Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology
Relationships Between Teachers and Children
Download 9.82 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
- Bu sahifa navigatsiya:
- CORRELATES OF RELATIONAL DIMENSIONS
- Correlates of Relational Dimensions 219
- EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS RELATED TO CHILD-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS
- Educational and Psychological Applications Related to Child-Teacher Relationships 221
- Issues in Prevention-Oriented Applications Involving Child-Teacher Relationships
- Applications in Context
- Developmental Time: Pathways
218 Relationships Between Teachers and Children Q-set methods utilize criterion sorts in order to derive scores for subjects on relevant constructs. Experts knowl- edgeable regarding a particular construct (e.g., child-teacher security) are asked to sort Q descriptions according to their view of what an ideal child would receive as a sort, in the case of the aforementioned example, a child who was ideally secure in relationship to the teacher. In several studies (e.g., Howes, Matheson, et al., 1994; Pianta et al., 1997) criterion sorts were developed to describe children in specific types of relationships with teachers—for example, a child in a secure relationship, a child in a con- flicted relationship, and a child in a dependent relationship. Interrater reliability for these sorts tends to be high, sug- gesting that two observers’ impressions of characteristic be- haviors can agree for individual children. Also, correlations between sorts of teacher-child relationships are strongly re- lated to similar sorts of parent-child relationships for con- structs such as security, indicating a high level of consensus among various reporters on the behaviors reflective of a secure child-adult relationship.
Teachers’ reports of child-teacher relationships reflect di- mensions of conflict and closeness. These dimensions repli- cate across samples that vary by age, ethnicity, and economic status (see Pianta, 1999), are fairly stable, and correlate with concurrent and future teacher-reported mea- sures of adjustment, school achievement, and student moti- vation (Birch & Ladd, 1997; Howes, 2000b; Pianta et al., 1995). Children’s reports of relationships with teachers re- flect dimensions of emotional closeness and support, com- munication and involvement, and negativity, suggesting parallels with teachers’ reports (Bracken & Crain, 1994; Ryan et al., 1994; Wentzel, 1996). It appears that in relation to student or teacher outcomes, negativity is the most salient feature of teachers’ reports, whereas a sense of closeness and support appears most salient from the child’s point of view. It is critical to note that these conclusions are qualified by the fact that the literature is limited in terms of multimethod, multi-informant longitudinal studies. Missing from this liter- ature is description of the same child-teacher relationship from its two participants, as well as the extent to which use of these two perceptions of the same relationship yields dimen- sions similar to those reported earlier for single-participant reports and whether two participants’ perceptions converge or are concordant with one another. CORRELATES OF RELATIONAL DIMENSIONS In this section we review studies that link the aforementioned child-teacher relationship dimensions to child outcomes and other correlates. Studies cited in the review assess child- teacher relationships at the relational unit of analysis. These findings attempt to address the extent to which a focus on this unit of analysis is helpful in advancing understanding of development in school settings. Over the last 10 years research on child-teacher relation- ships focused around several lines of inquiry, each resulting in support for these relationships as salient features of develop- ment. These lines of inquiry involve child-teacher relationships and peer relations, parent-child relationships, academic com- petence, and features of social and emotional adjustment (see Pianta, 1999). Teacher-child relationships are related to chil- dren’s competencies with peers in the classroom (e.g., Birch & Ladd, 1998; Howes, 2000b; Howes, Hamilton, et al., 1994) and trajectories toward academic success or failure (Birch & Ladd, 1996; Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Pianta et al., 1995; van IJzendoorn, Sagi, & Lambermon, 1992), as well as with pat- terns of child-mother relationships (Lynch & Cicchetti, 1992) and disruptive behavior (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Howes and colleagues (see Howes, 2000a, 2000b) conducted a series of studies relating child-parent and child- teacher relationships to each other and to early childhood so- cial outcomes (Hamilton & Howes, 1992; Howes, Hamilton, et al., 1994; Howes et al., 1998; Howes, Matheson, et al., 1994). They established a low to moderate degree of continu- ity in the quality of relationships that children have with moth- ers and form with teachers (Howes & Matheson, 1992). They further found that both of these relationships play a role in children’s peer competencies, although relationships with teachers are stronger predictors of behavior with peers in the classroom than are relationships with parents (Howes, Matheson, et al., 1994). Also, child-teacher relationships show low to moderate levels of continuity in the early grades of school—at least through second grade (Howes, Phillipsen, & Peisner-Feinberg, 2000), echoing Birch and Ladd’s (1998) contention that children’s relationships demonstrate a coher- ence across relational figures and across time. Pianta and colleagues reported links between teachers’ re- ports of relationships with children and a range of school outcomes in the early grades. In one such study (Pianta et al., 1995), kindergarten teachers’ reports of the degree to which children displayed security toward them was related to first- grade teachers’ reports of the children’s competence. In a se- ries of descriptive studies, Pianta and Steinberg (1992) and Pianta (1994) showed that teacher-child relationships are also Correlates of Relational Dimensions 219 fairly stable across the period from kindergarten to second grade and correlate with concurrent and future teacher- reported measures of adjustment, grade retention, and special education referrals (Birch & Ladd, 1997; Pianta et al., 1995). Furthermore, changes in student adjustment from year to year were correlated in expected directions with these dimensions (Pianta et al., 1995): Downward deflections are correlated with child-teacher conflict, whereas upward deflections are related to child-teacher closeness. Finally, there is evidence that child-teacher relationships operate as a protective factor against risk: Children at high risk for retention or referral for special education who are not referred or retained are reported to be more close to their teachers, whereas their retained/referred counterparts are in greater conflict with teachers (Pianta et al., 1995). Within a group of children designated on the basis of low kindergarten screening scores as high risk for referral for special education or retention, those who ultimately did get retained or referred were compared with those who, despite being high risk, were promoted or not referred (Pianta et al., 1995). The children who, despite predictions of retention or referral, were ultimately promoted or not referred had far more positive relationships with their teachers than did their high-risk peers who were retained or referred. Significantly, this successful high-risk group was notable for its lack of conflict and high degree of open communication. In short, it appeared that there was a buffering effect of the relationship between the child and teacher (Pianta et al., 1995). Hamre and Pianta (2001) extended analysis of the longitu- dinal relations between early child-teacher relationships (in kindergarten) and child school outcomes through eighth grade. Controlling for kindergarten-entry cognitive ability and problem behavior, negativity in the child-teacher rela- tionship reported by the child’s kindergarten teacher pre- dicted achievement test scores, disciplinary infractions, and school suspensions through either grade. The effects on eighth-grade achievement scores appeared largely mediated by effects of the kindergarten child-teacher relationship on achievement in early elementary school. Furthermore, effects on disciplinary infractions were most pronounced for chil- dren who had problems in kindergarten adjustment. This was the first study to report longitudinal findings for early child- teacher relationships extending into middle and junior high school, and in addition the study supports the conclusion of other investigations that the quality of these relationships appears particularly important for children who might other- wise have adjustment problems. The work of several other investigators also supports the child-teacher relationship as a key context in which early school outcomes are developed. Van IJzendoorn et al. (1992) demonstrated that child-caregiver security added unique vari- ance over and above that contributed by the child-mother relationship in the prediction of a range of developmental status and school readiness variables. Studies have also used children’s reports of their relationship with teachers, with findings similar to those using teacher perceptions. Wentzel (1996) reported that middle school students benefited from relationships with teachers characterized by open communi- cation and a sense of closeness, suggesting that this is a rela- tional context with salience for children beyond the early grades and preschool years. Similarly, Lynch and Cicchetti (1992) established that maltreated children, as a result of experiences with parents, are sensitized to seek certain rela- tional experiences with teachers; they are less likely to form optimal relational patterns and seek psychological proximity and support from teachers. Birch and Ladd (1996) studied teacher-child relationships extensively in early elementary classrooms and suggested that children have a generalized interpersonal style (moving to- ward, moving against, moving away) that characterizes their interactions with peers and teachers. Presumably, this style is a product of interactions with parents. This relational style of the child is related in predictable ways to the quality of relation- ships that children form with teachers and peers in the class- room (Birch & Ladd, 1998; Ladd & Burgess, 1999). Those children who displayed moving against behaviors in kinder- garten, such as verbal and physical aggression toward teacher and peers, were more likely to form negative relationships with teachers in first and second grade (Ladd & Burgess, 1999). Children who tended to move away from others in kinder- garten were more likely to be rated as overly dependent by first-grade teachers, although there was less stability in these behaviors than in aggressive behaviors (Birch & Ladd, 1998). Observed conflict in the child-teacher relationship is related to less classroom participation and lower achievement over the first half of kindergarten (Ladd et al., 1999). Children’s moving toward, or prosocial, behavior in kindergarten was not related to aspects of children’s relationships with first-grade teachers. However, kindergarten teachers’ reports of the quality of rela- tionships with students accounted for significant variance in children’s social behavior in first grade after controlling for gender and kindergarten social behavior (Birch & Ladd, 1998). Research on teachers’ and classmates’ effects on adoles- cents’ motivation, self-esteem, and ability to express their opinion are reviewed in Harter (1996). Harter discussed how relationships with teachers change from elementary to junior high school (relationships between teachers and students be- come less personal, more formal, more evaluative, and more
220 Relationships Between Teachers and Children competitive). These changes can lead to more negative self- evaluations and attitudes toward learning because the imper- sonal and evaluative nature of the relational context in junior high does not match well with the children’s relational needs at that age. Harter (1996) found that this model applies particularly to students who have lower levels of intrinsic moti- vation. In this way, teacher-child relationships (which are typi- cally viewed as potential resources for amelioration of risk) can actually exacerbate risk if they either are not positive or do not match with the developmental needs of the child. Harter (1996) also reported that classmate support and teacher approval are associated with self-esteem in middle-school-aged popula- tions. Teacher support can be particularly salient in students who have low levels of parent support (i.e., teacher and parent support may have additive effects on student self-esteem). Consistent with this view of middle schoolers’ ongoing needs for support from adult figures, teacher support has been found to be related to sixth-grade children’s school- and class-related interests and to their pursuit of social goals (Wentzel, 1998). These self-beliefs and motivations in sixth grade in turn predicted pursuit of social goals and grades in seventh grade (Wentzel, 1998). It is important to note that the support that youth receive from their parents, peers, and teachers seemed to have additive, and thus fairly indepen- dent, effects. Support from teachers was uniquely related to classroom functioning (Wentzel, 1998). Wentzel (1998) sug- gested the possibility that support in teacher-child relation- ships may be particularly salient at transition points, such as the transition from elementary to middle school. In young children (kindergarten, first, and second grade), a teacher’s feedback about a child’s behavior also has a sig- nificant impact on how peers perceive that child (Hughes, Cavell, & Willson, in press; White & Kistner, 1992). When a teacher characterizes a child’s behavior as positive, other children report increased preferences for that child and are more likely to characterize the child’s behavior as positive. When a teacher characterizes a child’s behavior as negative, an impact on peer preferences was not found; but if the teacher was derogatory toward the child, peers demonstrated more negative views of that child (White & Kistner, 1992). Implications of these findings include the possibility that teachers can play an active role in changing peers’ percep- tions of rejected children by sensitizing the class to the po- sitive behaviors that the child engages in (Hughes et al., in press; White & Kistner, 1992). Summary There is ample evidence to demonstrate that the qualities of child-teacher relationships are related in expected ways to child outcomes throughout the school-age years. Although there are expected developmental transformations in the extent to which these qualities are manifest in highly proximal or concrete forms with age, the degree and form of child-teacher engage- ment or involvement and the affective quality of that involve- ment describe a wide range of variation in individual and group differences in child-teacher relationships. Variable-focused or individual-focused analyses of these dimensions consistently show that various parameterizations of these two dimensions relate to children’s engagement in learning, motivation and self-esteem, attitudes and engagement with the goals of school, and behavior toward one another and the teacher. As character- ized by Hamre and Pianta (2001), these findings reveal that the quality of child-teacher relationships is an indicator of the extent to which the child is benefiting from the resources of schooling. This general conclusion is consistent with the theo- retical framework of developmental systems theory outlined earlier, in which the qualities of child-adult relationships are key developmental resources for children. It is critical to emphasize that in several of the investiga- tions described earlier (e.g., Birch & Ladd, 1998; Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Howes, 2000b; Stuhlman & Pianta, in press), re- lations were reported between child outcomes and qualities of the child-teacher relationship controlling for aspects of child behavior considered principle predictors of the outcomes as- sessed. For example, Hamre and Pianta (2001) controlled for kindergarten teachers’ reports of children’s problem behavior when predicting problem behavior outcomes in later elemen- tary and middle school using kindergarten child-teacher rela- tional negativity as a predictor. Similarly, Stuhlman and Pianta (in press) controlled for observed child competence when examining relations between teachers’ representations and observed sensitivity. Relational dimensions provide unique prediction of child outcomes independent of attributes of the child (e.g., Birch & Ladd, 1998) and teacher (Stuhlman & Pianta, in press). This focus on this relational unit of analy- sis, rather than on discrete characteristics of the individuals themselves, provides considerably more conceptual power for the purposes of understanding behaviors in settings and the influence that such settings have on developmental processes. EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS RELATED TO CHILD-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS Evidence that qualities of child-teacher relationships pre- dict child outcomes and are related to features of school cli- mate, teacher characteristics, child attributes, and classroom Educational and Psychological Applications Related to Child-Teacher Relationships 221 variables provides ample support for examining how this information can be used to create more developmentally supportive school environments (see Battistich et al., 1997; Hughes & Cavell 1999; Pianta, 1999). Consistent with the prevention-oriented bias in applications informed by develop- mental systems theory (Magnusson & Stattin, 1998), a com- prehensive approach to prevention suggests that applications should have long-term implementation and be aimed at changing institutions as well as people (Weissberg & Bell, 1997). More specifically, Weissberg and Bell (1997) outlined four different foci for application of techniques or resources, including a focus on changing the child, changing the imme- diate environment, changing multiple components of the environment that affect adults who are working with children, and changing structure or policy, each of which intersects with the research base available on child-teacher relationships.
In thinking about applications of knowledge about child- teacher relationships across the many levels of organization and processes in schools, we approach the task with a bias to- ward the deployment of resources (or applications of tech- niques) prior to emergence of problems, with the distinct goal of enhancing wellness and strengthening developmental competencies (Cowen, 1999). Several principles inform this analyses: an emphasis on application in context, the extent to which an application embraces conceptualizations of devel- opmental pathways in its design and execution (Loeber, 1990), emphasis on standardized protocols and theoretically driven decision making, and focus on risk reduction or well- ness promotion. Applications in Context Intervention in educational and psychological processes with children and teachers most often involves rearranging con- textual inputs to achieve a desired outcome (Nastasi, 1998). Interventions applied in the contexts in which the concern arises and is manifest can be more effective agents of change than efforts at change that take place in a context remote to the problem at hand (e.g., Henggeler, 1994; Henggeler, Schoenwald, Borduin, Rowland, & Cunningham, 1998; Nastasi, 1998). The design of treatment plans for child and adolescent problem behavior ideally recognizes distributed competence and the related concept of contextual affordance and produces change as a function of manipulating contextual properties (Adelman, 1996; Henggeler et al., 1998; Roberts, 1996). Unfortunately, due to the inherent asymmetries in child and adult relationships, it is usually the case that prob- lem identification and remediation focus on the child as a locus of the “problem” (Adelman, 1996; Henggeler et al., 1998; Johnson, Malone, & Hightower, 1996; Nastasi, 1998). A specific, dedicated focus on the relational unit of analysis inherent in child-teacher relationships supports a view of bidirectionality and reciprocity, which can enhance the extent to which contextualized, comprehensive approaches to inter- vention can be designed. Developmental Time: Pathways One lesson learned from developmental research is that there is no single, linear, one-to-one mapping of early risk (or non- risk) status onto problem (or competent) outcomes. Instead, many possible outcomes are possible from a given starting point (Egeland, Pianta, & O’Gawa, 1996). The success of risk reduction and competence enhancement efforts depends on understanding the processes that shape developmental pathways. Targeting these processes for intervention could be key to interrupting the relation between risk and later prob- lems (Loeber, 1990) by creating alternate routes along devel- opmental pathways to positive outcomes. Intentional efforts to reduce risk and enhance competence through the application of psychological and educational interventions vary widely in the extent to which they embody principles of developmental pathways and a longitudinal focus in their design and execution (Durlak & Wells, 1997; McConaughy, Kay, & Fitzgerald, 1999). It is in fact the norm that resources are deployed to children in short-term bursts of six-week groups, semester-long mentoring, or placements that last a school year (Durlak & Wells, 1997). Most efforts are short-term in focus, with pressure increasing to deliver positive effects in shorter and shorter time frames. In addition to the problem of a short-term focus, interventions rarely conceptualize their effects or efforts in terms of developmen- tal pathways that link subordinate outcomes or processes to the goals that the interventions embrace. For example, a large number of children are enrolled in programs designed to reduce antisocial behavior and teach social skills (Durlak & Wells, 1997). It is a laudable goal to accomplish such significant developmental changes in patterns of maladapta- tion and skill deficit in (usually) the short time frame of 6 weeks, particularly for children for whom these have a long-standing history and status as concerns. However, rather than conceptualizing intervention success as a return to health or normative functioning, interventionists might ex- amine intermediate or subordinate outcomes or processes that signal developmental change in increments that, al- though smaller than ultimately desired, may be more realistic
|
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling