HOW DO TEACHERS IN SERBIA MANAGE THEIR CLASSROOMS?

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to first examine whether there is a statistically significant difference in the importance of the styles teachers use in managing their classrooms (interventionist, interactionist, and non-interventionist). Considering that these styles are also influenced by and involve teacher personality, the second aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a relationship between management styles, teachers' resilience and aspects of their emotional competence (perception and understanding of emotions, their expression and naming, and their regulation), but also with their gender and professional experience. The sample consisted of 100 elementary school teachers of both sexes (86 of them were women) with an average professional experience of 23.12 years. The following instruments were used: The Teacher Self-Assessment of Classroom Management Styles Inventory, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and the Emotional Competence Inventory. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA showed that there was a statistically significant difference in the expression of the different management styles. Further comparison showed that the interactionist style was the most pronounced, followed by the interventionist and non-interventionist styles. The results also showed that there was a positive, statistically significant correlation between the interventionist management style and resilience, and the same type of correlation was found between the interactionist management style, resilience, and all three aspects of emotional competence. No correlation was found with gender and work experience. Since resilience is positively related to both the interventionist and interactionist management styles, which imply some degree of control over the classroom situation, it can be considered a factor that enables the teacher to act in this manner. The interactionist style, which is the most pronounced, requires shared control, so the current results support the claim that teachers must have adequate emotional competencies.

Keywords

• teacher
• classroom management styles
• resilience
• emotional competence aspects
• gender
• work experience