Teacher talk directed to boys and girls and its relationship to their behaviour

Abstract

There have been a number of investigations into the extent to which teachers in the primary school interact within their classrooms with boys and girls and the results of these investigations have differed considerably, some showing boys receiving more interaction than girls and others showing no differences. The aim of this investigation was to try and clarify matters by examining specific categories of teacher verbal behaviour and by including a measure of the quantity and pattern of the off‐task behaviour of the boys and girls. Data were collected from 18 teachers and their pupils in junior school classrooms. The results showed that the boys received more overall verbal communication than the girls in those categories concerned with approbation and disapprobation and that the boys were also less on‐task overall than the girls. There were also marked differences between the boys and the girls in their patterns of off‐task behaviour.

Keywords:

• teacher
• verbal feedback
• gender
• pupil behaviour