The structure of pre-adolescents’ perceptions of their teacher’s interpersonal behaviours and their relation to pre-adolescents’ learning outcomes

Abstract

Previous studies have offered indications that the way pre-adolescents (fifth and sixth graders) structure their perceptions of their teacher’s interaction in terms of Agency and Communion differs from adolescents. The purpose of this study was to delineate previous findings by thoroughly examining the structure of pre-adolescents’ perceptions of their teacher’s interpersonal behaviour, and by investigating the extent to which this structure relates to pre-adolescents’ learning outcomes. A mixed methods research design was implemented including a qualitative instrument adaptation procedure followed by a quantitative large-scale administration. Participants for the latter were a random sample of 504 pre-adolescents (from 10 to 13 years old) and 36 teachers. Results showed that participants placed significantly more emphasis on their teachers’ Communion behavioural dimension and this emphasis was illustrated on the association of perceived teacher interaction and students’ learning outcomes. Implications for theory, research and practice are discussed.

Keywords:

• Student–teacher interaction
• questionnaire on teacher interaction
• mixed methods
• elementary students
• pre-adolescents

Notes

1. For the Reprimanding behaviour subscale, five codes were selected because the fourth and fifth codes had the same score.