“Had there been a Monica in each subject, I would have liked going to school every day”: a study of students’ perceptions of what characterizes excellent teachers and their teaching actions

ABSTRACT

The current study – guided by the overarching research question What aspects of successful teaching unfold in students’ descriptions of the teachers that they perceive as being really good teachers? – is situated within a larger research project aimed at extending knowledge about successful teaching and teachers. It builds on 20 focus-group interviews with 102 students aged 16–18 in ten Swedish municipalities. Based on inductive qualitative content analysis carried out on manifest data level, eight aspects unfold that – from a student perspective – characterise excellent teachers and teaching. These are subsequently problematised from an opportunity-to-learn (OTL) perspective, and in relation to various theoretical understandings of what successful teaching encompasses. It is concluded that such teaching that students perceive as leading to knowledge-development and well-being is characterised by aspects that can be understood – in various ways – as relational, i.e. as unfolding through participative communication in the interplay and interaction that constitute the space between teacher and students. Throughout students’ descriptions it is also obvious that the teachers they perceive as the best are scaffolders and shepherds who manage to balance between simultaneously scaffolding and challenging students cognitively while paying attention to affective dimensions in order to safeguard their social development, self-confidence and self-esteem.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher excellence
• teaching actions
• students’ experience
• opportunity to learn
• relational pedagogy

Introduction

This study concerns 16- to 18-year-old students’ experiences and perceptions of teachers and teaching, or more precisely, what characterises, from the students’ perspectives, the teaching actions of such teachers they perceive as being really good teachers.

The importance of skilled teachers has been a topic of interest for a long time. Two decades ago, Darling-Hammond (1996, p. 5) wrote about a quiet revolution that was on its way, reshaping the role of teachers and teaching in an increasingly complex society:

Because rapid social and economic transformations require greater learning from all students, society is reshaping the mission of education. Schools are now expected not only to offer education, but to ensure learning. Teachers are expected not only to “cover the curriculum” but to create a bridge between the needs of each learner and the attainment of challenging learning goals.

Since then, we have witnessed an increased societal desire to identify evidence-based “best teaching practices,” and a tremendous amount of empirical research, reviews, and meta-studies have been published, the most well-known milestone probably being Hattie’s Visible Learning (2009). Through Hattie’s (e.g. 2003, 2009) and many others’ research, we know by now that several factors to greater or lesser extent affect students’ learning and outcomes in school. We know, for instance, that family background and what students bring to the classroom account for around 50 percent of the variance in student achievement, whereas teacher factors account for around 30 percent. Since it is hard to do anything about family background and what students otherwise bring to the classroom, bridging the gap between students’ different needs and challenging learning goals, as argued by Darling-Hammond above, stands out as a central task for schools and teachers.

A starting point of the research project in which the current study is situated (Segolsson & Hirsh, 2019) is that the question of what characterises high-quality teaching should be approached in methodologically different ways and by taking various actors’ perspectives. Additionally, we argue that the quality of teachers and teaching cannot be determined solely based on the knowledge gained by the students but that it should also be related to the well-being of students.

The research project, carried out in Sweden, aims at extending our knowledge about successful teaching and teachers. For this purpose, we set out to find, observe, and interview 20 successful teachers¹ and 102 students. The present study draws on empirical data from the student interviews and is guided by the following overarching research question:

• What aspects of successful teaching unfold in students’ descriptions of the teachers that they perceive as being really good teachers?

In the concluding discussion, the results obtained are problematised in relation to various theoretical understandings of what successful teaching encompasses.

Framing background: what is successful teaching?

Successful teaching can be understood and discussed from several starting points. Such starting points are bound to different visions of education/curriculum ideologies, that each embody its own beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning, the inherent nature of children/students, and of how teachers – in line with such beliefs – should instruct students (Schiro, 2013).

One way to understand successful teaching is to consider successful as synonymous with effective. In an ongoing research project, where high impact research reviews on teaching methods are explored (Hirsh & Nilholm, 2019; Roman, Sundberg, Hirsh, Nilholm, & Forsberg, 2018), the 75 most cited research reviews on teaching methods listed in the Web of Science from 1980 to 2017 have been analysed. Most of the reviews, together covering a wide range of teaching methods, can be said to represent a teacher/teaching effectiveness tradition (cf. Eriksson, 1999). In general, they study the correlation between two variables that are sometimes referred to, in the language of meta-analysis, as treatment and treatment outcome. In this case the first variable is a given teaching method, and the second is the effect/impact of the teaching method on students’ learning. There is, however, rarely a “direct” relationship between the variables; rather, one needs to weigh the influence of moderating factors that affect (the strength of) the relation. Obviously, both givers (teachers) and receivers (students) of the “treatment” are heterogeneous groups in a variety of ways, and there is great variation in contextual conditions framing teaching in accordance with any given method. Taken together, a wide range of examples of moderating factors on the student level are identified and discussed in the encompassing research reviews, some of the most common being age, cognitive level, metacognitive level, motivation, gender, and cultural identity (e.g. Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich, & Tenenbaum, 2011; Mikropoulos & Natsis, 2011; Norton & Toohey, 2011; Shute, 2008; Smetana & Bell, 2012; Wu, Lee, Chang, & Liang, 2013). Since the effect of teaching methods is undoubtedly moderated by differences at the student level, an apparent conclusion is that such differences need to be recognised and compensated for by the teacher organising the instructional activities. In synthesising the conclusions of the research reviews, it can be concluded that there is strong consensus that no teaching method is “teacher-proof” (cf. Hattie, 2003; Sawyer, 2004). Instead, methods are largely dependent on skilled teachers capable of navigating the complex situation of teaching classes in which students’ needs as well as their levels of knowledge vary widely.

Thus, it is possible to argue that successful teaching (even when the degree of success only refers to measurable knowledge results among students) includes other dimensions than knowledge of subject matter and instructional methods. An approach to understanding the teaching-learning process, in which research has increased considerably in the 21st century, is that of relational pedagogy (e.g. Aspelin, 2013; Bingham & Sidorkin; 2004). Relational pedagogy deals with educational meetings between two parties involved in a mutual process, where learning happens in a common sphere. Biesta (2004) argues that education and meaning-making are located neither in the activities of the teacher nor those of the learner, but rather in the interactional space – the gap – between the teacher and the students. If we understand meaning making as located in between the individuals who interact in a social practice, communication must be understood as being about participation and co-construction rather than about the transmission of messages from a sender to a receiver. “Meaning exists only in the in-between space that is brought about by human interaction”, Biesta claims (p. 18). In another article, Biesta (2012) describes how teachers’ teaching brings something fundamentally new to the students, something that is not a projection of their own minds. This, in a sense, is an intrusion or interruption, an encounter with something that offers resistance (and with the very experience of resistance). A central aspect of teaching is, therefore, to help students “stay ‘with’ that which resists and to work ‘through’ it rather than against it; to help the child or student to endure the frustration of staying in the middle ground” (p. 43).

Departing from socio-cultural theory and a view of learning as something that happens in interactions, Littleton and Mercer (2013) argue that educational success and failure cannot be explained merely by the quality of educational methods and/or materials used, neither can it be explained by intrinsic capabilities of individual students or didactic presentational skills of teachers. Instead, they claim, intellectual growth is an “interactional accomplishment realized largely through dialogue” and that “the quality of education is crucially dependent upon the nature and quality of talk between teachers and students” (p. 292). Sawyer (2004) expresses concern about various attempts to teacher-proof the curriculum, not least the scripted-teaching movement’s rigid specification of teacher actions. This, he argues, essentially removes creativity and professional judgement from the classroom. According to Sawyer, the ways in which teaching is conducted must take its starting point in the uniqueness of each class, and the teacher must be open to the flow that is jointly created among all participants in a classroom. The knowledge-generating dialogue between the members of a classroom emerges from classroom discourse and cannot be scripted by a pre-defined lesson plan. Sawyer suggests an understanding of teaching as disciplined improvisation; a concept that provides a way to conceptualise improvisational and creative teaching within curricular structures.

Also concerned with interpersonal relations, van Manen (1991, 1995) argues that central to good teaching is the teacher’s ability to determine what is good for the pupil in different situations and act accordingly. Although admitting the importance of teaching methods, he argues that it is possible for a teacher to master a variety of methods without being a good teacher in pedagogical terms. He uses the concepts of pedagogical thoughtfulness and tact to describe a ‘hard-to-grasp’ aspect of teaching, where teachers’ love and empathy for the students and their tactful pedagogical understanding of the needs of individuals lie at the centre. Metaphorically, he even suggests that the teacher’s relationship with the students should be “in loco parentis”, meaning that the teacher should adopt a parental relationship to his/her students in which a protective sphere for their development is provided. As a representative of the adult world, the teacher is the one mainly responsible for the relationship. Similarly, Sugrue (1997), uses the conceptual pair of scaffolding-shepherding to discuss a dilemma inherent in formal school systems, where teachers must balance between simultaneously scaffolding learners in a cognitively challenging manner, while paying attention to their social and personal needs in ways that adequately safeguard and shepherd their social development, self-confidence and self-esteem.

Opportunity to learn

Moss, Pullin, Gee, Haertel, and Young (2008) discuss teaching and learning through the lens of the concept of opportunity to learn/OTL, and in doing so, compare what they refer to as a conventional perspective on OTL with a situated/sociocultural (SC/S) perspective. The former is foremost based in cognitive theory emphasising the acquisition of knowledge and skills, and an understanding of knowledge as mental representations stored in the head. The latter moves beyond acquisition and emphasises the deeply situated nature of learning. Gee (2008) argues that:

A situated/sociocultural viewpoint looks at knowledge and learning not primarily in terms of representations in the head, although there is no need to deny that such representations exist and play an important role. Rather, it looks at knowledge and learning in terms of a relationship between an individual with both a mind and body and an environment in which the individual thinks, feels, acts, and interacts. Both the body and the environment tend to be backgrounded in traditional views of knowledge and learning” (p. 81).

The understanding of what OTL encompasses varies depending on the theoretical viewpoint taken. Pullin and Haertel, taking a SC/S viewpoint, (2008) argue that it naturally encompasses content; “Students can scarcely be said to have had an opportunity to learn content they have not encountered” (p.19). Secondly, OTL encompasses resources to support learning, such as teacher’s qualifications and methodological skills, and technology. Third, OTL encompasses the classroom processes and practices which enable learning for the students. From the conventional perspective, they argue, OTL has foremost been understood from the content point of view; learners have had the same opportunity to learn (i.e. to store information in the head) if they have been exposed to the same learning content. Gee (2008) contests this view, asserting that the conceptual pair of input-intake must be considered in any learning situation, where input stands for the information learners are exposed to and intake stands for what they actually learn. A mismatch between the level of teaching and a student’s prior knowledge can prevent input from becoming intake, but there are other reasons as well. A learner might, for instance, “resist using input for social, cultural or emotional reasons – the learner resists learning because of some perceived threat or insult to his or her individual, social, or cultural sense of self” (p. 77). Gee argues that each learner has an affective filter, which is low when the perceived threat is low, allowing for input to become intake. Conversely, the filter is raised when the perceived threat is strong, which in turn constitutes an obstacle for input to become intake. On basis of this, he argues that we need to go beyond purely cognitive considerations in thinking about learning – the affective dimension of learning cannot be disconnected from the cognitive.

Moss (2008) as well as Gee (2008) argue that understanding and discussing issues of learning from a SC/S viewpoint requires an understanding of the learner as a learner-operating-with-mediational-means as part of a larger activity system or community of practice. One has to consider more than the individual student and/or the information/content to which he/she is exposed when discussing how learning happens. Rather, one must try to understand what the system, with all its components, looks like from the learner’s perspective. In the current study, that is what we attempt to do.

Method

The current research project was carried out in collaboration between two university researchers and a regional development centre funded by ten municipalities in southern Sweden (Segolsson & Hirsh, 2019). This study focuses on the student perspective, but in order to explain how the selection of students was made, a description of respondent selection and data collection for the project as a whole is included below.

Participants

Municipal development strategists assisted in communicating with schools and principals when teacher-respondents were to be selected. In each municipality, one secondary and one upper-secondary school were selected, and the principals at the respective schools were contacted and asked to propose a teacher whom they considered to be their most successful teacher based on the inclusion criteria (see footnote 1). The teachers were given a brief description of the project’s overall purpose and of what participation would mean in terms of data collection. We wanted to (1) attend/observe one of the teacher’s lessons, (2) conduct a focus-group interview (Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub, 1996) with 4–6 students from the current class and (3) conduct an individual interview with the teacher. The teachers were informed that the entire research process was guided by the Swedish Scientific Research Council’s (2017) ethical requirements concerning information, consent, confidentiality, and utility. Further, the teachers were instructed to randomly select 4–6 students from a list of students volunteering to take part in the focus-group interviews. It turned out that the volunteering students together represented a great span of knowledge levels and individual needs. An information letter was given to students and their parents/guardians explaining the project’s overall purpose and ethical considerations. All participating respondents signed an informed consent.

A total of 102 students, from a total of 20 different schools participated in the 20 interviews. Table 1 provides information about the participants in the student interviews.

Table 1. Information on respondents

School	9th grade or upper secondary (US)	Subject matter taught at the lesson visited by researchers	Number of female and male students participating in the interview
A	9th	Swedish	3 F, 1 M (4)
B	US	Swedish	3 F, 2 M (5)
C	9th	History	3 F, 2 M (5)
D	US	Mathematics	2 F, 3 M (5)
E	9th	Mathematics	3 F, 3 M (6)
F	9th	History	2 F, 3 M (5)
G	US	Civics	4 F, 1 M (5)
H	US	Mathematics	2 F, 4 M (6)
I	US	Mathematics	6 M (6)
J	9th	English	3 F, 2 M (5)
K	US	Mathematics	3 F, 2 M (5)
L	9th	Physics	4 F, 2 M (6)
M	US	History	3 F, 2 M (5)
N	9th	Civics	3 F, 1 M (4)
O	9th	Mathematics	2 F, 2 M (4)
P	US	Mathematics	3 F, 3 M (6)
Q	9th	Mathematics	2 F, 3 M (5)
R	9th	Science	2 F, 3 M (5)
S	US	Horse science 1 (theoretical)	4 F, 1 M (5)
T	US	Horse science 2 (practical)	5 F (5)

Procedure

Although we ourselves understand the process of teaching-learning and students’ opportunity to learn in line with the SC/S perspective (as described above) rather than the conventional, our ambition in this study was to capture students’ views on (good) teaching in as “neutral” manner as possible. The interview questions were, therefore, formulated to give the students the opportunity to freely reflect upon what characterises good teachers and teaching. The interviews (carried out at each respective school) followed an interview guide containing two open-ended, introductory questions and several possible follow-up questions. The two initial questions were

1. You have gone to school for many years and met a lot of teachers: How would you describe a really good teacher? What distinguishes a good teacher from one who is not as good?

2. What characterises teaching that you think leads to learning and development? (Try to give examples of what, specifically, the teacher does to accomplish that.)

All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The 16 interview excerpts included in the results section are taken from 13 of a total of 20 completed interviews. The excerpts are numbered 1–16, and for each excerpt is indicated at which school (in accordance with Table 1) the interview was carried out. In the excerpts, the designations S1, S2, and so on, are used to indicate that different student respondents talk in each interview. I is used for the interviewing researcher.

Data analysis

In line with our ambition to capture students’ views on good teaching in as “neutral” manner as possible, the empirical analysis followed Graneheim and Lundman’s (2004) qualitative content analysis approach, essentially meaning that our ambition was to search for patterns and create descriptive categories based on an inductive analysis of the data material. Categorisations, thus, should foremost be understood as spun from empirical patterns found rather than theory, and the presentation of the categories primarily as an account for the manifest content. The results section concludes with a brief summary of what emerges from the categories taken together, and how this, in turn, can be related to some previous research relevant to the outcome of the current study. In the concluding analysis and discussion section, the results obtained are analysed and problematised in relation to the various theoretical understandings of what successful teaching encompasses presented in the background section.

The entire data set was considered the unit of analysis in which meaning units were sought. Meaning units are understood here as content areas identified with little interpretation, shedding light on specific areas of content responding to the research question. The meaning units were subsequently labelled with codes summarising the core meaning in a few words. Coffey and Atkinson (1996, p. 32) describe codes as “heuristic devices” that allow the data to be thought of in new and/or different ways, while still staying on a manifest level. Next, the most frequently occurring codes were sorted into groups sharing a commonality, finally resulting in eight categories/areas together describing the aspects of successful teaching that unfold in the students’ descriptions of the teachers that they perceive as being really good/the best teachers. The interviews showed very large similarities with each other, and the content represented in the categories and excerpts presented below, occurred frequently in all 20 interviews. Thus, when we use the term ‘throughout the interviews’, we refer to the fact that the content of the category has been mentioned by the students in all interviews, but also that it is repeated several times in each interview. The eight categories, formulated as answers to the question of what characterises the teachers, are:

1. They create safe learning environments

2. They respect students in a manner that makes students respect them

3. They are passionate about teaching and student’s learning

4. They communicate that learning is a shared responsibility

5. They see and adjust to the individual

6. They build lessons that create motivation

7. They communicate that learning is possible for all

8. They emphasise the use-value of knowledge rather than formal requirements

Results

Throughout all interviews it is evident that the teacher plays a crucial role for the students and that the role of the teacher is more significant than the students’ interest in the subject: A good teacher can make learning in any subject possible and interesting, while the desire to participate in and learn a subject in which a student is otherwise greatly interested quickly disappears if the teacher is not as good:

Excerpt 1 (School B)

S2: I chose my speciality based on which teacher I would get. I’m really into economics, but the teacher isn’t good, so I chose civics instead, although I’m not very interested … because the civics teacher is way better than the economics teacher.

Presented below are the eight categories/areas identified in the manifest data analysis.

1) They create safe learning environments

What the students describe most frequently throughout the interviews is the importance of a caring and trustworthy relationship between teachers and students. The best teachers try to get to know their students and build relationships with them both inside and outside the classroom. This, in turn, creates a classroom environment where the students feel safe and comfortable to show when they do not understand and where they dare to ask questions. Another aspect often referred to as contributing to the feeling of a safe classroom is that teachers are forgiving: the best teachers never give up on their students and there is always a second chance. They do not compromise on order, rules, and clarity; rather, such aspects appear to be fundamental to the safe classroom. However, students describe that, in clear rules and expectations about behaviour, they feel a genuinely grounded love for and concern about them:

Excerpt 2 (School P)

S4: With Anne, we don’t have this strict relationship that you usually see between teachers and students. It’s more relaxed with her.

I: Still, you learn as much when it’s relaxed that way?

S2: I’d say we learn more because we dare to ask those question that we don’t dare to ask other teachers … For example, we’ve changed our maths teacher now, and the new one is really, like, “You must be silent the whole lesson,” and it’s … you don’t even dare to ask him things.

S2: Then you don’t get much out of the lesson, because you don’t even dare ask him about maths.

Excerpt 3 (School F)

S3: You feel at ease in Eve’s lessons. I think it’s all about Eve being so understanding … If I sit and do nothing in a lesson, she’ll come and ask why, but if I say, “I’m a bit tired today, I don’t feel good,” then it’s okay, as long as I don’t disturb anyone else. … Some teachers, when you do nothing and try to explain to them that you’re not feeling well that day, they get really angry.

S2: Or they don’t even ask, they don’t care; if you get an F,² it’s your own problem, they say.

S3: With such teachers, it’s better not to go to their lessons … but with Eve, I always feel it’s better to go to her lessons than to go home …

S4: Yes, Eve makes magic … I don’t know how she does it, but she makes magic … She’s the best … she loves to see her students develop … and she never gives up. There’s sort of always a second chance.

2) They respect students in a manner that makes students respect them

Throughout, students also describe how the teaching–learning process in the classrooms of the best teachers is characterised by the teachers’ willingness to listen to the students and the teachers’ seeing them as competent partners whose insights and opinions should be considered. This makes the students feel that the teacher genuinely respects them, which makes them respect the teacher. The relationship of mutual respect between teachers and students is described by students as crucial to their desire to learn as well as to their effort. Interesting in the context, and a recurrent theme in all interviews, is how the students distinguish between two different types of respect:

Excerpt 4 (School G)

S2: Monica cares so much about us … she almost feels like an extra mom, sort of.

S1: Yeah … but she’s a bit older, so … like a grandma, I would probably say … And you get the same feeling as you get when you come home to your real grandma, where there are always freshly baked buns and stuff. That’s the feeling you get.

S3: And she listens to us and takes us seriously. And helps us. You really respect …

S2: Yes, exactly, you respect her …. Also, because she is very determined.

S3: Yes, she truly is like the perfect grandmother, because while she always comes with freshly baked buns, you know that if you touch a painting on the wall, then you’re dead.

I: How do you get that kind of respect for a teacher, I wonder?

S4: It’s because the teacher really matters to us, and we know that we matter to the teacher … We affect her as much as she affects us.

S1: And she shows interest in us, not just “The National Agency for Education says that you must learn this” … With Monica, it’s more like she wants us to learn important stuff.

I: But a teacher who is authoritarian, then? Do you have respect for a teacher like that?

S4: Well … yes, but that’s a different kind of respect … it’s like … fearful respect … It’s something completely different from freshly-baked-buns–respect.

S2: Fearful respect, it’s the same feeling that you can get if you’re in a shop and see a security guard … even if you haven’t done anything wrong, you get sort of nervous.

S3: Mm. If a teacher is too … too strict, sort of, then you get scared.

S2: Then you get nervous to meet that teacher … Fearful respect is not a good kind of respect.

3) They are passionate about teaching and students’ learning

Students describe the best teachers as knowledgeable in their subjects but foremost as passionate about teaching their subjects and eager to share their knowledge with the students. The teachers’ passion for teaching is, however, just one side of the coin. Students describe how the best teachers are equally passionate about the students’ learning and understanding. The students describe a full presence, in the here and now, which, among other things, is expressed by a teacher’s attention not being directed at anything other than what is going on in the lesson there and then:

Excerpt 5 (School L)

S1: You hear if the teacher thinks it’s fun or not. They sort of engage the class in a completely different way than teachers who don’t sound like they are having fun.

S3: Yeah, they are passionate, they are happy when they teach … They don’t just say “You can open your books and read a little” … The best teachers are alert all the time, they don’t sit down at their desk in the classroom and do other stuff … They talk with enthusiasm … You can tell that they really want us to learn and that they always want to teach the best lesson ever. They want to make us better and they always want to get better themselves.

Excerpt 6 (School G)

S1: Monica is really into it, so passionate … you really feel that she’s there just for us. She radiates that energy, sort of.

S3: Yes, she shows that she actually cares about us. Well, that’s what makes her so much better than others … that she really shows that … like, “You guys mean everything to me this lesson.” It feels genuine with her.

4) They communicate that learning is a shared responsibility

Throughout all 20 interviews, students clearly express something that we interpret in our analysis as differences in where teachers place responsibility for learning. The best teachers not only “deliver teaching” (cf. Darling-Hammond, 1996) but also explicitly state that learning is a shared responsibility between teacher and students. The students describe in several interviews how these teachers often use “we” when they talk about the effort it takes to learn new things or when it comes to solving problems that are difficult or seem insurmountable:

Excerpt 7 (School R)

S3: When I find it difficult … when I sometimes break down because I feel I don’t understand a thing … then she says, “Hey, calm down, it’s ok, this is hard, but you know, we’ll do it together. You and I together.”

If the desired learning does not occur, the reason can just as well be attributed to the teaching as to factors at the student level:

Excerpt 8 (School D)

S2: Roger always says his goal is that everyone in the class get an A on each test. It usually doesn’t happen, but he says he can only be fully satisfied with his own effort if everyone gets an A.

S1: He never says “Oh, you are so bad” … rather, he blames himself … “Then I’ll have to do a much better job next time.”

S4: I remember one test – I don’t know if it was physics or maths – but most of us did worse than usual. Then he said straight to us, “The results are worse than usual, and I wonder what I’ve done wrong this time. What was different in my way of teaching compared to before?” He really wanted to know.

S2: Teachers usually blame the students for bad results … but Roger takes it on himself as well.

5) They see and adjust to the individual

Within-group differentiation seems to be a natural thing for the best teachers. They are described by the students as highly attentive and responsive to student differences within the group. The students claim that these teachers have made the effort to get to know them so well that they usually know when and how they need to help them in different ways. The teachers’ feedback to the students is rarely or never generic but is individually directed.

The fact that different needs among students within a class need to be met in different ways and with different types of distinctive solutions can be a delicate matter for teachers to deal with, in terms of not wanting to expose students to the feeling of being different from or less able than others. In the classrooms of the best teachers, however, differentiation seems to be a natural thing to the students:

Excerpt 9 (School O)

S2: You know, if he explains a maths problem to someone who has an A, then he uses different words than he would with someone with a lower level of comprehension … He sort of customises his explanation to the recipient. Myself, for example, I’m not great at maths, so he doesn’t use the most difficult concepts … but he still tries to explain difficult things to me … just not in the same way as he explains to someone who is great at maths. It’s good if the teacher really tries to get to know his students, like Paul has done. He knows how to help all of us in the best way possible.

Excerpt 10 (School A)

S1: Cathy is a great teacher I think … because I have a specific problem … that I cannot … It’s kind of hard for me to remember certain things … because I have a specific hobby that I focus very much on … so much that I can’t … eh … I can’t control it, if you know what I mean? So, it’s hard for me to remember other stuff sometimes … and also, I can’t … eh, what’s it called … ?

S2: Concentrate.

S1: Yeah, that’s it, thanks. I can’t always concentrate on things we do because I’m thinking of something else … And Cathy has really helped me through these years.

I: How has she helped you?

S1: She has sometimes taken me away from class and done things specifically with me.

S3: And then you got a computer.

S1: Yes, that too. To help me write, because I’m not a very good writer.

I: How does it feel when she takes you out of the class like that?

S1: It feels great to get away sometimes … and I’ve learned better, too.

6) They build lessons that create motivation

The students in the interviews claim that it is much easier to learn – or at least to endure the fact that one must learn – when one feels motivated.³ All aspects previously dealt with in the results (the creation of a safe classroom, the trusting relationship, the forgiving climate, the shared responsibility for learning, the teacher’s passion, etc.) appear to be crucial for the students’ desire to participate and learn in the classroom. There are, however, also aspects that are more linked to the teachers’ actual implementation of instruction. When the students describe how the teacher’s implementation of instruction contributes to maintaining their motivation, there are primarily three aspects that are referred to 1) teaching should be varied, 2) teaching should relate to a world the students are familiar with, and 3) teaching should allow for alternative pathways and in-depth dialogue.

The variation described by the students relates mainly to variation in teaching formats (a distribution between the teacher lecturing and the students working actively) and between working as a student on your own versus working in pairs/groups. Variation may also concern the fact that the teacher explains the same phenomenon in different ways, that diverse teaching material is used, that the teaching is arranged so that it appeals to different senses and involves students moving around rather than just sitting still, that the teacher varies his/her physical position in the classroom, that the teacher varies tone and body language when he/she speaks, etc. Several of these aspects of variation are represented in the excerpt below:

Excerpt 11 (School S)

S1: Variation is really important … teachers who can vary their teaching by … using videos, pictures, and so on. And that they sort of use body language and move around in the classroom … and that they don’t talk in the same tone all the time, because then you lose interest.

S2: Yeah, and that they ask students what they like, because everything doesn’t work in the same way for everyone.

S1: Theresa is a good teacher … She gesticulates a lot, and she asks us students for advice. And she doesn’t lecture and talk all the time, like many other teachers do.

S5: I think it’s good when teachers are a little practical, when we get to move around and not just sit still. It’s not fun when teachers just say “Now, sit down and pick up these books and do this” … and then you must sit there the whole lesson.

S4: Theresa explains in many ways, and she brings stuff to show us. She’s always well prepared … Some teachers don’t seem to be prepared at all.

S1: Yes, I think it’s good when she brings things to the classroom, and we can get up and smell … and sometimes even taste … then you get a feeling for what it is … instead of just saying “There’s a liniment that’s very strong, beware of it.” That way I don’t understand, I need to sort of … to feel it myself.

Another aspect that recurs in all interviews is that the teaching becomes more inspiring and easier to understand when the teacher connects to a world the students recognise and that relates to them in different ways:

Excerpt 12 (School R)

S2: I think it’s important to feel that teachers are in some way … on our level … that they understand the life we live. And relate to that in the classroom.

S3: Yeah, like Henry in chemistry … He is like 60 years old, but he is watching Breaking Bad, and then we talk about it in class.

In the background, reference was made to Sawyer (2004), who argues that a teacher should always be open to the flow created in the interaction that occurs among all participants in a classroom. A recurring aspect in all interviews concerns the degree to which teachers are responsive to students and adapt their lesson planning to the current situation. The students appreciate when teaching allows for alternative pathways (when deviation from actual lesson planning is allowed) and in-depth dialogue:

Excerpt 13 (School J)

S5: It feels so boring and stressful when we just have to squeeze things in all the time … like Peter’s lessons. He always says … “If we don’t get all this done before the national tests, you might get bad results … and then I will have a problem because of you.” I hate to hear that. With John, we can have deep conversations about interesting stuff. He never says “Now, we have to hurry to catch up” … but still we learn very much in John’s lessons … and we’re doing well in his subject.

7) They communicate that learning is possible for all

Another aspect mentioned throughout the interviews is how the good teachers are characterised by the way they make students believe that learning and knowledge development are possible for everyone and that hard work pays off. The best teachers communicate high expectations and confidence in the students’ ability to live up to the expectations, but – and this is especially important – they never stop showing that they share responsibility with the students, and they see it as their task to help students with strategies for learning and taking the next step. In particular, the students also point out that the teachers persistently show faith in them, even at times or during periods when some of them do not live up to the expectations:

Excerpt 14 (School I)

S3: Ben wants everyone to get better, to succeed.

S5: He says we should all get more than a C, or at least a C. He says we’re all capable of that.

S2: He says that, on tests, he doesn’t even give tasks on the E level because he knows we’re better than that … he’s aiming upwards … always.

S5: He says that even if you get an F on a test, you shouldn’t strive for an E; we should constantly strive for even higher … like, at least a C.

I: What happens if you get an F on a test?

P: He talks to us, encourages us … gives us clues about how to think, helps us … He says, like, “You’ve missed this, try to think like this instead” … you know, pep talk, he believes in us, always.

8) They emphasise the use-value of knowledge rather than formal requirements

Teachers’ teaching is necessarily framed and guided by a curriculum containing the goals of student learning. The degree and quality of each student’s achievement is subsequently given a grade, which, in turn, can play a crucial role for further study or work. This fact is constantly present (i.e. talked about a lot) in all 20 interviews with the students. Our analysis clearly shows that the students’ relation to achievement and grades in school is characterised by a certain degree of ambiguity. On the one hand, they speak on a general level about how their participation and learning in school is driven by the end goal being a grade and that the grades are important to them. On the other hand, in all interviews they talk about how stressful it is when teachers, in their words and actions, place too much focus on formal requirements and grades. Characteristic of the best teachers is that they consistently emphasise that school is foremost about learning rather than achievement and that their answers to the students’ commonly posed “why-do-we-have-to-learn-this”-questions relate to the benefits of possessing certain knowledge in practice rather than formal requirements and grades.

Excerpt 15 (School G)

S3: Monica, she’s one of the few who’s not just going on about, you know, “The knowledge requirements in the curriculum say that you need to learn this” … like most other teachers do. Monica, she says that we need to learn to …

S2: To benefit from it … . And she explains why. She explains why we’ll need to know stuff later in life.

S4: Yes, had there been a Monica in each subject, I would have liked going to school every day … Now, I just feel stressed out.

Excerpt 16 (School Q)

Eh … Matthew doesn’t care about grades … or, perhaps I should say he’s not talking as much about grades as other teachers. He talks more about us getting better – that we should learn as much as possible instead of getting as high grades as possible.

Summing up

Taken together, the eight descriptive categories above show that such teaching that the students perceive as leading to knowledge development and well-being is largely characterised by relational aspects. First and foremost, a prerequisite for learning is, according to the students in all 20 interviews, a safe learning environment. Such safety is mainly created when the students clearly feel that the teacher shares the responsibility for learning with them, sees, confirms, and respects them both as individuals and as learners, articulates a belief in their learning ability and development potential, and never gives up on them, even if they or the circumstances they are in are sometimes challenging. Their desire to participate and learn in school appears largely to go hand in hand with such safety.

The students interviewed in the present study claim, based on their own experiences and feelings, that there is a link between strong interpersonal teacher-student relationships and academic achievement. There are several parallels between the student perspective reflected here and research and theories on the relationship between motivation and achievement. In a research review from 2009, Martin and Dowson, 2009 compile research based on different motivational theories and elaborate the role of interpersonal relationships in students’ academic motivation, engagement, and achievement. They argue that research within the field is consistent in showing that relationship plays a substantial role in students’ success at school. In their review, they scrutinise the ways in which teacher-student relationships affect achievement motivation. From a learning perspective, they argue, “a strong sense of relatedness better positions students to take on challenge, set positive goals, and establish high expectations that extend and motivate them” (p. 335), and further, that numerous studies (e.g. Battistich & Horn, 1997; Kontos & Wilcox-Herzog, 1997; Martin, 2006) support the fact that teachers who frame their classroom practices in relational terms are more likely to foster motivated and achieving students. According to the research reviewed by Martin and Dowson, students who believe that a teacher is caring also believe they learn more, and further, students’ feelings of acceptance by teachers are associated with emotional, cognitive, and behavioural engagement in class. They conclude that interpersonal teacher-student relationships that promote motivation, academic engagement, and achievement involve teachers actively getting to know their students, listening to their views, and allowing their input into decisions that affect them. Furthermore, they emphasise the importance of teachers varying instructional methods, encouraging students to learn from their mistakes, demonstrating to students how schoolwork is relevant and meaningful, and allowing for opportunities to catch up. There is a remarkably large resemblance between that which is described in Martin and Dowson’s review and that which is described by the students in the categories of the present study. The resemblance confirms what several studies in a growing field of relational pedagogy (e.g. Aspelin, 2012, 2013, 2014; Bingham & Sidorkin, 2004; Ljungbladh, 2016) have come to realise, namely that teachers’ relational competence is of utmost importance for students learning and well-being in school. This will be further elaborated in the following section.

Concluding analysis and discussion

The 21st century pursuit of evidence-based best teaching methods described in the introduction and background sometimes seems to be driven by the belief that it is actually possible to make teaching teacher-proof. A great number of research reviews on the effect of various teaching methods on students’ learning, however, come to the same conclusion; there are no teacher-proof methods. The skilled teacher, capable of navigating the complex situation of teaching classes where students’ needs and levels of knowledge vary widely, is of paramount importance. This study shows that if we are to listen to what the students experience as important for well-being and knowledge development, we cannot focus only on subject matter knowledge and teaching methods (whether generic or content specific). Since education has to do with people, there is always a relational and interpersonal side to the teaching-learning process.

When students describe good teachers and teaching in the current study, there are very few (if any) descriptions that can be related to the ‘conventional’ way of understanding the process of teaching-learning in a purely cognitive sense (Moss et al., 2008). Instead, it is obvious through all 20 interviews that such teaching that students perceive as leading to knowledge-development and well-being is characterised by many of the aspects that can be understood – in various ways – as relational, i.e. as unfolding through participative communication in the interplay and interaction that constitute the gap referred to by Biesta (2004). Throughout students’ descriptions it is also obvious that the best teachers are scaffolders and shepherds who manage to balance between simultaneously scaffolding and challenging students cognitively while paying attention to affective dimensions in order to safeguard their social development, self-confidence and self-esteem (Gee, 2008; Sugrue, 1997).

Throughout the categories in the results section, the trusting interpersonal relationship, which can be understood as shepherding, seems to constitute an important basis for the security that the students describe as central to their desire to learn and participate in classroom activities. Students’ descriptions (as exemplified in excerpts 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14) can be interpreted to a large extent as examples of teachers showing such love, empathy, tactful feeling, and/or situational understanding of the needs of individuals that van Manen (1991, 1995) claims are central to good teaching. The fact that students describe it as characteristic of the best teachers that they never give up on the students – that they communicate (pronounced or unspoken) a reassuring “there is always a second chance” even for those experiencing setbacks and periods of trouble – can metaphorically be interpreted as teachers acting ‘in loco parentis’. Love, care and trust are basically unconditional, and the responsibility for the relationship lies primarily with the teacher as a representative of the adult world (van Manen, 1991). The best teachers seem to embrace a belief that respectful and personal relationships in affirmative learning environments – where affective filters are low – are fundamental for learning to happen. They seem to interact with and be in constant dialogue with classes as well as individual students, both inside and outside the classroom. They get to know their students and show genuine interest in listening to them and communicating with them.

Incidentally, it is clear throughout the material that shepherding and scaffolding (Sugrue, 1997) go hand in hand; the students consider it crucially important that the teachers get to know each one of them as a person as well as a learner and, moreover, that the person and the learner cannot really be distinguished from each other. The students want to feel seen and confirmed in a human sense and argue that seeing them and knowing them as humans makes it easier for the teacher to know how to meet their needs as learners (exemplified in excerpt 9).

Central to the safe classroom is also that students feel that the teacher shares the responsibility for learning with them (exemplified in excerpts 5, 7, 8, 10). The teaching actions of the teachers described as really good/the best seem to be characterised by a pronounced and enacted “we”. We suggest that this can be interpreted as an illustration of teachers helping students to “stay with that which resists and work through it” when meeting unfamiliar learning content (Biesta, 2012). Although the results of this study have focused on the best teachers’ teaching actions, the material contains numerous examples of what the students perceive as the opposite Based on what the students articulate (exemplified in excerpts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13), they also have teachers who seem to regard it as their responsibility to “cover the curriculum” (cf. Darling-Hammond, 1996) and as the students’ responsibility to learn the content. Student factors are assumed to be the cause of failures and poor results, which signals a conventional understanding of OTL on behalf of the teachers. The shared responsibility, coupled with students’ feeling of being regarded as competent partners whose thoughts and opinions are worth listening to, and the fact that teachers communicate and enact a belief in the students developmental abilities, appears to be the foundation of the kind of mutual respect that is described in all interviews as highly important for students’ desire to participate and learn.

Although the students describe the best teachers as knowledgeable in their subjects, it is not an aspect that appears in their descriptions as what primarily defines a good teacher. Rather, they highlight the teachers’ great passion for teaching their subjects and their equally great passion for student learning (excerpts 4, 5, 6). As for teaching methods, students emphasise the teachers’ ability to vary and adapt their teaching approach to the class and/or the individual, rather than describing specific teaching methods as superior to others (excerpts 9, 10, 11). Students also describe how the best teachers relate to a world they are familiar with and create space for alternative pathways in accordance with the students’ interests (excerpts 12, 13).Thus, the best teachers appear to possess such creativity and openness for the flow created through dialogue among the participants in a class that Sawyer (2004) refers to as teaching as disciplined improvisation.

Finally, it is possible to understand teaching in school (in a general sense) as an activity system that is framed and controlled by a set formal rules and requirements (such as curricula, grading systems, the presence of standardised tests, teachers’ workload, etc.). Such external rules are basically the same for all teachers described in the current study, both those the students experience as excellent and those experienced as less good. This study shows that, despite this, the students perceive that the ways in which learning is made possible vary greatly between different classrooms and different teachers. Through their actions, the teachers whom students perceive as being the best offer students an OTL that differs from the OTL offered by other teachers. It is therefore important that the discussion on how to achieve good student results does not stop neither at how external rules (such as the above-mentioned) enable or constrain teachers’ possibilities to teach, nor at teachers’ subject matter and/or methodological knowledge. This study certainly underlines the importance of considering the teaching-learning process as relational.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Åsa Hirsh

Åsa Hirsh is a PhD and Associate Professor at Jönköping University and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research focus lies at the intersection between the fields of classroom instruction, educational assessment, and teacher-driven school development.

Mikael Segolsson

Mikael Segolsson is a PhD and Assistant Professor at Jönköping University, Sweden. He works as a lecturer in teaching and learning, mainly focusing on practice-based educational research. Mikael also works with theory-philosophical studies about learning processes in school.

Notes

1. Although aware of the fact that there is no given definition of a successful teacher, it was nevertheless necessary to define inclusion criteria for identifying appropriate teacher-respondents. In line with our argumentation above, we chose to define successful teachers as teachers who have a proven ability to effect knowledge development in students, to adapt their teaching based on students’ varied needs, and to create a desire in students to learn and participate in classroom activities. ‘Proven ability’ refers here to the fact that the principals who assisted in the selection of teacher-respondents could confirm students’ good results through grade statistics, and their perceived well-being through data from periodically completed surveys.

2. The Swedish grade scale extends from A to F. A through E are different degrees of achievement, where A is the highest grade and E the lowest. F stands for failed.

3. The students themselves use the concept of motivation when describing their desire or driving force to take on schoolwork.