Teacher Interpersonal Behaviour And Student Outcomes In Senior High School English Classroom

In the recent decades, with the development of research on the effects of teacherbehaviour, more and more researchers in the field of learning environment researchhave paid a substantial amount of attention to teacher-student interpersonalrelationships (e.g. Fraser,1998; Wubbels&Brekelmans,1998). Research in foreigncountries has indicated the crucial relationship between teacher behaviour and studentoutcomes (e.g. Brekelmans et al.,2002; den Brok et al.,2004; Wubbel et al.,2006).However, in China, seldom was research conducted with QTI to examine theassociations between teacher interpersonal behaviour and student outcomes.This study investigated relationships between students’ perceptions of theirteachers’ interpersonal behaviour and student outcomes, including cognitive outcomesmeasured by student English achievement and affective outcomes collected bystudents’ English learning motivation in senior high school English classes. Data from173students from4classes in grade2in senior high school were used in this study.The present study was based on quantitative research methods and supplemented byqualitative methods. Teacher interpersonal behaviour was collected with theQuestionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) and interviews with students and teachers.In this study, the Attitude Scale towards English (ASE) was employed to measurestudents’ motivation in learning English. The results were reported in terms of twoindependent dimensions called (Cooperation–Opposition, CO) and Influence(Dominance–Submission, DS) and eight scales consist of Leadership (DC),Helpful/Friendly (CD), Understanding (CS), Student Freedom (SC), Uncertain (SO),Dissatisfied (OS), Admonishing (OD), and Strict (DO).Data analyses were conducted including descriptive, correlational and regressionanalyses. Results indicated that teachers generally demonstrated more cooperativebehaviour than dominant behaviour. Compared with teachers in some other countries,the mean scores of Chinese teachers’ cooperation are somewhat low while thedominance is somewhat higher. For student cognitive outcomes, findings showed thatteacher Understandings, Admonishing and Strict were positively correlated withstudent achievement while Dissatisfied and Student freedom were negative significant. Proximity was significantly related to students’ achievement, no prediction was foundbetween two dimensions and student achievement. With respect to teacherinterpersonal behaviour and affective outcomes, correlation analyses and regressionanalyses revealed that strong and positive effects of Influence and Proximity onstudents’ motivation of their English classes and supported findings of earlier studieswith the QTI. For all of the four attitude variables-pleasure, relevance, confidence,and effort-a positive and strong effect was found for teacher Proximity. In addition,for three variables-pleasures, relevance and effort-Influence also had a positive effect.Specifically, the results showed the significant positive relationships for Leadership,Helpful, Understanding and Student freedom with pleasure, relevance, confidence andeffort of students. Strict was significant positive related with pleasure, relevance andeffort. Significant negative relationships for Dissatisfied with pleasure, relevance andeffort have found. Negative relationship has also found with Admonishing withpleasure. The weakest association was between confidence and interpersonalbehaviour. In addition, both dimensions significant predicted for pleasure andrelevance. For confidence and effort, Proximity did predict the two elements whileInfluence was not strong predictor for them.Overall, in the present study, the results demonstrate the significant role ofteacher interpersonal behaviour in student outcomes especially for students’motivation in learning English. What’s more, Proximity seems to be of greaterimportance than teacher influence, which suggests that teachers should pay moreattention to the cooperative behaviour compared with dominant behaviour duringdaily teaching. Implications of the findings, some limitations and suggestions forfuture studies were discussed.