We've been searching for The Effective Teacher for more than a century (Borich 1988). In the 1800s, he or she was usually thought of as a good person, an honorable citizen, well educated, and hardworking. No special skills were necessary, other than being well organized, disciplined, authoritative, and dedicated to children. The search began in earnest at the beginning of this century and continued until the 1960s. During this period, thousands of studies tried to capture the special personality traits or attitudes that predicted teaching effectiveness (Getzels and Jackson 1963). Unfortunately, most of them came up empty.
The process-product research of the 1960s and 1970s identified teaching strategies that contributed to student achievement. These studies, which analyzed teaching primarily from a methods perspective, empirically explained how some teachers excel in asking questions, monitoring student progress, organizing and managing the classroom, and building appropriate lessons. Many educators today hold to the view that effective teaching can be defined in terms of a plethora of technical strategies, such as choice, organization, and presentation of teaching materials; motivational strategies; and assessment.
Our view of teaching effectiveness comes from a different—yet complementary—perspective. While instructional methodology is an important consideration, exceptional teaching can also be described in terms of teacher-student relationships. Our belief—based on 15 years of research with more than 50,000 students and teachers in The Netherlands, the United States, and Australia—is that a teacher's interpersonal skills are crucial to creating and maintaining a positive working climate. Essentially, effective teachers have to be excellent communicators as well as fine technicians.
We've developed a measurement process to determine how well teachers communicate with their students. Here we'll look at that process; describe what effective teachers do to solidify their relationships with students; look at how teachers' approaches to relationships evolve throughout their careers; and present some thoughts on professional development.
A Language for Interpersonal Relationships
Because teachers communicate in many ways, they naturally develop different types of relationships with their students. Some teachers are businesslike and others lenient. Some are distant and others friendly. To describe these characteristics more clearly, we adopted a communication model developed by clinical psychologist Timothy Leary (before LSD!) and modified for educational use at Utrecht University in The Netherlands (see Leary 1957; Wubbels and Levy 1993, chapter 2). Leary stated that people communicate according to two dimensions—a Dominance-Submission (or Influence) dimension (for example, who is controlling the communication) and a Cooperation-Opposition (or Proximity) dimension (how much cooperation is present between the people who are communicating). We can record the behavior of all parties in a discussion according to these dimensions on a graph like the one shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The Leary Model of Communication
Let's imagine a dialogue between a mother and her young son on the subject of crossing the street. As the parent explains the process, she is engaging in dominant behavior because she is controlling the communication. If her explanation is presented in a patient, comfortable manner, her behavior would also be highly cooperative. Thus, she would be displaying high dominant/high cooperative behavior. This is indicated by an "A" in Figure 1. If, however, the child has just nearly been run over by a bus, the parent is likely to be agitated and possibly angry. She might even scream at the boy to be more careful. Her communication in this case would still be dominant but also highly oppositional, as indicated by a "B" in Figure 1.
We subsequently applied the model to the classroom by dividing Leary's original two dimensions into the eight behavior types shown in Figure 2. The eight sectors are labeled DC, CD, and so forth, much like the directions on a compass. For example, sectors DC and CD are both characterized by dominance and cooperation. In the DC sector, however, the dominance aspect prevails over cooperation. Thus, a teacher displaying DC behavior might be explaining something to the class, organizing groups, or making assignments. The adjacent CD sector includes behaviors of a more cooperative, less dominant character, and the teacher might be assisting students or acting friendly or considerate.
Figure 2. Model of Interpersonal Teacher Behavior
Teachers can exhibit acceptable behavior in each sector. In the course of a day, or a week, most teachers will encounter classroom situations in which it is appropriate to be dissatisfied, or uncertain, or admonishing (or any other category). In addition, one of the fundamental ideas behind the Leary model is that communication behaviors continually change. Communication styles emerge only after a great many behaviors have occurred and been observed.
Measuring Teacher Communication
Having created the language to describe the way teachers relate to students, we then developed the Questionnaire for Teacher Interaction (QTI), also based on Leary's model. Teachers interested in measuring and improving classroom climate have found it easy to use and the feedback it provides reliable. As mentioned, more than 50,000 students and teachers have used the model. Versions are available in English, Dutch, Hebrew, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish, and Finnish.
Teachers normally wait a few months into the school year, until everyone gets to know one another, before administering the questionnaire. To receive feedback from the widest range of student groups, teachers usually select two classes that vary in age, learning ability, or some other characteristic. (Ironically, QTI scores from the different classes generally don't vary much, verifying the relative stability of teacher behavior [see Wubbels and Levy 1993, chapter 3].)
Each student answers the questionnaire items in terms of how he or she perceives the teacher. The teacher also completes the instrument. By gathering both perspectives, teachers can compare the results and gauge the quality of class atmosphere and how well they are communicating with students. We also ask teachers to describe their ideal behavior through the instrument, thereby providing them with a professional development roadmap for change.
Effective Teacher-Student Relationships
What interpersonal relationships should teachers strive for? To answer this question, we examined students' and teachers' descriptions of exceptional teachers, and the connections between teacher-student relationships and student achievement and attitudes.
We've had students complete the Questionnaire for Teacher Interaction for their best and worst teacher. Many teachers are surprised to learn that students and teachers agree on the characteristics of good teaching! According to students, the best teachers are strong classroom leaders who are friendlier and more understanding and less uncertain, dissatisfied, and critical than most teachers. Their best teachers also allow them more freedom than the norm. Further, when we asked students about their worst teachers, they described the opposite tendencies. Teachers visualize classroom quality in the same way. In general, then, good teachers are both highly dominant and highly cooperative.
A closer look at these perceptions reveals two distinct types of exceptional teachers. The first type, which we call Dominant, displays leadership and strictness, and a fair amount of cooperation. The second type, the Student-Oriented teacher, leans more toward allowing students greater responsibility in their learning. The two types characterize different teachers' opinions about the nature of an appropriate classroom atmosphere. For example, a Dominant teacher might say,Students won't learn if teachers don't control them and demand a lot. They are easily distracted, and allowing them too much freedom doesn't help at all.
In contrast, the Student-Oriented teacher might reply,Students have to enjoy the class before they learn anything. If the atmosphere is pleasant and stimulating, they'll be motivated to study, which is an important prerequisite for learning. Consequently, they'll thrive. It's more important to reward students for their efforts and the things they do well than it is to correct their mistakes.
Student Achievement and Attitudes
Because effectiveness is generally associated with the quality and quantity of student learning, we didn't just accept students' and teachers' perceptions of good teaching. Rather, we measured them in terms of student achievement and attitudes. When kids are learning, and they're happy with the way things are going, what are their teachers like?
As we suspected, students' and teachers' ideas on exceptional teaching checked out quite well against measures of student achievement and attitudes. We analyzed the results from three separate studies of 9th grade physics, 5th grade math, and 12th grade biology students (Brekelmans et al. 1990, Goh 1994, Fisher et al. 1995). The more dominant the teacher, the more his or her students achieve. Strict leadership and helpful/friendly behaviors are positively related to student achievement, whereas student responsibility and freedom and uncertain, dissatisfied behaviors are negatively related.
Similarly, the cooperation scales of the model (leadership, helpful/friendly, understanding, and student responsibility/freedom) are positively related to student attitudes. The more teachers emphasize these types of behaviors, the more their students respond positively. In contrast, the opposition scales (strict, admonishing, dissatisfied, and uncertain) are all negatively related to student attitudes. Thus, teachers who tend toward the right side and/or below average on the left side of the D-S axis of Figure 2 are viewed more positively by their students.
These results create a dilemma, however. If teachers want students to be both high-achieving and supportive, they may find themselves pulling in two directions: strictness correlates well with high achievement, while flexibility relates to positive attitudes. As a result, the dominant teacher who emphasizes strictness and leadership gets greater achievement out of a class, whereas his or her student-oriented counterpart enjoys a better affective atmosphere.
Remember, however, that an effective teacher's repertoire covers all eight sectors of the model. Instructional expertise requires a teacher to employ the most effective communication behavior called for by the situation. If oppositional behavior is appropriate at the moment (say a student is endangering the class), then the effective teacher must behave accordingly. Good teaching requires an interpersonal repertoire that is both broad and flexible.
Do Teachers Change?
Do teachers change their styles as they gain experience? Yes, they clearly do. As expected, beginning teachers experience some frustration as they grow into the job. For the first time in their lives, they are expected to assume an active teaching role, to take charge, to set standards, and to assess results. Their professional role and developmental stage are not yet in sync. Moreover, when they try to assert themselves, they often mistake opposition for dominance. We've frequently observed beginning teachers combine strictness with aggression. The announcement "No talking is allowed here" (DO) is almost always followed by the sanction "or you'll see what happens!" (OD). This combination of behaviors can easily escalate into an unproductive situation.
Beginning teachers do manage to adopt greater dominant behavior, and this increases for the first 6-10 years of their careers. They gradually feel more secure in the classroom, and exhibit increasing control over the proceedings. After the 10th year, things begin to level out in terms of dominance, though the teacher's cooperative behavior begins to decrease at this point.
Overall, then, teacher-student relationships steadily improve during the first 6-10 years of a teacher's career, leading to greater student achievement and more positive attitudes. Soon after, however, a change occurs that is both welcome and unwelcome. Teachers appear to decline in cooperation and increase in opposition, a change that negatively affects student attitudes. They also become more strict, however, and this can heighten student achievement. (For more details on teacher-behavior over time, see Wubbels and Levy 1993, chapter 7.)
Issues for Professional Development
Our findings indicate that teacher education programs, both pre- and inservice, should encourage certain types of behaviors. In brief, good teachers are both dominant and cooperative. They should be able to empathize with students, understand their world, and listen to them. They should be able to set standards and maintain control while allowing students to have responsibility and freedom to learn.
Good teachers, moreover, know how they're being perceived by students. Their views of the way they are communicating in class match those of their students. As a result, they are better able to align their instruction with student needs and preferences. Conversely, average teachers see themselves differently (and usually better) than their students. This finding highlights the importance of reflectiveness through student feedback.
We've also noted how difficult it is to achieve stylistic flexibility. Dominant teachers will struggle during those moments that call for active listening and student initiative. They're great at providing structure, lecturing, handing out assignments, and staying on task. Switching to a more passive mode, however, presents problems. For example, when a student disagrees with the dominant teacher's position, this type of teacher may find it difficult to ascertain what the youngster is saying and feeling before reacting. These types of exchanges can easily invoke teacher uncertainty or aggression, a danger that points to the need to allow students the opportunity to explain and clarify. These teachers often confuse providing latitude with their own uncertainty and regard this as a weakness.
We've tried to describe a different side of effective teachers. In addition to mastering the methodology necessary to design lessons and implement the curriculum, teachers must develop the communicative techniques that establish favorable relationships with learners. Both sets of skills are equally important. In fact, relationship-building is a prerequisite to a positive classroom climate. Without this piece of the repertoire, teachers cannot fully develop in their practice.
