Instructional support, learning, affection key to student-teacher relationship, study finds

Affection, fairness, patience, and most of all a strong learning and instructional support element are essential for a good student-teacher relationship, a local study has found.

Addressing the opening of a conference discussing the study’s finding today, President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said that the research and its results will be a point of reference for understanding the effects which teachers’ behaviour has and will have on children and their well-being.

The findings would help anyone in the education sector to understand how children feel, the President, who had personally requested that the research take place, added.

The research, which was led by Professor Mary Darmanin, involved a study of 109 children, in Year 5, in four state schools of different sizes.

The study utilised qualitative and ethnographic research methods, semi-structured and focus group interviews and children’s sentence completion and drawings to determine what the essence of a good, less good, and bad student-teacher relationship consisted in.

Speaking at the conference, Darmanin explained that there had been a gap in research about this relationship, with previous studies having focused on either very young, or school-leaving age children, with the middle years not having been studied.

The research findings show that at the core of a good student-teacher relationship were four elements: affection, patience, care and love which have to be manifest, reciprocal, and containing a strong element of teaching and learning; the fact that time was needed for students and teacher to get to know each other well; the importance of a sense of well-being and belonging in the classroom; and good instructional support.

Overall, the key factor to getting on well was strongly linked to learning, Darmanin explained.

Caring and respect were also highlighted, as was the need for fairness and the teacher not having any favourites.

Listening was also vital, with one student in the study saying that they wished their teacher would notice them.

Darmanin said that instructional support involved the teacher being willing to go over a topic or concept as often as was needed, the checking of understanding and the giving of personalised support, and providing the children with a degree of autonomy and choice, something which Maltese classrooms were very poor in.

Moreover, students valued teachers who gave second changes, those who employed good pacing and gave a reasonable volume of work, and the giving of feedback and praise.

The childrens' perspectives in the study were mostly based on interview data, but also through meeting the students in the classroom and in their homes.

Another important aspect which emerged from the study, Darmanin said, was the reciprocal aspect of teaching, in that students appreciated teachers who enjoyed teaching them, as well as those who showed willingness to help them.

In terms of students not getting on well with teachers, Darmanin said that this had a personal and a collective dimension - teachers who did not get well with a students and teachers who did not get on well with a class.

Professor Mary Darmanin said the findings highlighted the importance of the learning element in the student-teacher relationship

The main factors behind a bad relationship were a lack of encouragement by teachers and a negative evaluation of a student, teachers raising their voice or getting angry and lack of instructional support.

Some students said they felt scared when teachers shouted a them, with one using the word “shock” to describe how they felt.

Unfairness, unprofessional behaviour and excessive punishment also contributed to a negative relationship.

Darmanin said that in order to makes things better for middle childhood learners, teachers should treat their students kindly and with respect. They should be patient, mark work fairly, and do what they could to create a positive classroom climate.

Moreover they should strive to provide quality teaching, give more autonomy and opportunities for self-learning, be fair with all children, allocate equal turns to participate, and allot more time for playing, crafts and sharing activities.

A sense of humour and a “smiling face” also went a long way, student attested.

The results of the study will be published shortly.