Classrooms are actually complex social environments influenced by many interacting factors including cultural, interpersonal and environmental issues (Brekelmanns, Wubbels, & van Tartwijk, 2006). Wubbels, Creton, and Hooymayers (1985) developed an instrument the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) based on a model of interpersonal behaviour derived from the original work of Leary (1957).

 

In this approach, classroom groups are conceived as ongoing systems which require a certain stability in order to exist. With students’ first contact with a particular teacher, they can be influenced by stereotypical expectations but usually, they will be open to initial impressions. As the school year progresses, students commence to develop their perceptions about emerging relationships with their teacher. After a period of time, students will form a perception of the ‘kind’ of teacher that they have. These perceptions tend to become stabilised and may be readily recalled some time after their experience with a particular teacher has finished.

 

The purpose of this paper was to examine whether teachers could change students’ perceptions of their interpersonal behaviour, and if changes did occur, to describe the nature of these changes.

 

The sample consisted of 12 voluntary primary science teachers in Queensland, Australia.  This sample involved 297 students ranging from year 4 to year 7, of whom 51% were female students.

 

This study used a mixed methodological approach. Initially, the students in each classroom were administered the QTI to establish their perceptions of interpersonal relationships in their classroom. Each teacher was presented with the model for interpersonal teacher behaviour and they were asked to nominate a scale or two that they would like to try and change. The students were not told of the teachers’ selected aspect to address or intentions for intervention.

 

During the next three months, observations were made periodically and then the QTI was re-administrated to the same classes. The survey provided student responses but did not reveal what the students were thinking when they were responding to the items. The survey produced results which could be used to invoke a form of reflection as well as providing prompts for further questions that needed to be answered. The goal of research is to “provide warranted assertions about human beings… and the environments in which they live” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 15). This paper seeks to explain what teachers felt was happening in their classes and to allow students to voice their perceptions of a teacher intervention. By combining survey, interview and observations, this study sought to develop a more coherent understanding of the intervention and change that occurred in these classrooms.

 

Students were interviewed about their perspectives of their classroom, including what changes they thought had occurred during the previous three months. The classroom teachers were interviewed about the change in students’ perspectives, what changes they had sought to promote in their classrooms, and what they felt had been achieved in their classrooms. This paper describes four of the classes that were indicative of the range of change in this study.

 

The initial and final student perceptions of each of the classrooms are reported. It is noteworthy that in most classrooms, positive classroom changes were reported. It could be argued that these teachers were competent teachers who were comfortable with their teaching but wanted the challenge of trying to change students’ perceptions.

 

As soon as practicable, the teachers were shown initial students’ perceptions and they were asked to nominate what aspects of the students’ perceptions they would like to modify. All teachers focused on at least Student Responsibility. This seemed to be a universal sector that was valued by each teacher. To achieve this, most teachers focused on developing group skills and student choice within groups as a way to provide responsibility. Teachers had many whole class discussions and both the teachers and students found these extremely valuable especially when the students’ opinions were genuinely valued and also acted upon by the teacher.

 

Teachers would often find themselves having to ‘step back’ during activities where students were working in groups independently and would feel ‘out of their comfort zone’ when doing so. Some teachers were challenged by the process but were glad that they did allow students to take on more responsibility. At the end of the study, some of the teachers noted that many students had progressed more than usual. Teachersnoted that valuable life lessons were developed during periods of increased independence and that this was another positive outcome. In fact, some of the more successful classes had already established a sense of family with students where students used words like ‘trust, opinion valued and fun’ frequently.

 

Students commented that they work better and learn more when they have greater choice in what they do, how they do it, who they work with and how they present their results.It was interesting to note that teachers commented that their involvement in the research had provided them with confidence to pursue more of these activities and that that ultimately the time and effort was worth achieving the outcomes of students’ development.

 

This paper has shown that planned strategic interventions can change the classroom environment. It is possible that these classrooms could have remained stable as shown by Brekelmanns, Wubbels, & van Tartwijk (2006), however, this paper shows that teachers can change students’ perceptions of teacher-student interactions. The teacher and student interviews indicated that both the students and their teachers could articulate what had changed in the classroom and what had been done to achieve this change. The extent of this change was not constant between classrooms. This study did confirm, through interviews, that student engagement and interest could be affected by the degree of responsibility they are given.