Influence of Teaching Style on Students’ Engagement, Curiosity and Exploration in the Classroom

Abstract

Interaction between teachers and students carries immense significance inside classrooms as it contributes to students’ learning. The present study aims to explore perceived teaching style (autonomous-supportive and/or controlling) and its correlation with students’ engagement, curiosity and exploration in crosssectional sample of school and university students (N= 402). Three questionnaires were used: Perceived Parental Autonomy Support Scale P-PASS (Mageau, et al., 2015); Student Engagement Instrument (Appleton, Christenson, Kim, & Reschly, 2006); and Curiosity and Exploration Inventory (Kashdan, et al., 2009). The results showed that students simultaneously perceived both teaching styles, that is, Autonomous-supportive and Controlling. However, a significant difference was observed between the score of school students where they found their teachers to be more supportive (t (402)=3.942) and controlling (t (402)=4.774) as compared to university students. Furthermore, there was moderate correlation between perceived autonomy support teaching style with students’ engagement (r=.463) as well as curiosity and exploration (r=.318). The results offer an understanding of students’ perceptions of teaching style contributing to students’ curiosity and motivation to engage in classroom.

Keywords

• autonomous-supportive teaching style
• controlling teaching style
• curiosity and exploration
• student engagement