In this intriguing Elementary School Journal article, Haytske Zijlstra and Helma Koomen (University of Amsterdam) and Theo Wubbels and Mieke Brekelmans (Utrecht University) report on their study of teachers’ interpersonal behavior and their students’ mathematics achievement. Rather than relying on classroom observations, which they say are “time consuming and therefore remain generally limited to a relatively small sample of interactions,” the researchers asked the children about teachers’ affect and classroom management, since “child perceptions of the teacher-child relationship are based on a large number of lessons.”

     The authors note that the math curriculum in the Netherlands has gone through significant changes in recent years, posing “social challenges” that need to be addressed. The authors also posit that math instruction in the primary grades “has a highly cumulative nature and a strong didactic component,” which suggests that the teacher-student relationship is especially important. “Thus it seems that teachers’ dual roles of providing affective support (affiliation) and managing the classroom (control) may be an important predictor of young children’s response to mathematics activities, and thus can have an additive value to children’s mathematics achievement.”

     The researchers studied 828 first and second graders and their 40 teachers in 24 Dutch mainstream schools in urban, suburban, and rural communities. Below are the questions that students answered about their teachers after hearing them read aloud, writing their answers following traffic light pictures showing a five-point scale: Never, Very Little, Sometimes, Often, and Always. Questions in red are reverse-coded:

Teacher control (high versus low leadership and management):

-   All children learn a lot from [Teacher’s name].

-   [Teacher’s name] explains things clearly.

-   Children pay attention to [Teacher’s name].

-   [Teacher’s name] explains everything well.

-   If [Teacher’s name] makes a promise, she also follows through.

-   If [Teacher’s name] says we have to be quiet, the kids keep talking.

-   Children fool around in class.

-   Children talk out of turn.

-   Children are naughty to [Teacher’s name].

-   We do things that are not allowed in class.

Teacher affiliation (high versus low friendliness and cooperation):

-   [Teacher’s name] acts friendly toward children.

-   [Teacher’s name] is a kind teacher.

-   [Teacher’s name] is friendly.

-   [Teacher’s name] gets mad if children make mistakes.

-   [Teacher’s name] gets angry quickly.

-   [Teacher’s name] shouts at us.

-   [Teacher’s name] complains.

-   [Teacher’s name] nags us.

-   [Teacher’s name] thinks that mistakes are bad.

-   [Teacher’s name] gets angry.

The results? The researchers looked at mid-year and end-of-year math test results and concluded: “The more children perceived their teacher as friendly and cooperative rather than hostile and discordant, and as someone who provides clear expectations and is capable of managing the classroom and optimizing student attention, the more children learned in the domain of mathematics in the early grades of elementary school… Taken together, these results suggest that positive perceptions about both interpersonal dimensions can have a cumulative influence on children’s achievement. This is an important result because first academic experiences will determine future achievement.”

            Interestingly, teacher control was the more consistent predictor of math achievement –teachers who were strongest on this dimension got uniformly better math results. Teacher affiliation was inconsistent – some highly rated teachers got good results, some didn’t.

“Child Perceptions of Teacher Interpersonal Behavior and Associations with Mathematics Achievement in Dutch Early Grade Classrooms” by Haytske Zijlstra, Theo Wubbels, Mierke Brekelmans, and Helma Koomen in The Elementary School Journal, June 2013 (Vol. 113, #4, p. 517-540), http://bit.ly/1amHNSy

From the Marshall Memo #490