Teacher behavior as predictors of student's sense of community

Abstract

The present study addressed the relatively enexplored relationship between teacher-student interaction and students' sense of community (SOC). It sought to address the questions: (a) Which classroom behaviors in a teacher's interaction with preadolescent students will predict higher levels of students's SOC? and (b) How important is the class teacher's interaction with students to their experience of community in school?

Teacher inteaction, based on an adaptation of the Leary model (Wubbels, Creton, Levy, & Hooymayers, 1993), consisted of eight key teacher behaviors - Leadership, Helpful/Friendly, Understanding, Student Responsibility/Freedom, Uncertain, Dissatisfied, Admonishing, and Strict. SOC was specifically considered within the school context, as experienced by the student. Prior research indicated that students' SOC is consistently and desirably related to their personal attitude and bahavior; social attitude, motivation, and behavior; and academic attitude, motivation, and bahavior.

Utilizing the individual student as the unit of analysis, the study employed the elementary school version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) and the Student Questionnaire of the Child Development Project (SQCDP). The sample consisted of 305 students attending grades 5 and 6 is four English medium international schools in greater Metro Manila, Philippines.

Findings revealed relatively high SOC scores and teacher behavior profiles similar to that of 'best' teacher in prior research. Leadership, Helping/Friendly, Understanding, and Student Responsibility/Freedom teacher behaviors from the Cooperation dimension were negatively related to students' SOC. The teacher behavior uncertain as well as the student demographic variables Gender, Age, Ethnic Group, and Time in Present School were not meaningfully related to students' SOC.

Taking into consideration all variables of study, multiple regression analyses revealed the three of the Positive teacher behaviors-Helping/Friendly, Understanding, and Student Responsibility/Freedom-accounted for 39% of the variance in SOC while the contribution of the Negative teacher behaviors was neglibible. The implications of these results were discussed.