How do third-grade students and their teachers construe each other?

Abstract

This study aims to identify teachers’ personal constructs about students and students’ personal constructs about teachers and to reveal to what extent they see each other as ideal. The study is descriptive and multiple-case in nature. In this regard, it was conducted with 6 third-grade students with different mean scores and 6 teachers who instructed them in a private school. Teachers’ and students’ views towards each other were identified through a repertory grid technique, which is a semi-structured interviewing method. Teachers’ and students’ constructs towards each other are reciprocal. Students who were represented with successful and positive personal constructs, and thus who were placed closely to the ideal student profile, tended to see their teachers as ideal teachers. Similarly, students who were represented with unsuccessful and negative personal constructs by their teachers, and thus were placed as distant from the ideal student profile, tended to evaluate the teachers who had those representations negatively. Findings of the study were discussed in terms of the expectancy effect model and the transactional model.

Keywords

• Teacher-student interaction
• personal constructs
• ideal student
• ideal teacher
• repertory grid technique