Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine the accords and discords between English language teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal behavior in four selected secondary schools in Ethiopia. The samples of the study were 48 English language teachers and their respective 420 students. In order to collect data, questionnaires were administered to both students and teachers. To analyze and interpret the data, a two-tailed independent sample t-test was used. Accordingly, the findings revealed that teachers rated themselves considerably higher for helpful/friendly, leadership, and strict behaviors and lower for uncertain, admonishing, student freedom/ responsibility and dissatisfied behaviors as compared to their students’ rating of them. However, no significant difference was found between the two bodies for understanding interpersonal behavior. Similarly, teachers notably felt they were highly in control of classroom communications and had more affiliation/ connection with the students in the process of communications than their students’ perceptions of them. Hence, there were much discords between English language teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal behavior. Following the findings, some recommendations were forwarded.
Machine summary:
com Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the accords and discords between English language teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal behavior in four selected secondary schools in Ethiopia.
At the onset, good teacher–student interpersonal relationship is believed to provide a favorable classroom environment for students’ engagement in learning activities (Wubbels, Créton, & Hooymayers, 1985; Smith, 1998; Brekelmans, Sleegers & Fraser, 2000; Knapp & Antos, 2009; Opdenakker, den Brok & Bosker, 2011).
Moreover, studies pointed out that the way teachers affiliate with students and control classroom learning processes are linked with the cognitive and affective development of students (Wubbels, Créton, & Hooymayers, 1985; Smith, 1998; den Brok, Brekelmans & Wubbels, 2004; Lourdusamy & Khine, 2005; Akbari & Allvar, 2010).
Similarly, studies on science teachers’ interpersonal behavior in Turkish secondary schools revealed that teachers perceived themselves higher on both dimensions while their students’ perceived them moderately dominant and highly cooperative on the average (Telli, den Brok & Cakiroglu, 2007; Telli, den Brok & Cakiroglu, 2007-2008).
Nevertheless, few studies revealed that there were no significant differences between students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the two dimensions of teacher interpersonal behavior (Wubbels & Levy, 1991; Fisher & Rickards, 2000; Ben-Chaim & Zoller, 2001).
In contrast, the same teachers reported lower perceptions of their own uncertain, dissatisfied, student freedom and admonishing behaviors than their students (Wubbels, Brekelmans & Hooymayers, 1992; Fisher & Rickards, 1999; Rickards & Fisher, 2000; Telli, den Brok & Cakiroglu, 2007-2008).