people’s cognitive structures that represent knowledge about a type of stimulus, including its attributes and the relations among the attributes. Categorisation processes describe how people (i.e. students) classify and identify individual instances (i.e. teacher behaviour in a specific situation) they encounter as members of larger familiar groupings (i.e. teacher interpersonal styles). Fiske and Taylor write that once instances are classified, people apply schemas. Applying a schema implies acting accordingly. In the classroom, students encounter teacher behaviour in various situations and use this information to categorise the teacher’s interpersonal style. Our research findings indicate that teacher behaviour in whole class situations is more relevant for categorisation processes than the behaviour of teachers during individual seatwork. Once a teacher’s interpersonal style is categorised, the students will act accordingly during the whole lesson and beyond.
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Implications We think a profitable suggestion for teacher educators would be to instruct student teachers in such a way that they show behaviours that bring on the image of an experienced teacher when they address the class as a group. Indications for an effective behavioural repertoire in front of the classroom can be found in the work of Kounin (1970) who found that the degree of the teachers’ awareness of what happens in class (‘withitness’) and the degree in which teachers scan several things at once (‘overlapping’), correlate strongly with work involvement and freedom from deviancy. In research on the interpersonal significance of the non-verbal aspect of teacher behaviour (Van Tartwijk, 1993; Van Tartwijk, Brekelmans & Wubbels, 1993), it was found that nonverbal teacher behaviours, like looking at the students continuously and speaking loud and emphatically, are related to a relatively strong dominance perception of teacher interpersonal messages. These behaviours are shown by experienced teachers almost twice as much as by student teachers. Such behaviours are typical for teachers during whole class teaching. No differences were found between beginning and more experienced teachers for those nonverbal behaviours which are typical for a teacher interacting with individual students, such as speaking in a low volume, head and trunk bend forward, and a nonfrontal body orientation towards the majority of students in the class. This indicates that the nonverbal behaviours of beginning and experienced teachers differ, not so much when they interact with individual students during individual seatwork, but foremost during whole class teaching. These clues are important especially for beginning teachers. Beginning teachers usually have problems showing appropriate management techniques (Wubbels, Cre´ton & Hermans, 1993). They probably should avoid whole class teaching for a longer period. Staying on-stage too long enlarges the risk of not being able to sustain one’s part. Suggestions for Further Research With our study we have found indications of the importance of using the front of the classroom as the teacher’s stage. Other research is
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necessary for a better understanding of the subtle relations between specific teacher behaviour on stage and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style in the rich context of everyday classrooms (cf. Delamont, 1976; Delamont and Hamilton, 1984; McLaren, 1986; Hansen, 1993). Our conclusions about the relations between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and teacher interpersonal messages in two situations, are based on the assumption that the two one-minute fragments, selected on a time sampling basis, are (in the same degree) representative for teacher interpersonal messages. Testing the assumption of representativeness would require rating teacher interpersonal messages in a number of entire lessons of various teachers, and subsequently establish whether selecting only one-minute fragments is sufficiently representative for the two situations. Such an undoubtedly costly and time-consuming test would add value to our conclusions. Notes 1 There is also a 64 item American version of the QTI available. 2 Cohen (1988) refers to a product moment correlation of 0.50 as a ‘large effect’. He writes that a 0.50 correlation falls around the upper end of the range of (nonreliability) correlation one encounters in behavioural sciences such as social and educational psychology. When one looks at near maximum correlation coefficients of for instance personality measures with comparable real-life criteria, the values one encounters fall at the order of a medium effect: 0.30. Cohen refers to a correlation of 0.10 as a small effect. A correlation between variables in a population of about r"0.10, would probably not be perceptible on the basis of casual observation according to this author. This implies that a correlation of around 0.15 could be regarded as a small effect if a larger sample had been used. Future research using such larger numbers of teachers should establish such correlations. 3 Using the formula for attenuation described by Nunnally (1978) gives an estimated maximum correlation of 0.61 if, as in the case of perfect reliability, no measurement error was present. 4 Correcting for attenuation would give an estimated maximum correlation of 0.51.
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Brekelmans, M. (1989). Interpersoonlijk gedrag van docenten in de klas [Interpersonal teacher behaviour in the classroom]. Utrecht, The Netherlands: W.C.C. Brekelmans, M., Wubbels, Th., & Cre´ton, H. A. (1990). A study of student perceptions of physics teacher behavior. Journal of Research in Science ¹eaching, 27, 335—350. Brekelmans, M., Wubbels, Th., Levy, J. (1993). Student performance, attitudes, instructional strategies and teachercommunication style. In Th. Wubbels, & J. Levy, (Eds.), Do you know what you look like? Interpersonal relations in education (pp. 56—63). London: The Falmer Press. Brown, R. (1965). Social psychology. London: CollierMcMillan. Cappella, J. N. (1985). Controlling the floor in conversation. In A. W. Siegman, & S. Feldstein (Eds.), Multichannel integrations of nonverbal behavior (pp. 69—103). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. Carson, R. C. (1969). Interaction concepts of personality. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Cohen, J. C. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the social sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates. Cre´ton, H. A., & Wubbels, Th. (1984). Ordeproblemen bij beginnende leraren [Discipline problems with beginning teachers]. Utrecht, The Netherlands: W.C.C. Cre´ton, H. A., Wubbels, Th., & Hooymayers, H. P. (1989). Escalated disorderly situations in the classroom and the improvement of these situations. ¹eaching and ¹eacher Education, 3, 205-215. Delamont, S. (1976). Beyond Flanders’ fields: The relationship of subject-matter and individuality to classroom style. In M. Stubbs, & S. Delamont (Eds.), Explorations in classroom observations (pp. 101—132). London: John Wiley. Delamont, S., & Hamilton, D. (1984). Revisiting classroom research: A continuing cautionary tale. In S. Delamont (Ed.), Readings on interaction in the classroom. London: Methuen and Co. Dunkin, M. J., & Biddle, B. J. (1974). ¹he study of teaching. New York: Rinehart and Winston. Fisher, D. L., Fraser, B. J., & Wubbels, Th. (1992,). Teacher communication style and school environment. Paper Presented at the ECER Conference, Enschede, The Netherlands. Fisher, D. L., Fraser, B. J., Wubbels, Th., & Brekelmans, M. (1993). Associations between school learning environment and teacher interpersonal behaviour in the classroom. In D. L. Fisher (Ed.), ¹he Study of ¸earning Environments 7 (pp. 32-41). Perth, Australia: Curtin University of Technology. Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Flanders, N. A. (1970). Analyzing teacher behavior. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesly. Goffman, E. (1959). ¹he presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper & Row. Hansen, D. T. (1993). The moral importance of the teacher’s style. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 25, 397-421. Henderson, D. G. (1996). A study of the classroom and laboratory environments and student attitude and achievement in senior secondary biology classes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia.
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Kounin, J. S. (1970). Discipline and group management in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. La France, M., & Mayo, C. (1979). Moving bodies: Nonverbal communication in social relationships. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. Leary, T. (1957). An interpersonal diagnosis of personality. New York: Ronald Press Company. Lonner, W. J. (1980). The search for psychological universals. In H. C. Triandis, & W. W. Lambert (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (1st ed., pp. 143—204). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Marshall, H. H., & Weinstein, R. S. (1986). Classroom context of student perceived differential teacher treatment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78, 441—453. McLaren, P. (1986). Schooling as a ritual performance. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw Hill. Rosenthal, R. (1982). Conducting judgment studies. In K.R. Scherer, & P. Ekman (Eds.), Handbook of methods in nonverbal behavior research (pp. 287—354). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Schultz, R. A. (1982). Teaching style and sociopsychological climates. ¹he Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 18, 9—18. Slater, P. E. (1962). Parental behavior and the personality of the child. Journal of Genetical Psychology, 101, 53—68. Tartwijk, J. van (1993). Docentgedrag in beeld: De interpersoonlijke betekenis van nonverbaal gedrag van docenten in de klas [Sketches of teacher behaviour: The interpersonal meaning of nonverbal teacher behaviour in the classroom]. Utrecht, The Netherlands: W.C.C. Tartwijk, J. van, Brekelmans, M., & Wubbels, Th. (1993, November). Differences in the molecular behaviour of student—teachers and more experienced teachers. Paper Presented at the Australian Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Fremantle, Australia.
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Veenman, S. A.M. (1984). Perceived problems of beginning teachers. Review of Educational Research, 54, 143—178. Walberg, H. J. (1976). The psychology of learning environments: Behavioral, structural or perceptual?. Review of Research in Education, 4, 142—178. Watzlawick P., Beavin, H. J., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). ¹he pragmatics of human communication. New York: Norton. Weber, S., & Mitchell, C. (1995). ‘¹hat’s funny, you don’t look like a teacher’: Interrogating images and identity in popular culture. London: The Falmer Press. Wubbels, Th., Cre´ton, H. A., Brekelmans, M., & Hooymayers, H. P. (1987). De perceptie van de leraarleerling relatie [The perception of the teacher-student relationship]. ¹ijdschrift voor Onderwijsresearch, 12, 3—16. Wubbels, Th., Cre´ton, H. A., & Hermans, J. J. (1993). Teacher education programs. In Th. Wubbels, & J. Levy (Eds.), Do you know what you look like? Interpersonal relations in education (pp. 146—161). London: The Falmer Press. Wubbels, Th., Cre´ton, H. A., & Holvast, A. J. C. D. (1988). Undesirable classroom situations: A system communication perspective. Interchange, 19, 25—40. Wubbels, Th., Cre´ton, H. A., Levy, J., & Hooymayers, H. P. (1993). The Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behavior. In Th. Wubbels, & J. Levy (Eds.), Do you know what you look like? Interpersonal relations in education (pp. 13—28). London: The Falmer Press. Wubbels, Th., & Levy, J. (1991). A comparison of interpersonal behavior of Dutch and American teachers. International Journal of Intercultural Relationships, 15, 1—18. Wubbels, Th., & Levy, J (1993). Introduction. In Th. Wubbels, and J. Levy (Eds.), Do ½ou Know what ½ou ¸ook ¸ike? Interpersonal Relations in Education (pp. xiii—xvi). London: The Falmer Press.
PII: S0742-051X(98)00011–0
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHER INTERPERSONAL STYLE: THE FRONT OF THE CLASSROOM AS THE TEACHER’S STAGE JAN VAN TARTWIJK, MIEKE BREKELMANS and THEO WUBBELS IVLOS (Institute of Education), Utrecht University, PO Box 80127, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands
DARRELL L. FISHER and BARRY J. FRASER SMEC (Science and Mathematics Education Centre), Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U 1987, Perth WA 6001, Australia
Abstract—In previous research, associations were shown between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and variables such as student outcomes and problems with order in the classroom. In the study described in this paper, associations are investigated between these students’ perceptions and judges’ ratings of the interpersonal aspect of videotaped teacher behaviour. Judges only saw one minute of videotaped teacher behaviour during either whole class teaching or individual seatwork. Strong correlations were established between students’ perceptions and judges’ ratings of teacher behaviour during whole class teaching. No significant correlations were found between students’ perceptions and judges’ ratings of teacher behaviour during individual seatwork. It is argued that students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style are primarily formed when the teacher is in front of the classroom. At those moments a working climate is created that lasts for the whole lesson and beyond. ( 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
In their ‘‘That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Like a Teacher’’, Weber and Mitchell (1995) describe students’ and teachers’ images of teachers using an analysis of drawings of teachers. They write: Even a cursory analysis of drawings done by children and teachers reveals the persistent and pervasive presence of traditional images of teaching as transmission of knowledge from all-knowing teacher into empty vessel students. Reminiscent of Goodlad’s (1984) study of over 1000 American schools, the typical teacher portrayed in the pictures drawn by both teachers and children, was a white woman pointing or expounding, standing in front of a blackboard or desk. (...) In reflecting and commenting on the pictures they drew, many prospective teachers became aware of the power that past experience and stereotypes seem to have on them. They expressed, often with consternation, their ambivalence in relation to the dominant transmission images of teaching culturally embedded in the teaching profession. (pp. 28—29)
What does this culturally embedded image of the role of the teacher mean for classroom prac-
tice? What, for instance, are the implications for teacher-students communication in classrooms if students’ perceptions of the teacher role are based on the mental image of a teacher standing in front of a blackboard, pointing and expounding? Walberg (1976) emphasises the importance of students’ perceptions, because they mediate the influence of the learning environment on student outcomes. Brekelmans and her colleagues (Brekelmans, 1989; Brekelmans, Wubbels & Levy, 1993) found that students who perceive the interpersonal style of their teacher as relatively dominant, have relatively high scores on standardised tests on cognitive performance. They also found that students who perceive their teacher as relatively ‘close’ to the students, score relatively high on questionnaires measuring their motivation for the subject and the lessons. Cre´ton, Wubbels and Hooymayers (1989) identified students’ perceptions of teacher
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interpersonal style as one of the most important indicators for problems with order in the classroom. Veenman (1984) showed that many of the problems faced by beginning teachers are related to classroom communication processes, i.e. establishing and maintaining ‘order’ in the classroom. In the study described in this article, we investigate the importance of the mental image of the teacher in front of the classroom for students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style. We compare associations between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and ratings of teacher behaviour during whole class teaching and during individual seatwork. The outcome of this comparison may have implications for, for instance, a teacher educator trying to provide assistance to a teacher who is coping with problems with order in the classroom. Should this teacher educator focus primarily on the behaviour in front of the classroom or should he or she also consider the teacher’s interaction with individual students in the classroom? First, we introduce an interpersonal perspective on teacher behaviour as the theoretical frame of reference of our study. In the Method section, we describe the research question and the data gathering. Following this, we report the results of our study. In the Discussion section, we interpret our results and formulate the implications of our results for the assistance of beginning teachers in the possible prevention of problems with order in their classrooms. An Interpersonal Perspective on Teacher Behaviour Perspectives on ¹eacher Behaviour When comparing the ¹hird Handbook of Research on ¹eaching with the two preceding volumes, it becomes evident that far more attention is devoted to the teacher in the 1980s than in the 1950s and 1960s. In much of this research, teacher behaviour is analysed from a methodological perspective: The plethora of technical strategies such as choice and organisation of teaching materials, instructional methods and assessment procedures are analysed. Wubbels and Levy (1993) distinguish between this pedagogical-methodological perspective,
and the interpersonal perspective on teacher behaviour. When studying teacher behaviour from an interpersonal perspective, the focus is on the impact perceptions of teacher behaviour have on the teacher—students relationship. A Systems Approach to Communication According to Wubbels, Cre´ton & Holvast (1988), Watzlawick’s systems approach to communication is a fruitful theoretical frame of reference for studying teacher behaviour from an interpersonal perspective (Watzlawick, Beavin & Jackson, 1967). This approach was originally designed by Watzlawick and his colleagues in the context of family therapy. Studying teacher behaviour from this systems approach implies that the behaviour of an individual is not looked upon as a characteristic of a person, but as the characteristic of a communicative system that an individual forms with others. When individuals communicate, their behaviours will mutually influence each other. In a classroom, this means that the teacher behaviour is as much caused by the students’ behaviour as the reverse. For example, when one problematic student is sent out of the classroom, other students start behaving in a problematic way. The problematic behaviour is not a typical characteristic of this one student who is sent out of the classroom, but is characteristic of the communicative system the teacher and the class have developed. In the development of this system, teacher behaviour plays an important role, implying that the question, ‘Why is this student so irritating?’ should first be rephrased as, ‘Why is this student so irritating in my lessons?’ and thereupon as ‘Which feature of my teaching behaviour causes this student to be so irritating in my lessons?’ Through this reformulation, the problem becomes more teacher-oriented and thus easier to cope with. ¹hree ¸evels of Communication Within the systems approach to communication three levels of communication are distinguished. The lowest level consists of one single unit of behaviour. A major axiom of the systems approach is that all behaviour has a content and an interpersonal aspect, (also referred to as the report and the command aspects of
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behaviour compare La France & Mayo, 1979). This implies that teacher behaviour not only carries the content of the words being used, but also has an underlying interpersonal message. For instance, the words, ‘I want to help you to learn’, can be combined with either a smile or a frown. In the latter case, the interpersonal aspect of this communication may be perceived as: ‘I think you are too stupid to learn’ (Marshall & Weinstein, 1986). Given this axiom, every single unit of behaviour can be regarded as a message containing both these aspects. Therefore, the lowest level of communication is called the message level. In the rest of this article, we will refer to the interpersonal aspect of a short unit of behaviour as an ‘interpersonal message’. A series of interpersonal messages exchanged between persons is called an interaction. The interaction level is the second level at which communication can be described. An example of an interaction occurs when the teacher asks a specific student a question and the student ignores the teacher. The teacher then asks another student the same question, without paying any further attention to the first student. The students will probably understand from this interaction that the teacher wants to avoid a confrontation with the first student. Therefore, they will probably expect that they can determine their own activities without a very high risk of confronting the teacher. The longer the students and the teacher interact the more their behaviour will become predictable since their mutual expectations will be more and more refined. The more the mutual expectations get confirmed, the more they will be regarded as valid and the more they will form the basis for reactions. After a while the exchange of interpersonal messages will become cyclic in character, and action and reaction, cause and effect, are hard to distinguish. However, patterns can be identified in the exchange of interpersonal messages. Social systems in which the interaction proceeds according to such predictable patterns, are relatively stable. This is the highest of three successive levels of communication and is called the pattern level. In our research, teacher behaviour at the pattern level of communication is referred to as teacher interpersonal style.
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¹eacher Interpersonal Style Hansen (1993) emphasises that researchers often mean quite different things by style. He explicitly distinguishes teacher personal style and teaching style. We will now discuss how teacher interpersonal style relates to teacher personal style and teaching style. Quoting Goffman (1974), Hansen argues that a personal style can be interpreted as representing or revealing aspects of a person’s character and therefore as a ‘direct instance’ of the person’s qualities as a human being. In an ethnographic study, Hansen investigated how the personal styles of three teachers (their habitual way of conducting themselves) gave moral messages to students regarding their conduct and their disposition toward others and toward the purposes for being in the classroom. In our study, we use a systems’ approach to communication as the theoretical frame of reference. This implies that we do not regard teacher interpersonal style as a personal characteristic, but as a characteristic of the system that teacher and students form together. This means that teacher interpersonal messages are looked upon as both resulting from and causing students’ actions. According to Hansen, researchers concerned with teaching style are interested in general patterns of behaviour. He refers to Bennett (1976) as an example of a researcher focusing on teaching style, since he studies style as patterns in teachers’ methods of instruction and classroom management, and suggests that teachers can decide to adopt a particular style. Another author studying teaching style is Schultz (1982). Following Flanders (1970), Schultz distinguishes for example open, non directive teaching styles and directive teaching styles. These styles combine a description from a pedagogical-methodological and an interpersonal perspective. In our research, we also study general patterns in behaviour. However, we only use an interpersonal perspective. Therefore, we focus on a specific aspect of teaching style. Method The following research question was investigated in the study described in this article: ¼hat are the associations between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and
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teacher interpersonal messages during whole class teaching and during individual seatwork? Figure 1 presents this question diagrammatically. Data were gathered about teacher interpersonal messages by having judges rate fragments of the videotaped lessons of 34 in-service teachers. Since we are aiming at comparing whole class teaching with individual seatwork, lessons were videotaped in which the teacher expected to assist individual or groups of students. From each videotaped lesson, two minutes were selected: one during whole class teaching and one during individual seatwork. To gather data about students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style, a questionnaire was administered to the students at the end of the lesson. In the following section, first the teacher sample and procedures for videotaping and selecting videofragments are described, followed by a description of the methods of data gathering about teacher interpersonal messages and teacher interpersonal style. ¹eacher Sample The 34 in-service teachers in whose classes videotapes were recorded and questionnaires were administered, were all but one teaching the
subjects of science or mathematics. One social sciences teacher was involved. They were teaching at 12 Australian schools in the Perth metropolitan area. The procedure for approaching teachers began by contacting one teacher at a school by phone. Usually this was the chair of the science or mathematics department. After the purpose of the research was explained, this teacher was asked to participate by having a researcher videotape a lesson in which he or she expected to have individual seatwork. Also he or she was asked if we could administer a questionnaire at the end of this lesson. The teacher was told that he or she would be provided with a report on the data about the students’ perceptions of his or her interpersonal style. The teacher was also asked if colleagues might be interested in participating. If a teacher agreed, a letter was sent summarising the purpose of the research and the methods of data gathering. A week later the teacher was called again to make final arrangements with the participating teachers at that school. Teachers at 16 schools were approached in this way. We compared the data on teacher interpersonal style of the 34 teachers involved in our study with data gathered with the same questionnaire for two other samples of Australian teachers (Fisher, Fraser, Wubbels & Brekelmans (1993), N"46; Henderson (1996), N"28). No differences were found. »ideotaping and Procedure for Selecting Fragments
Figure 1. The research question presented diagrammatically.
The entire lessons were videotaped with one camera from the back of the classroom in order to disturb the lesson as little as possible. Teachers were equipped with a small radiographic microphone in order to record the conversations with individual or small groups of students. Two one minute fragments were selected from each of the 34 videotaped lessons: one in which the teacher communicated with the class as a whole and another in which the teacher communicated with one student or with a small group. It is assumed that the two selected one minute fragments are in the same degree representative of teacher behaviour in each of the two situations. The minute in which the teacher communicates with the class as a whole was taken
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towards the beginning of the lesson in which the teacher introduced or explained the subject of the lesson or the work assignments to the class. This minute was selected on a time sampling basis. The other minute was selected from the entire period of the lesson during which the teacher assisted individual students or small groups working on specific assignments. This minute was selected on a time sampling basis as well. Each selected minute was divided into six equal parts, with a two seconds interval between each of the fragments. Ratings of ¹eacher Interpersonal Messages Building on a systems approach to communication, Wubbels, Cre´ton, Levy and Hooymayers (1993) distinguish two dimensions of communication to describe teacher behaviour from an interpersonal perspective. These dimensions are labelled Proximity and Influence. The Proximity dimension designates the degree of cooperation, closeness or interpersonal warmth between those who are communicating. The Influence dimension indicates who is directing or controlling the communication, and how often. Using the Influence and Proximity dimensions as y and x axes of a coordinate system allows for a graphic representation of the interpersonal aspect of teacher behaviour. The coordinate system indicates perceptions of how cooperative a teacher is and perceptions of how much he or she is controlling the cause of events in the classroom (see Figure 2). While these dimensions have occasionally been given other names—Brown (1965) used Status and Solidarity, and Dunkin and Biddle (1974) used Warmth and Directivity—they have generally been accepted as universal descriptors of human interpersonal interaction (cf. Leary, 1957; Lonner, 1980; Cappella, 1985). The two dimensions have also transferred easily to education. Slater (1962) used them effectively to describe pedagogical relationships, and Dunkin and Biddle (1974) demonstrated their importance in teachers’ efforts to influence classroom events. Occasionally, researchers have found additional dimensions which have been described in a variety of ways, such as level of activation, intensity, dedication, independence, activity and inferiority (Brown, 1965; Carson, 1969; Bales,
Figure 2. A coordinate system with the Influence dimension as the y-axes and the Proximity dimension as the x-axes, allowing a graphic representation of the interpersonal aspect of teacher behaviour.
1970; Lonner, 1980). However, after a prolonged search for these additional dimensions Brekelmans (1989) and Wubbels, Cre´ton, Brekelmans, and Hooymayers (1987) concluded that its appearance can actually be caused by measurement error. They found that factor analyses performed on data with a very small measurement error (i.e. collected from a large number of students) yielded two dimensions, whereas three emerged when fewer students and larger errors were present. Therefore, they concluded that these two dimensions are both sufficient and necessary to describe teacher behaviour from an interpersonal perspective. In the research described in this article, we gathered data about teacher interpersonal messages by having judges rate fragments on two rating scales corresponding to the Influence and Proximity dimensions. Judges rated fragments of either whole class teaching or individual seatwork. The judges who rated whole class teaching had not seen the teacher during individual seatwork and vice versa. The judges were asked to consider the fragments from the point of view of an observer in the position of the camera, who estimates how the teacher is perceived by the students in the
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class. The ratings were given by means of scores on two Likert-type scales for each fragment. When scoring on each of the rating scales for each fragment they asked themselves questions like: ‘If I was a student in this class would I feel I need to do what the teacher says?’ (for Influence); or ‘If I was a student in this class, would I feel the teacher is angry with us or does not like us?’ (for Proximity). These rating scales are depicted in Figure 3. Because data on teacher interpersonal style were obtained at the teacher level, the judges’ ratings were aggregated to means per teacher. To decide how many judges were needed to get an acceptable reliability, the agreement between judges was established for each rating scale in each of the two situations we investigated. According to Nunnally (1978), in the early stages of research, on for instance hypothesised measures of a construct, reliabilities of 0.70 or higher will suffice. If significant correlations are found, corrections for attenuation will estimate how much the correlations will increase when reliabilities of measures are increased. For basic research, Nunnally regards increasing reliabilities beyond 0.80 as often wasteful of time and funds. Therefore in our research, a reliability of about 0.70 was regarded as acceptable. The Spearman—Brown formula was used to establish the number of judges needed to reach effective reliability for the mean ratings of these judges (compare Rosenthal, 1982). We established satisfactory agreement between two independent judges for both rating
scales when scoring for teacher behaviour during whole class teaching (r"0.82 for the Influence scale, r"0.74 for the Proximity scale). Because of these high correlations, it was possible to use the scores of only one judge to rate all the whole class fragments. The average agreement between three judges rating teacher interpersonal messages during individual seatwork was r"0.42 for the rating of the teachers’ influence and r"0.47 for the teachers’ proximity. Using the Spearman— Brown formula we determined that three judges were needed for a reliable rating of teacher interpersonal messages in individual work fragments: the reliability of the mean rating of three judges is 0.69 for Influence and 0.73 for Proximity. We therefore used the mean ratings of three judges for all the individual work fragments. The judges were Dutch and Australian research associates and assistants familiar with the Influence and Proximity dimensions. The highest correlations between pairs of judges we established in our study were between mixed pairs of Australian and Dutch judges. Therefore, we concluded that in our study the nationality of the judges had no effect on their ratings. Students’ Perceptions of ¹eacher Interpersonal Style To measure students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style, we administered the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) to the students (Cre´ton & Wubbels, 1984; Wubbels
Figure 3. The Influence and Proximity rating scales for teacher interpersonal messages.
The Front of the Classroom as the Teacher’s Stage
et al., 1993). The QTI is an operationalisation of the Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour which is based on the Influence and Proximity dimensions. In Figure 2, we depicted a coordinate system with the Influence dimension as the y-axes and the Proximity dimension as the xaxes, allowing a graphic representation of the interpersonal aspect of teacher behaviour. The model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour emerges after dividing this coordinate system into eight equal sections by drawing two diagonals through this coordinate system. The eight resulting sections are labelled DC, CD, etc., according to their position in the coordinate system. For example, the two sectors DC and CD are both characterised by Dominance and Cooperation. In the DC sector the Dominance aspect prevails over the Cooperation aspect, whereas the adjacent CD describes those aspects of behaviour which have a more cooperative and less dominant character. The sections of the model describe eight different aspects of behav-
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iour. The QTI consists of eight scales, with six items each, which conform to the eight sections of the model.1 In Figure 4 the model is depicted, including a typical item for each scale. Items imply an evaluation of teacher interpersonal style. Therefore, the QTI can be regarded as an operationalisation at the pattern level of communication. Each completed questionnaire yields a set of eight scale scores. Scale scores equal the sum of all item scores and are reported in a range between zero and one. Scale scores of students from the same class are combined to a class mean. Several studies have been conducted on the reliability and validity of the QTI with satisfactory results. These studies included Dutch (Brekelmans, Wubbels, & Cre´ton, 1990), American (Wubbels & Levy, 1991) and Australian (Fisher, Fraser & Wubbels, 1992) samples. In the study presented in this paper, we analyse teacher interpersonal style on the basis of
Figure 4. Section label and name for each of the eight section of the Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour. A typical item from the scale corresponding to each section is depicted within the section.
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dimension scores. To summarise the scale scores by means of dimension scores we used linear combinations of the scale scores. These linear combinations are calculated by first representing the eight scores as vectors in a two dimensional space, each dividing a section of the model in two and with a length corresponding to the height of the scale score, and then computing the two coordinates of the resultant of these eight vectors. We designated the two linear combinations of the eight scores as an Influence (DS)score and a Proximity (CO)-score. The higher these scores are, the more dominance (DS) or cooperation (CO) is perceived in the interpersonal style of a teacher. Results Our research question was: ¼hat are the associations between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and teacher interpersonal messages during whole class teaching and during individual seatwork? To answer this question we compared the correlations between the mean Influence and Proximity ratings of teacher interpersonal messages in one-minute fragments of each of these two situations, with the summary of the results of the QTI in Influence and Proximity scores. Correlations are considered significant given that p(0.05. The results are given in Table 1. We established a strong2 correlation (0.53)3 between the Influence ratings of teacher interpersonal messages during one minute of whole class teaching and the students’ Influence perceptions of teacher interpersonal style, and
a strong to medium correlation (0.42)4 between the Proximity ratings of teacher interpersonal messages during one minute of whole class teaching and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style in terms of Proximity. No other significant correlations were found. Discussion Interpretation The strong and strong to medium correlations we found between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and teacher interpersonal messages during whole class teaching, support a description of the position in front of the classroom as the stage for the teacher role. This is in line with observations by McLaren (1986) in the context of an ethnographic study in a Catholic Canadian school. He writes: Each teacher occupied what I half jokingly referred to as their ‘power spot’. These spots represented a ritual space which the teachers felt offered them the most advantageous position for instructing the class. Once, when I was asked to take over the class for one of the teachers, I decided to move towards that teacher’s spot. The instant I entered it, one of the students remarked: ‘Are you the teacher now?’. (p. 197)
Students’ perceptions of specific teacher interpersonal styles probably are based on their mental image of specific teacher roles, which in the students’ minds are primarily located in front of the classroom (compare Weber & Mitchell, 1995). No significant correlations were found between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and the ratings of teacher interpersonal messages during individual seatwork.
Table 1 Product Moment Correlations between Students’ Perceptions of Teacher Interpersonal Style and Judges’ Ratings of Teacher Interpersonal Messages in Two Situations Judges’ ratings of teacher interpersonal messages Whole class teaching
Individual seatwork
Students’ Perceptions of Teacher interpersonal style
Influence
Proximity
Influence
Proximity
Influence Proximity
0.53** 0.23
0.25 0.42*
0.06 0.02
!0.01 0.15
Note: N"34 *p(0.05, **p(0.01.
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Situations in which the teacher communicates with one or just a few students may have a more ‘back-stage’ character (e.g. Goffman, 1959) and may be less important for the perception of a person in his or her role as a teacher. In the introduction to this article, we posed the question what the implications are ‘‘if students’ perceptions of the teacher role are influenced by the mental image of a teacher standing in front of a blackboard, pointing and expounding’’ (cf. Weber & Mitchell, 1995). Our findings suggest that teachers who present themselves as a teacher with a specific interpersonal style at moments when they have a central position in the classroom interaction, will probably create a working climate that lasts for the whole lesson and beyond. When students are working on assignments independently, they may remember a teacher as he or she was in the central position. For instance, the image that dominant teachers project in the short periods that they address the students centrally, has the effect of the students submitting themselves to the rules (of order) drawn up by teachers at other times. Thus, they do not have to assert their power to enforce the set of rules continually. This provision of short moments to establish a learning environment is important. This idea is theoretically supported by the concepts of schemas and social categories described by Fiske and Taylor (1991). Schemas are defined as people’s cognitive structures that represent knowledge about a type of stimulus, including its attributes and the relations among the attributes. Categorisation processes describe how people (i.e. students) classify and identify individual instances (i.e. teacher behaviour in a specific situation) they encounter as members of larger familiar groupings (i.e. teacher interpersonal styles). Fiske and Taylor write that once instances are classified, people apply schemas. Applying a schema implies acting accordingly. In the classroom, students encounter teacher behaviour in various situations and use this information to categorise the teacher’s interpersonal style. Our research findings indicate that teacher behaviour in whole class situations is more relevant for categorisation processes than the behaviour of teachers during individual seatwork. Once a teacher’s interpersonal style is categorised, the students will act accordingly during the whole lesson and beyond.
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Implications We think a profitable suggestion for teacher educators would be to instruct student teachers in such a way that they show behaviours that bring on the image of an experienced teacher when they address the class as a group. Indications for an effective behavioural repertoire in front of the classroom can be found in the work of Kounin (1970) who found that the degree of the teachers’ awareness of what happens in class (‘withitness’) and the degree in which teachers scan several things at once (‘overlapping’), correlate strongly with work involvement and freedom from deviancy. In research on the interpersonal significance of the non-verbal aspect of teacher behaviour (Van Tartwijk, 1993; Van Tartwijk, Brekelmans & Wubbels, 1993), it was found that nonverbal teacher behaviours, like looking at the students continuously and speaking loud and emphatically, are related to a relatively strong dominance perception of teacher interpersonal messages. These behaviours are shown by experienced teachers almost twice as much as by student teachers. Such behaviours are typical for teachers during whole class teaching. No differences were found between beginning and more experienced teachers for those nonverbal behaviours which are typical for a teacher interacting with individual students, such as speaking in a low volume, head and trunk bend forward, and a nonfrontal body orientation towards the majority of students in the class. This indicates that the nonverbal behaviours of beginning and experienced teachers differ, not so much when they interact with individual students during individual seatwork, but foremost during whole class teaching. These clues are important especially for beginning teachers. Beginning teachers usually have problems showing appropriate management techniques (Wubbels, Cre´ton & Hermans, 1993). They probably should avoid whole class teaching for a longer period. Staying on-stage too long enlarges the risk of not being able to sustain one’s part. Suggestions for Further Research With our study we have found indications of the importance of using the front of the classroom as the teacher’s stage. Other research is
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necessary for a better understanding of the subtle relations between specific teacher behaviour on stage and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style in the rich context of everyday classrooms (cf. Delamont, 1976; Delamont and Hamilton, 1984; McLaren, 1986; Hansen, 1993). Our conclusions about the relations between students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal style and teacher interpersonal messages in two situations, are based on the assumption that the two one-minute fragments, selected on a time sampling basis, are (in the same degree) representative for teacher interpersonal messages. Testing the assumption of representativeness would require rating teacher interpersonal messages in a number of entire lessons of various teachers, and subsequently establish whether selecting only one-minute fragments is sufficiently representative for the two situations. Such an undoubtedly costly and time-consuming test would add value to our conclusions. Notes 1 There is also a 64 item American version of the QTI available. 2 Cohen (1988) refers to a product moment correlation of 0.50 as a ‘large effect’. He writes that a 0.50 correlation falls around the upper end of the range of (nonreliability) correlation one encounters in behavioural sciences such as social and educational psychology. When one looks at near maximum correlation coefficients of for instance personality measures with comparable real-life criteria, the values one encounters fall at the order of a medium effect: 0.30. Cohen refers to a correlation of 0.10 as a small effect. A correlation between variables in a population of about r"0.10, would probably not be perceptible on the basis of casual observation according to this author. This implies that a correlation of around 0.15 could be regarded as a small effect if a larger sample had been used. Future research using such larger numbers of teachers should establish such correlations. 3 Using the formula for attenuation described by Nunnally (1978) gives an estimated maximum correlation of 0.61 if, as in the case of perfect reliability, no measurement error was present. 4 Correcting for attenuation would give an estimated maximum correlation of 0.51.
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