With no doubt, teachers and parents are the significant socialisation agents for students. This issue presents ten empirical studies, each of which investigated unique sets of individual or contextual factors related to them. Further, the issue represents the international scope of the journal, presenting studies conducted in different parts of the world.
Although much research on teachers focuses on the influence of teacher attributes on students’ learning and outcomes, teachers’ own psychological well-being and professional development are important on their own merit. Teaching is a rewarding profession, but it often comes with stress and burnout. More attention has to be paid to identify the protective factors that serve as buffering for teachers against stress, burnout, and eventual turnover as well as the contributing factors to job satisfaction and overall well-being.
According to Ho (Citation2017), teachers can be happier by using humour wisely. Humour can be in various flavours, and not all styles of humour are adaptive. In Ho’s study, affiliative and self-enhancing types of humour were found to serve as an adaptive coping mechanism. The organisational culture and routine practices also significantly impact teachers’ well-being. Nobile (Citation2017) derived important dimensions characterising the function and the qualities of organisational communication. Several dimensions (e.g. democratic and open communication) were particularly important to Australian primary teachers’ job satisfaction and organisational commitment.
Ulatowska (Citation2017)’s work highlights that teaching experience alone does not automatically lead to enhanced capacity. This study focused on the ability to detect deceit among teachers. Given the increasing academic dishonesty among students, it is interesting to learn that teachers are not significantly better than other non-teacher participants in their ability to detect deceit or know more about the clues to deceit. Exposure to the cheating or lying behaviours of students does not automatically translate into acquisition of specialised knowledge. Therefore, targeted intervention or training is a must. Kurniawati, de Boer, Minnaert, and Mangunsong (Citation2017) showed just that. In their study, teachers received a 32-hour professional training, which aimed to alter their attitudes and provided them accurate knowledge about special educational needs. The efficacy of such an intervention was apparent, when compared to the control group. It is important to point out that no initiatives or reform efforts can bring real change without active teacher buy-ins. von der Embse, Schoemann, Kilgus, Wicoff, and Bowler (Citation2017) clearly displayed that the policy linking students’ test performance and teacher merit pay will not yield intended effects unless teachers see the test as a valid measure of teacher effectiveness. Not surprisingly, this was not a common belief held by these teachers.
We cannot accomplish conceptual or theoretical development without reliable and valid measures to capture the constructs under investigation. In the present issue, two rigorous studies offer new scales for researchers who are interested in assessing teachers’ classroom practices or motivational beliefs. Mascret, Elliot, and Cury (Citation2017) developed a new achievement goal questionnaire for teachers. The study applied the recently proposed 3 × 2 achievement goal framework to teachers. These results revealed the important difference between the goals centred on their students’ success (task goals) and the goals focusing on their own teaching ability (self goals). I look forward to seeing future studies linking these goals with a wide variety of teacher and student outcomes. Sun, Shao, Richardson, Weng, and Shen (Citation2017) developed a new scale for caring behaviour among Chinese teachers. The focus of the study is to identify the dimensions of pedagogical caring. Along with ‘being available’ and ‘receptive of students’ perspectives’, ‘conscientiousness (responsible and self-disciplined)’ has emerged as a unique dimension for teacher caring. This is an intriguing finding! This article also offers methodological guidance to scale development by illustrating the process in which a qualitative exploration phase leads to a quantitative phase of scale development.
Three studies in this issue provide insight into the processes involving parents and their impact on children. Tõeväli and Kikas (Citation2017) examined how parents’ causal attribution tendencies and children’s math performance may be related. These results suggest that the beliefs of mothers and fathers may exert differential impact on children’s academic outcomes. Froiland and Worrell (Citation2017) investigated how parents may nurture adolescents to pursue goals bigger than themselves. The study showed that autonomy supportive parenting is the key to the development of such prosocial goals among adolescents. Colgate, Ginns, and Bagnall (Citation2017) underscores the importance of parents in children’s reading at home. The finding is impressive, as a brief invitation letter sent to the parents was related to increased children’s completion of home reading challenge. Note that it did not matter who wrote the invitation letter (children vs. teachers).
In summary, ten articles in the current issue raise interesting and important questions, provide great reviews of the related literature, demonstrate sound research methodology, suggest the future directions for researchers, and provide useful information for intervention development. I would like to congratulate the authors on their intellectual contributions to the journal and offer my sincere gratitude to all the reviewers who generously shared their time and expertise to strengthen the articles.
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References
- Colgate, O., Ginns, P., & Bagnall, N. (2017). The role of invitations to parents in the completion of a child’s home reading challenge. Educational Psychology, 37, 298–311.
- De Nobile, J. (2017). Organisational communication and its relationships with job satisfaction and organisational commitment of primary school staff in Western Australia. Educational Psychology, 37, 380–398.
- Froiland, J. M., & Worrell, F. C. (2017). Parental autonomy support, community feeling, and student expectations as contributors to later achievement among adolescents. Educational Psychology, 37, 261–271.
- Ho, S. K. (2017). The relationship between teacher stress and burnout in Hong Kong: Positive humor and gender as moderators. Educational Psychology, 37, 272–286.
- Kurniawati, F., de Boer, A. A., Minnaert, A., & Mangunsong, F. (2017). Evaluating the effect of a teacher training programme on the primary teachers’ attitudes, knowledge and teaching strategies regarding special educational needs. Educational Psychology, 37, 287–297.
- Mascret, N., Elliot, A. J., & Cury, F. (2017). The 3 × 2 achievement goal questionnaire for teachers. Educational Psychology, 37, 346–361.
- Sun, B., Shao, Y., Richardson, M. J., Weng, Y., & Shen, J. (2017). The caring behavior of primary and middle school teachers in China: Features and structure. Educational Psychology, 37, 362–379.
- Tõeväli, P., & Kikas, E. (2017). Relations among parental causal attributions and children’s math performance and task persistence. Educational Psychology, 37, 332–345.
- Ulatowska, J. (2017). Teachers’ beliefs about cues to deception and the ability to detect deceit. Educational Psychology, 37, 251–260.
- von der Embse, N. P., Schoemann, A. M., Kilgus, S. P., Wicoff, M., & Bowler, M. (2017). The influence of test-based accountability policies on teacher stress and instructional practices: A moderated mediation model. Educational Psychology, 37, 312–331.