The effects of teachers' encouragement on the students' classroom adjustment.

2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 16530430
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Educational psychology
• Research Institution: Oita University
• Principal Investigator: KOJO Kazunori Oita University, Faculty of Education and Walfare Science, Professor, 教育福祉科学部, 教授 (00145351)
• Project Period (FY): 2004 – 2005
• Keywords: encouragement / classroom adjustment / perception of teacher expectation / classroom atmosphere / teacher-student relationships / classroom intervention study

Research Abstract

The encouragement theory, proposed by Dinkmeyer and Mckay (1976), was developed in child care and home education. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of teachers' encouragement on the students' classroom adjustment. Participants were 470 students of the public elementary schools. A 2 (encouragement classes vs. control classes) × 3 (pre- vs. middle vs. post-practice) factorial design was used. The dependent variables were perceived teacher-student relationship, inter-students relationship, teacher expectation, classroom atmosphere, and so on. After encouragement training for eight teachers (9 sessions, in all 20 hours), they were asked to practice the encouragement for their students in the classrooms for two months. As predicted, the interaction of two factors was significant on the classroom atmosphere score (F=3.34, df=2/936, p<.05), suggesting that the students encouraged by their teachers (8 classes) perceived their own classroom atmosphere more positively than the students in the control classes (9 classes) after the practice, although there were no differences between encouragement and control classes before the practice. This finding was discussed from the viewpoints of the application of encouragement to school education.