how finnish experienced teachers learn to improve their ... · process does not have an impact of...
TRANSCRIPT
How Finnish experienced teachers learn to
improve their interactions with pupils
Lais Oliveira Leite
University of Eastern Finland
Philosophical Faculty
School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education
Master’s Degree Programme in Educational Sciences
Master’s thesis in Primary Education
March 2018
1
ABSTRACT
Tiedekunta – Faculty
Philosophical Faculty
Osasto – School
School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education
Tekijät – Author Lais Oliveira Leite
Työn nimi – Title
How Finnish experienced teachers learn to improve their interactions with pupils
Pääaine – Main subject
Teacher-student relationship
Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –
Date 11.03.18
Sivumäärä – Number of pages
85
Pro gradu -tutkielma X
Sivuainetutkielma Kandidaatin tutkielma Aineopintojen tutkielma
Tiivistelmä – Abstract
This research aimed to investigate how Finnish experienced teachers reflect about their informal learning process to build positive
interactions with pupils. Two questions were addressed: how teachers perceive that their professional agency support their learning process
to build positive interactions with pupils and how they apprehend the general character of this learning process. To conceptualize teacher-
pupils interaction, the “Teaching through interactions” model and its three main domains (emotional support, classroom organization,
and instructional support) were used. The process of learning by teachers is theoretically based on the “Teacher professional agency”
construct and its three main elements (motivation to learn, efficacy beliefs to learn, and active learning strategies). This investigation was
complemented with three teacher personality factors (work tool, lifelong learner, and oppositional factor to change) that emerged from
the empirical evidence. They showed to be relevant to teacher-pupils interactions and teachers´ learning process. The research design
adopted in this study was a confirmatory multiple-case analysis with a mixed method approach. A survey with 48 primary school teachers,
who had at least 5 years of experience, was accomplished. It contained the scales Teacher professional agency and Boundary crossing. Descriptive
statistics, reliability and non-parametric correlation tests were run over the collected data. The teachers with the highest scores of the
scales and time availability were selected to participate in the in-depth semi-structure interviews. The participants´ reports were analyzed
using theory guided and exploratory content analysis. For the first inquiry of this investigation, the findings revealed three groups of
multidimensional factors: 1) professional agency factors that support teacher´s learning; 2) active learning strategies used by teachers to
build positive interactions with pupils, and 3) personality factors that base teacher-pupils interactions. In the first group, the teachers´
motivation and efficacy beliefs in learning strongly supported their learning process regarding building better interactions with pupils. In
the second one, the learning strategies showed a broad range of complexity. Reflecting about classroom situations and pupils´ feedback
were very frequent. Boundary crossing appeared to happen across different settings and with different school actors. Learning by doing
was the most relevant strategy, with emphasis on teachers´ developing sensitivity for pupils and building up positive climate. In the last
group, although all these learning mechanisms were reported, teachers perceived that the fundamental base for their relationship with
pupils is their personality, which guarantees the authenticity of the interactions. For the second inquiry, the teachers apprehended their
learning process in two ways. First, they believe to still actively learn about classroom situations. Second, they perceive that their learning
process does not have an impact of changing their interactions with pupils, but rather of general professional growth. The present study
contributed to fill a gap in the literature and raise awareness about the importance of teachers’ informal learning in their everyday classroom
situations, specifically with regard to build interactions with pupils.
Avainsanat – Keywords
Teacher´s professional agency; Teacher-student interaction; Teacher´s informal learning.
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT 1
List of Tables 4
List of Figures 5
1 INTRODUCTION 6
2 SHAPING TEACHER-STUDENT INTERACTIONS 8
2.1 Recent paradigms of teacher-student relationship and classroom management 8
2.2 Beyond transferring knowledge: teacher task-perception of socio-emotional guidance
10
2.3 Teachers learn by interacting 12
2.3.1 Teaching through interaction model 12
2.3.2 Teacher’s professional agency 15
2.4 Research questions 18
3 METHODOLOGY 19
3.1 Research design 19
3.2 Quantitative phase: measures, data collection and participants 20
3.3 Qualitative phase: rationale of interviewing and interviewees 22
3.4 Analysis of quantitative data 24
3.5 Analysis of qualitative data 25
4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 29
4.1 How teachers´ professional agency and personality support teachers´ learning process to
build positive interactions with pupils 29
4.1.1 Survey findings: reliable sample and the intriguing correlation 29
4.1.2 Interviews’ findings: building the map of teachers´ learning process 31
4.2. Teachers´ apprehension of the general character of their learning process regarding their
interactions with pupils 60
4.2.1 It is not changing, it is growing 60
3
4.2.1 Learning more or less than before? 61
5 CONCLUSIONS 64
5.1 Research summary 64
5.2 Implications for teaching practices and further research 65
5.3 Implications for teacher education practices and further research 66
5.4 Ethics, trustworthiness and limitations of the study 69
REFERENCES 72
APPENDICES 78
Appendix 1. Study permit application 78
Appendix 2. Teacher professional agency questionnaire (English version) 79
Appendix 3. Teacher professional agency questionnaire (Finnish version) 80
Appendix 4. Semi-structured interview protocol 81
4
List of Tables
Table 1. Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) framework 13
Table 2. Survey participants profile by grade and gender 21
Table 3. Interviews’ general characteristics and participants´ profile 24
Table 4. Categories, themes and codes of the content analysis 26
Table 5. Means, standard deviations and intercorrelations among all subscales and
teachers’ years of experience 30
Table 6. Interviews’ participants profile by classroom atmosphere and keyword 31
Table 7. Overview of codes´ frequency in the text corpus derived from the interviews 32
5
List of Figures
Figure 1. Hierarchical relationship between the codes derived from the “Teacher
professional agency” concepts, “Teaching through interaction” model and “Teacher
personality” factors 28
Figure 2. Hierarchical relationship between the codes, grouped in colors by the role
they play in the informal learning process of teachers 33
6
1 INTRODUCTION
Previous research has already showed that emotional and cognitive engagement of students
in primary school are highly socially embedded, both being mediated by peers and teacher-
student relationships, which in turn contribute to students perceived well-being (Pietarinen,
Soini & Pyhältö, 2014).
In general, positive teacher-child relationship – the focus of the present work – can be
characterized by respectful communication, supportiveness, sensitivity and responsiveness,
focus and interest on teaching-learning content, and low level of disruptive behavior or
conflicts (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). This type of relationship has shown evidence of
increasing academic achievement, self-esteem, active exploration of school environment,
and engagement in peer interactions. On the other hand, good teacher-pupil relationship has
also been reported to decrease social problems, such as disturbing behavior and aggression
in classroom, besides peer rejection. Complementarily, it also compensates mal-adaptive
family relationships (Hamre & Pianta, 2001).
As a consequence of positive teacher-student relationship, students become more secure,
confident, and open themselves to participate in class and make mistakes (Jennings &
Greenberg, 2009). By experiencing teacher´s support, pupils feel to belong in the classroom,
which reinforces their engagement in learning activities (Pietarinen et al., 2014). Thereafter,
in a cognitive level, they recall new learned information easier (Titsworth, McKenna, Mazer
& Quinlan, 2013). On the other hand, when pupils experience negative emotions with
teachers and the interaction is marked by conflict, they show behavioral and academic
problems that can be tracked years later (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; 2005). It has been shown
that they tend to block the lessons and refuse to engage in the learning process (Titsworth et
al., 2013), as well as direct themselves to anti-social behaviors and a general disengagement
to school (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009).
From teachers´ perspective, pleasant classroom climate reinforces enjoyment and self-
efficacy feelings, increasing enthusiasm and commitment to the profession, thus creating a
positive feedback loop that may prevent teacher drop out from schools (Dicke, Elling,
Schmeck & Leutner, 2015). Moreover, previous research on teachers’ pedagogical well-
being also showed that interacting with pupils consists of a core task of primary teachers’
work, which can happen in both empowering and stressful contexts, affecting teachers’ job
satisfaction (Soini, Pyhältö & Pietarinen, 2010). It has been also reported that pupils take
their teachers’ socio-emotional competences as a model to develop their own, proving the
7
necessity of teachers to have a deep comprehension of how relationship-building behaviors
impact the learning and teaching processes (Waajid, Garner & Owen, 2013).
Although all these empirical-based evidence regarding the importance of positive teacher-
student relationship, significant research about how experienced teachers learn to improve
their relationship with pupils was not found. There is, indeed, recent work showing that
different domains of teaching practice and teacher´s competences can be improved through
professional development experiences, such as in-service programs, courses and workshops
(Brown, Jones, LaRusso & Aber, 2010; Domitrovich et al., 2009). However, only few
studies (Hoekstra, Beijaard, Brekelmans & Korthagen, 2007; Soini et al., 2010) have shown,
from the teachers` lived narratives, their continuous informal professional development.
Hence, there is no expressive descriptive material reporting teachers’ thoughts, beliefs, the
process of change or reinforcement in their skills, insights, and experiences that provided
them with the necessary conditions to be able to build positive relationships with their pupils.
Therefore, this research attempted to fill this gap in the literature by investigating how
Finnish experienced primary teachers reflect about their informal learning process (Jarvis,
2004) to build positive interactions with pupils throughout their career. To support
conceptually the interaction process, the “Teaching through Interactions” model (Hamre et
al., 2013) and its three main domains of emotional support, classroom organization, and
instructional support are used to understand different aspects of teacher-student interactions.
This model was chosen because of its emphasis on the relational aspect of teaching and
learning processes. As reference to the concept of learning by teachers, the “Teacher
Professional Agency” construct (Soini, Pietarinen & Pyhältö, 2016) and its three main
elements of motivation to learn, efficacy beliefs of learning, and active learning strategies
are used. These concepts accordingly consider the informal nature of teachers’ learning
process through their professional experiences, as long as they have an active attitude
towards this goal.
Finally, it is important to consider that the term "teacher-student relationship" is a broad
concept in the literature that can represent diverse and complex behavioral, socio-emotional,
and cognitive processes beyond the scope of this study. Hence, the present research uses one
principal term to capture this complex process – “teacher-pupils interactions” – and account
mainly (but not exclusively) the behavioral aspect of it. However, the reader will find both
terms “relationship” and “interaction”, as well as “students” and “pupils” being used with
the same meaning along this work, because of common use in the literature.
8
2 SHAPING TEACHER-STUDENT INTERACTIONS
2.1 Recent paradigms of teacher-student relationship and
classroom management
For many teachers, cultivating a positive teacher-student relationship and, consequently, a
pleasant classroom environment are still somewhat uncertain and it is not clear how to
establish it, although many studies have already been undertaken since the beginning of the
20th century under the heading of classroom management. (Brophy, 2006.)
The history of the research on classroom management starts with initial treatises made by
common sense and aphorisms, such as “don’t smile before Christmas”. An illustrative
example is the study developed by Bagley, which – although the offensive language
approaching children as “savages that needed to be civilized” – already contained principles
of management still recognized nowadays, such as trying to keep pupils focused on activities
or avoiding punishment and competitive prizes, because they increase jealousy and
frustration. (Brophy, 2006.)
In the following decades, research became empirical and started to focus on influence
techniques, leadership style and group climate, investigating the consequences of
punishments or praises on children’s behaviors. Worthy of mentioning is the work by Lewin
and colleagues that classified three leadership styles: authoritarian, democratic and laissez-
faire. According to this study, pupils had more time engaged on task and were more
responsive and productive under the head of democratic teachers. Already from that period,
the general conclusions oriented educators to favor positive-reward techniques rather than
punishment-oriented ones. (Brophy, 2006.)
Then, educational and psychological researchers started to develop specific programs about
classroom management. A major part of this initiative came from behavioral researchers,
who developed experiments based on contingencies and reinforcement principles, mainly
related to shape students’ behaviors. With time, the behavioral research changed to
compound a package of procedures that should increase or decrease specific student
sbehaviors. (Brophy, 2006.)
At the same time, an ecological approach in classroom management was fostered during the
1970’s, when USA government supported and funded studies on “process-product” theory,
which assumed that teacher’s behaviors (“process”) affect student learning outcomes
(“product”). This program tried to figure out what were the common management attitudes
9
and decision making process of teachers whose students were engaged with the studies and
had better academic performance. (Weinstein, 1999.)
From this period on, research trends tried to demystify the idea that impacts derived from
negative individual and family backgrounds could not be changed by school structural
characteristics and organizational climate (Hultin et al., 2018). Currently, many researchers
are engaged with the field, bringing traditional qualitative studies to the arena together with
more recent quantitative methodologies. Hamre and Pianta (2001), for instance, contributed
with this research trajectory emphasizing the classic Bowby’s attachment theory, according
to which relationships with caregivers marked by trust and caring promote the development
of internalized working models in children, who in turn feel secure to explore the world and
take risks to learn.
Important research approaches have been developed in the first two decades of the XXI
century (Hultin et al., 2018). Worthy to be mentioned, the Chilean educator Juan Casassus
(2009) found in his research that the factor, which most influences and facilitates learning
regardless of methodology, is the existence of a pleasant emotional climate in the classroom
– directly related to the quality and the intensity of the interactions between student-student
and teacher-student. The author found that schools, where students relate well with peers
and teachers, present better academic rates than schools, where students have more
relationship problems.
The research-based Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
developed in 2008 five major emotional, cognitive and behavioral concepts that compound
social and emotional competences: self-awareness, social awareness, responsible decision
making, self-management, and relationship management. It is recommended that teachers
and students learn these competences, with the support of school, throughout school period
(Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). This progress in theoretical conceptualizations has boosted
new research approaches in the field and facilitates Teacher Education regarding this topic.
Overall, researchers state that nowadays there is a shift of paradigm regarding teacher-
student relationship and classroom management models (Weinstein, 1999), illustrated by
modern Socio-Emotional Learning Programs that target both students and teachers
(Weissberg, Durlak, Domitrovich & Gullotta, 2017). These programs emphasize pro-social
and cooperative behaviors among teachers and students, encourage supportive relationships
with assertive limit-setting guidance, and aim at the prevention of misbehaviors through the
daily construction of positive learning environments (Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Jennings &
Greenberg, 2009).
10
2.2 Beyond transferring knowledge: teacher task-perception of
socio-emotional guidance
Teachers should have a holistic comprehension of their differential roles regarding pupils,
interacting with them adequately depending on each particular situation. This understanding
highlights the importance of their professional identity (Taylor, 2017). Teaching is not only
about transferring knowledge, but rather about relating with students through different
actions and realizing how these interactions affect students’ general growth and learning
(Hamre et al., 2013).
Taking into account the previous evidence regarding the importance of a positive socio-
emotional development for children to success in school, and given that teachers are key
figures in children's daily lives, it's becoming more patent that schools should put emphasis
on the quality of teacher-student interactions, and on the primary role of teachers for the
socio-emotional support of pupils within these interactions (Jacobs & Struyf, 2015; Lam &
Hui, 2010). This recognition demands clarification, (re)organization, planning and
(re)arranging of the roles of school personnel. In other words, socio-emotional work cannot
be seen as a solely specialist (e.g. psychologist, counselor) task anymore, but rather a
collective responsibility, with an active and fundamental involvement of teachers to integrate
it in the daily school curriculum and within their routine relationships (Hornby & Atkinson,
2003).
It is not in the scope of the present study to discuss all the elements that must be involved in
a whole-school approach capable of effectively promote a holistic socio-emotional
development of pupils. However, a study by Jacobs and Struyf (2015) stressed out the
fundamental role of an integrated and supportive network characterized by cooperation and
communication among teachers; teacher training programs (professionalization); school
structures and procedures; well-defined and shared school policy; and, in an indirect way,
school principal support and school climate.
Focusing the attention on the teacher's role, it has been highlighted in the literature that
teachers’ professional identity and beliefs have strong impacts on their teaching practice,
commitment, resilience, effectiveness and engagement in new activities (Taylor, 2017;
Edwards, 2016; Jacobs & Struyf, 2015). Taking it into account, there seems to be an
ambiguous understanding regarding the teacher’s role in providing socio-emotional support
11
for students (Lam & Hui, 2010). While some may believe there is a tacit assumption that it
is, indeed, a teacher’s task to work with the socio-emotional competences of pupils – beyond
transferring content-based knowledge, studies have already reported reluctances by teachers
regarding this role. For instance, because some teachers believe their role concerns solely
the pupils’ academic achievement (Lohrmann, Forman, Martin & Palmieri, 2008), getting
involved with student guidance and counselling is outside their scope of practice (Hornby &
Atkinson, 2003) and territory of experts (Finney, 2006). Consequently, they tend to get less
involved with student socio-emotional development (Lam & Hui, 2010).
Furthermore, teachers may resist to adopt a socio-emotional approach in their daily school
activities, because it might contrast to what they learned and shaped as role and professional
identity during their previous teacher education (Lam & Hui, 2010; Lohrmann et al., 2008).
Hence, in order for them to provide socio-emotional support to pupils, they might need to
change not only their self-image, but also their global teaching repertoire: move from a
generalized view of students towards students’ individuality, as well as from a teacher-
centered approach to a more student-centered one (Rice, 2002). All of this demands great
energy and time investment.
Moreover, it’s been already shown that reduced time available, heavy workload due to
paperwork, too much emphasis on academic achievement, and high levels of stress are strong
factors that compete and reduce teachers involvement in relating and interacting in a rich
socio-emotional approach with students – even if they believe that socio-emotional support
is part of an integral education (Lam & Hui, 2010). These limits of teachers’ possibilities
lead them to deal only with at-risk students (Jacobs & Struyf, 2015).
Finally, Lam and Hui (2010) contributed for the field with one of the few qualitative research
that showed evidence that those teachers who perceive themselves professionally as role-
models and caregivers are more likely to get involved with developmental interactive and
supportive tasks. This involvement was shown to be accomplished through different
approaches, such as spending time with students outside classroom, helping them with career
choices, identifying students with (mental) health issues and following cases of students that
needed expert help (Lam & Hui, 2010).
Overall, positive attitude, beliefs, and task perception toward this role are fundamental in
order to teachers effectively approach socio-emotional development with the pupils inside
and outside the classroom (Jacobs & Struyf, 2015). Because of the additional responsibilities
and workload into the hands of teachers, these factors present strong evidence for the need
of a supportive network from the whole school (Lam & Hui, 2010; Jacobs & Struyf, 2015).
12
2.3 Teachers learn by interacting
As described previously, different theoretical frameworks approach the relevance, the
impacts and the structural domains of teacher-student interactions, including and
emphasizing various elements that play a role in this phenomenon. Yet, there is no complete
model that can comprehend all the complexity of it.
Taking these limitations into account, it is still crucial to select a model that is able to
organize teacher-student interactions and teacher learning into theoretical research-based
elements, in order to further understand their components and interrelations. In the next sub-
chapter, the theoretical framework to approach the phenomenon under investigation is
presented. It consists of two main elements: the “Teaching through Interaction” model
(Hamre et al., 2013), and the “Teacher Professional Agency” model (Soini et al., 2016).
The first model was chosen because it emphasizes the interactional and relational aspect of
teaching and learning, which means, it is not about teacher or student behaviors isolated,
rather how they relate to each other and how they build together positive interactions. This
emphasis is fundamental, even if this study takes only the empirical teacher’s perspective
into consideration. The second model accounts the fact that teachers informally learn and
improve their teaching competences throughout their professional experiences – as long as
they have an active role towards this development.
2.3.1 Teaching through interaction model
The “Teaching through interaction” model highlights, as a fundamental task of the teacher´s
daily work, the interactions between teachers and students. It consists of a “multilevel latent
structure for organizing teacher-student interactions” (Hamre et al., 2013, p.463) designed
with three broad domains: Emotional Support, Classroom Organization and Instructional
Support. Each domain consists of several dimensions that interact with each other and
describe more specifically the interactions between teachers and students. Hamre et al.
(2012) considered dimensions of daily classroom interactions that have showed evidence for
promoting children`s social and academic (language and literacy) development.
The instrument developed to observe and assess these interactions, the Classroom
Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). consists of 13 constructs grouped in three broad
domains, as described below (Hamre et al., 2013). It has demonstrated both criterion and
13
predictive validity and provided evidence for its use in different body of students, grade
levels (Brown, 2010) and across cultures (Pakarinen, 2017a; 2017b).
The Emotional Support domain considers the overall emotional tone of the classroom
interactions: either positive, warm and respectful, or negative, stressful and marked by
conflicts between teachers and students. This domain also considers how much teacher is
sensitive and aware of pupils´ needs, motivations and perspectives, creating student-driven
activities. It observes how teachers promote a learning environment where pupils feel safe
to explore with autonomy. The Classroom Organization domain approaches the ability of
teachers to prevent and redirect misbehavior by presenting clear expectations. The efficacy
of teachers in providing routines and learning instructions is also covered. This domain
equally considers the quality and diversity of the daily materials offered for children in order
to maximize learning according to each child particularities. Finally, the Instructional
Support domain considers the quality of teacher`s instructions regarding the stimulation of
higher-order thinking in students. Likewise, the degree to which teacher`s feedback
promotes formative evaluation to expand understanding and teacher`s speech formulation
boosts differential uses of the language by pupils. Table 1 presents each broad domain,
dimensions and respective descriptions.
Table 1. Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Framework (Hamre et al., 2013,
p.465)
Domain Dimension Description
Emotional
Support
Positive Climate Reflects the overall emotional tone of the classroom
and the connection between teachers and students.
Negative
Climate
Reflects the overall level of expressed negativity in
the classroom between teachers and students (e.g.,
anger, aggression, irritability).
Teacher
Sensitivity
Encompasses teacher´s responsiveness to students´
needs and awareness of students´ level of academic
and emotional functioning.
Regard for
Students
Perspectives
The degree to which the teacher´s interactions with
students and classroom activities place an emphasis
on students´ interests, motivations and points of
view, rather than being very teacher-driven.
Overcontrol Assesses the extent to which the classroom is rigidly
structured or regimented at the expense of children´s
interests and/or needs.
Classroom
Organization
Behavior
Management
Encompasses teacher´s ability to use effective
methods to prevent and redirect misbehavior by
presenting clear behavioral expectations and
minimizing time spent on behavioral issues.
14
Productivity Considers how well teachers manage instructional
time and routines so that students have the maximum
number of opportunities to learn.
Instructional
Learning
Formats
The degree to which the teachers maximize students´
engagement and ability to learn by providing
interesting activities, instruction, centers and
materials.
Classroom
Chaos
The degree to which teachers ineffectively manage
children in the classroom so that disruption and chaos
predominate.
Instructional
Support
Concept
Development
The degree to which instructional discussions and
activities promote students´ higher-order thinking
skills versus focus on rote and fact-based learning.
Quality of
Feedback
Considers teacher´s provision of feedback focused on
expanding learning and understanding (formative
evaluation), not correctness or the end product
(summative evaluation).
Language
Modelling
The quality and amount of teachers´ use of language-
stimulation and language-facilitation techniques
during individual, small-group, and large-group
interactions with children.
Richness of
Instructional
Methods
The extent to which teachers use a variety of
strategies to promote children´s thinking and
understanding of material at a deeper and more
complex level.
Hamre et al. (2013) consider relevant organizing these competences in three broad domains,
because it can help guide further research and teacher education in developing specific
teaching skills. Moreover, studies have shown evidence that professional development
experiences, such as courses (Hamre et al., 2012), school-based programs (Brown et al.,
2010) and coaching interventions (Pianta, Mashburn, Downer, Hamre & Justice, 2008) with
in-service teachers can improve teaching competences when these domains are intentionally
and specifically targeted.
The CLASS scale is currently being used as crucial tool for researchers all around the world
to observe and comprehend elements of effective teaching practices. In Finland, for instance,
it is worth mentioning the First Steps Study, conducted as collaboration between the
University of Jyväskylä, the University of Turku and the University of Eastern Finland. This
research group has been developing longitudinal studies from 2006 until 2019, in which
learning, motivation, well-being, among other educational factors are examined from
preschool to secondary education at both school and home environments. Due to the study´s
large data and frequent data points, it has gained worldwide attention (The First Steps study,
2006.)
15
Taking into account the contributions of the “Teaching through Interactions” model, its
domains and dimensions are used as base for the coding process of the interviews that are
developed in the second phase of the current study.
2.3.2 Teacher’s professional agency
Taking into account the importance of teachers with strong capacity to build positive
relationships with pupils, it is still recurrent the dissatisfaction of teachers, both experienced
and newly qualified ones, about the lack in their professional trainings of structured
programs that approach classroom management and socio-emotional behaviors (Dicke et al.,
2015; Waajid, 2013; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Jacobs & Struyf, 2015).
Complementarily, learning does not happen only in formal and structured programs. New
research points out that, even though they are not organized structures, everyday classroom
situations (Hoekstra et al., 2007; Korthagen, 2010) and work related occasions (Lohman,
2006; Kwakman, 2003) demand adaptive and flexible pedagogical practices, consisting of
rich situated, embodied learning environments for teachers as informal learning settings.
In other words, students’ needs and interests, conflict situations, learning difficulties,
bullying, loss of motivation, misbehavior, asking for help from colleagues etc. call teachers
to reflect and improve their teaching methods. Different strategies were already reported to
be used by teachers, such as experimenting new teaching methods, seeking students´
feedback, inhibiting or strengthening beliefs, among others (Hoekstra et al., 2007;
Kwakman, 2003).
An important contribution from Hoekstra et al. (2007) is that informal learning in classroom
settings does not occur necessarily with goal-oriented purposes and full awareness from the
teacher. On the contrary, many times informal learning happens in a reactive (not planned)
or implicit/tacit (unaware) forms. Moreover, cognitive, affective, motivational and
behavioral aspects must be taken into account when it comes to study learning from teacher´s
perspectives.
Kwakman (2003) unfolded from her literature review and empirical studies three learning
principles that reflect teachers´ learning in the workplace: teachers learn by participating in
real context-based activities within the school they work in; by collaborating with colleagues
and taking part in social-oriented activities that boost individual reflections; and by
accomplishing activities that aim to develop themselves professionally. Parallel to that, King
and Newman (2000) stress three main individual activities that most support teacher
16
professional development: reading (keeping oneself updated with new insights and further
professional developments), experimenting (intentional effort to try something new) and
reflecting (recognizing problems and unsatisfied routines and thinking about them in order
to change it). Other studies support these principles. According to Henning, Rice, Dani,
Weade and McKeny (2017) and Soini et al. (2010), particularly solving challenging
situations with pupils was considered one of the most important learning resources for
teachers’ professional development. Moreover, self-reflecting about teaching practices must
come with collaboration with students and colleagues to be effective (Hamre et al., 2012).
Whether teachers take these informal learning settings and situations as opportunities for
their teaching improvement and further professionalization depend both on teacher´s
characteristics (if they are akin to learn actively from what happens there) and the support
of the school environment. Both factors cannot be taken for granted (Soini et al., 2016).
Regarding the support of the school environment, Jacobs and Struyf (2015) showed that
cooperation within school personnel, participation of teachers in creating the school vision,
school´s climate, and principal´s support are fundamental for active participation of teachers
in professionalization activities. Lohman (2006) also points out that lack of time and
resources at work, as well as lack of productive interactions with work colleagues are factors
that limit teachers from engaging in informal learning activities at school. Kwakman´s
(2003) study in Netherlands also reported a general lack of infrastructure in the schools that
could promote this workplace as a potential learning environment for teachers.
Related to teachers' characteristics, factors that favor teachers to engage in learning at work
are interest in the profession, love for learning, initiative and commitment to professional
development (Lohman, 2006). A recent study by Perera, Granziera and McIveen (2018)
reported that teachers with the "resilient" or "well-adjusted" personality profile from the Big-
Five Dimension scale have the highest scores of self-efficacy in teaching, job satisfaction
and – most important for the present research – work engagement. This profile is
characterized by low levels of neuroticism and high levels of conscientiousness,
agreeableness, and openness. In other words, teachers who would be more willing to learn
and develop themselves professionally are those who are strongly conscious (have self-
discipline and order); presented high openness scores (are curious and tend to vary their
practices); and are consistently agreeable (tend to be tender-minded, altruistic, and
straightforward). Other studies show that teachers with good socio-emotional competences
and self- and co-regulative strategies are more open to learn and adapt their teaching styles
to students' needs (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009).
17
Pyhältö et al. (2015) consider that teacher´s active learning at school must be understood
with a holistic and integrative concept, such as the teacher’s professional agency construct,
which means the capacity of managing the own process of learning and constructing the own
context of learning at individual level. Though, social interactions are equally relevant and
teachers must look after for both colleagues and pupils as learning resources, as well as act
as a support for them (Edwards, 2005). According to Pyhältö et al. (2015) and Soini, et al.
(2016), this complex behavior is highly relational, context-dependent and includes three
interrelated elements: motivation to learn, efficacy beliefs about learning and active
learning strategies.
These elements must be simultaneously present for one to presume that a teacher has
professional agency. The teacher should identify him/herself as an active learner capable of
intentional learning by experimenting and reflecting about it (efficacy beliefs). It also
requires motivation to accomplish self-improvement, self-oriented learning and face the
challenges of it (motivation). Finally, knowledge is not enough, one has to have the proper
skills and strategies to change previous behavior or develop new ideas (learning strategies)
(Pyhältö et al., 2015).
A fundamental aspect related to professional agency and collective knowledge building in
the school (Soini et al., 2016) is that one cannot assume that innovative pedagogical practices
are automatically shared with others and move spontaneously from particular classrooms to
the world (Henning et al. 2013). The fact that teachers learn from classroom situations and
from discussions with colleagues doesn't mean that it necessarily happens simultaneously.
According to Akkerman and Bakker (2011), this simultaneous process requires boundary
crossing (BC) skills, which means the capacity of a teacher to transit in different professional
contexts and identify learning opportunities, extracting from them possible solutions for
correlated problems. This consists of an interactional and communicative process and leads
to transformative practices in a large level (Akkerman & Bakker; 2011, Soini et al., 2016).
All seems to lead to the conclusion that teacher professional agency is deeply social
embedded and demands reflection upon the interactions with students and school community
in order for teachers to adapt roles and performances that can reach the needs of these
relationships (Pyhältö et al., 2015). Moreover, both willing to learn with pupils and other
teachers are in the “heart of meaningful teacher learning” (Soini et al., 2016, p.391).
However, as mentioned previously, only few studies have directly addressed the informal
learning process of how teachers learn to improve their interactions with pupils and how
they see the impacts of such learning development.
18
2.4 Research questions
This research aims to progress the field of teacher continuous professional development and
fill a gap in the literature regarding teacher informal learning about relationship with pupils.
In other words, it tries to understand how experienced teachers reflect about their learning
process in informal contexts in order to continuously develop their performances, when it
comes to build positive interactions with their pupils.
In a few words, my research questions are:
1) How do Finnish experienced teachers perceive that their professional agency
supports their learning process to build positive interactions with pupils?
1.1. How do they reflect about their motivations to learn?
1.2. What do they think about their efficacy beliefs to learn?
1.3. How do they portray their active strategies that most support their learning process?
These questions try to capture, from the narratives of Finnish experienced teachers, how they
perceive that their professional agency in terms of motivations to learn, efficacy beliefs to
learn, and strategies to learn help them to improve their interactions with pupils during their
everyday teaching practices. The “Teacher Professional Agency” constructs (Soini et al.,
2016) take into account the informal character of teachers’ learning process and are
fundamental factors that maintain it.
The fact that teachers try to remember their informal learning process along their career
means that some of this informal learning can remain unconscious. Hence, this question tries
to capture the most significant types of factors and learning events that marked their informal
learning process regarding how to improve interactions with pupils.
2. How do teachers apprehend the general character of their learning process related to
build positive interactions with pupils?
This question looks into the general impression the teachers have about their learning process
all the way through their career and how it impacts their everyday relationship with children.
It approaches both their holistic perceptions of the influences of their learning over the
relationships with pupils, as well as the intensity of their learning process throughout the
teachers´ career.
19
3 METHODOLOGY
In the next sections, the research design and methodological choices of the present study,
followed by measurements, data collection, participants, and analysis processes are
described and explained in further details.
3.1 Research design
The present research consisted of a mixed method approach of confirmatory multiple-case
analysis. The purpose of accomplishing a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative
approaches was to apprehend multiple ways of emerging as well as different possibilities of
meanings and interpretations of the phenomenon under investigation (Creswell & Clark,
2018). Moreover, this is a confirmatory study because it based the research questions and
further investigations mainly on theoretical assumptions deducted from the literature.
In a nutshell, an initial broad-scale survey followed by semi-structured depth interviews were
developed. Therefore, general data regarding teacher professional agency was initially
collected through the survey. The teachers who presented the highest scores of professional
agency were selected, because of their engagement in continuous learning. The study was
followed up with interviews of the most suitable individuals who completed the survey to
bring in-depth information and insights that could expand the meanings of the survey results.
Finally, the main analytical framework of this study was deductive, theoretical guided
content analysis. However, it was complemented by inductive analysis of relevant empirical
evidence that emerged from the collected data.
In general, the research consisted of four main phases:
1) A broad-scale research with primary school teachers of the municipality of
Joensuu, who volunteered to answer a survey with the Teacher's professional agency in the
classroom scale and Boundary crossing scale (Soini et al., 2016).
2) Analysis of the frequencies distribution of the sample, reliability of scales,
possible gender biases, correlations of the collected data, and further identification of the
teachers with the highest scores of teacher professional agency. The teachers´ time
availability to participate in the interviews was also considered.
3) Accomplishment of individual, semi-structured and face-to-face interviews with
the previous selected teachers.
20
4) Development of theory guided Content Analysis (CA) over the text corpus, using
as theoretical framework the “Teaching through Interaction” model (Hamre et al., 2013) and
“Teacher’s Professional Agency” construct (Soini et al., 2016) as initial references to frame
the main categories and code values. Posteriorly, the analytical frame was complemented by
Teacher´s Personality factors that showed empirical relevance for the analysis and
interpretations of the findings.
3.2 Quantitative phase: measures, data collection and participants
As mentioned previously, the quantitative research procedure consisted of applying the
Teacher's professional agency in the classroom and Boundary crossing scales (Soini et al.,
2016). The former scale consists of a questionnaire that measures teacher professional
agency, including motivation to learn, efficacy beliefs about learning, and learning strategies
through two factors: collaborative environment and transformative practices (CLE – six
items), and reflection in classroom (REF – four items). The Boundary crossing scale (BC –
three items) measures teacher´s capacity to utilize ideas from other teachers in his/her own
practices, as well as to share his/her own practices with others.
In order to collect as much data as possible, a study permit application (see Appendix 1) was
sent to Joensuu municipality, asking permission to develop the research with all the schools
of the city.
With the permission in hands, a pilot of the English version of the questionnaire was applied
with seven Finnish teacher students of the School of Educational Sciences and Teacher
Education, at University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Joensuu Campus. The pilot provided
good suggestions regarding improving the questionnaire, such as: use of everyday
vocabulary in the items, instead of academic/technical words, and provision of examples of
what each item means to facilitate the comprehension of teachers. The general structure of
the survey was also improved. For instance, the participants showed fields of the items to be
marked that were not in the questionnaire.
When the final version in English was completed (see Appendix 2), the questionnaire was
open to be answered starting from end of August 2017. The survey could be filled online
through Monkey Survey website, or with paper-pencil materials, depending on the teachers’
preference. The whole survey had a mean time of 5 to 10 minutes to be answered. In the end
of the questionnaire, participants were asked to give their contact information, in case they
were available to participate in the further phases of the study.
21
It is important to mark that the participation in the research was voluntary and participants
could cancel their involvement at any moment they wanted. Moreover, the fact that the
teachers provided their contact information did not hurt the anonymity character of the
research, because their identity was kept privy during the whole research process.
Initially, only few teachers answered the survey and some of them were giving as reason the
fact that the questionnaire was in English. Hence, a Finnish version of the survey was
developed with the assistance of a Finnish person graduated in English Language.
The Finnish version was piloted by seven other Finnish teacher students of the School of
Educational Sciences and Teacher Education, at UEF, Joensuu Campus. The piloting gave
important suggestions to improve the translated items for the Finnish version, such as content
related improvements and structure of the phrases. Finally, the Finnish version (see
Appendix 3) was available to be answered online and with paper-pencil materials starting
from October 2017.
In total, the data collection of the survey started in the end of August 2017, taking five
months to reach 48 teachers with both English and Finnish versions. The participants
consisted of primary school teachers from the municipality of Joensuu, who worked with 1st
to 5th grades – some of them teaching more than one grade. They could read and speak
English fluently, had from 5 years to 39 years of teaching experience and are located from
the stabilization phase to the final phase of teaching career (de Vries, Jansen & van de Grift,
2013). The distribution by gender featured 70.8% of participants being female, they had 19.9
years of experience on average (SD = 9.02) and the grade with the biggest portion of teachers
working was 5th grade, followed by teachers who worked in more than one grade
(characteristic typical in Finland).
Table 2. Survey participants profile by grade and gender
Grade
Gender 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade More than one grade
Total
Female 5 6 8 1 6 8 34 Male 0 2 1 1 8 2 14 Total 5 8 9 2 14 10 48
It is important to mention that all the collected material was stored in a folder that only the
researcher had access. The questionnaires were organized and coded according to each
participant in order to recover any needed information.
22
3.3 Qualitative phase: rationale of interviewing and interviewees
Individual semi-structures interviews were accomplished, because the interactive
relationship between interviewer and interviewee has potential to build new knowledge
through the exchange of viewpoints and meanings about the investigated phenomenon.
Moreover, depth interviews have the advantage of providing details about personal and
professional experiences, decisions and action sequences (Bion et al., 2011) – which were
relevant to understand what and how the experiences of the teachers supported them to learn
and develop professional competences.
One of the most relevant topics regarding interviews is the sample of respondents. The main
purpose of qualitative research is not to count the opinions or to measure a trait in a
population (as in quantitative research), but rather to explore the different positions and
representations individuals of a specific population have regarding a phenomenon (Altheide
et al., 2011; Bion et al., 2011). Hence, the main concern when selecting a sample is to
comprehend individuals from significant milieus to the research’s topic. Not necessarily
statistical socio-demographic samples will comprehend the most significant viewpoints of a
phenomenon, but perhaps natural groups that play a significant role in the topic which is
being studied is better. Besides, more interviews don’t mean necessarily a better
understanding of the topic, since there’s a saturation point of the opinions and perspectives
that can be reached from a sample (Altheide et al.; 2011, Bion et al., 2011).
Another important aspect of interviewing is that it is time and energy consuming. That’s why
previous survey was applied in order to better select the most suitable teachers who would
take part in the interview. That is, the teachers who are more akin to learn from their
everyday classrooms situations, their pupils, the teacher community and from other personal
contexts too. Those teachers would be more able to express, in-depth, their experiences,
opinions, values, motivations, insights etc. In sum, their learning process and consequential
developments.
Considering the theoretical background of “Teaching through interaction” and “Teacher
professional agency” models, the first draft of the interview guidelines was developed. The
main idea of the initial phase of the interview was to warm up the teachers about the topic
of research. This warm up phase had a predominant emotional tone and asked the teachers
to link a color to the classroom atmosphere where he/she works. The colors provided were:
black, blue, brown, green, orange (dark yellow), purple, red and yellow (bright yellow),
23
following the study of Wexner (1954). The participant also had to write a keyword that
represented the meaning of the chosen color.
After the warm up, the interview was oriented to explore how the teachers understand their
interactions with pupils in a broad manner. Sequentially, the questions approached how the
teachers used to interact with pupils in the beginning of their career compared to nowadays,
looking for changes and improvements during his/her career. Detailed aspects of the
theoretical framework were asked in order to understand how the professional agency factors
play a role in the informal learning process of teachers. In the end of each interview, the
interviewees were presented to one of the survey outcomes in order to gather their opinion
about the matter (further explanation about the survey outcomes in the next chapter).
With the purpose to test the interview protocol, a pilot study was accomplished in a focal
group of six teacher students of the School of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education,
at UEF, Joensuu campus. From the pilot, the main take away lessons were: the need of a
simultaneous Finnish-English translator for some teachers that might be uncomfortable with
English, and the conclusion that individual interviews would be more able to gather detailed
in-depth information than a focal-group approach.
Taking this into account, the final version of the interview was developed and would have
been translated to a Finnish version, in case any participant would request a Finnish
translation. However, all the participants of the interview sessions did not request the Finnish
version or a personal translator. Hence, the written English version (see Appendix 4) was
available to the participants during the interviews, divided in small pieces of papers with
individual questions in order to facilitate the reading of the repondents.
To accomplish the interviews with the most suitable teachers, the criteria for the selection
consisted of the highest scores of the TPA and BC scales and teachers’ availability to take
part in the interview. Eight teachers were primarily chosen to be interviewed. The interview
invitation was sent by email, in English and Finnish, and five teachers accepted the
invitation. They could choose the time and place most convenient for them, as long as it
could guarantee the needed privacy and conditions for the interview. Also, this sample of
participants reached the saturation point of data collection, showing no more need for more
interviews to be done.
In general, most interviews took place in a classroom of the schools where the teachers work.
In two occasions the interviews needed to be interrupted, because the teachers had visitors.
One participant decided to meet in the city library, because it was convenient for both
interviewer and interviewee. All the participants chose to be interviewed after their workday,
24
in the afternoon, and all of them gave permission to the interviews to be audio recorded. The
overall climate of all interviews was informal and relaxed. Some participants felt
comfortable to narrate in details their teaching experiences and others were more objective
and short in words. Below you can find the general profile of the participants of the
qualitative phase as well as general information about the interviews.
Table 3. Interviews’ general characteristics and participants´ profile
Gender Years of experience
Teacher activities Grades Place of interview
Time of interview
1. Female 39 Teacher/Educator 1st-5th Classroom 14h – 15h30
2. Male 30 Teacher/Headmaster 3rd Classroom 12h – 13h30
3. Male 20 Teacher/ICT 4th Classroom 13h – 14h
4. Male 19 Teacher 2nd Classroom 13h – 14h30
5. Male 26 Special teacher 5th City library 15h30 – 16h30
3.4 Analysis of quantitative data
With the software IBM SPSS Statistics 19, descriptive statistics were run to check the
normality of the data and frequencies distribution. Because the sample was below 50
participants, the suitable normality test was Shapiro-Wilk. It showed that the data was not
normally distributed, what called for non-parametric tests. Cross tabulation analysis was
done to verify any gender biases in the results. Non-parametric Spearman´s rho correlations
were run between the subscales of TPA scale (CLE, REF), BC scale and years of experiences
of the teachers. Cronbach’s alpha was also investigated to confirm the internal consistency
of the scales and the reliability of the results.
The analysis of the quantitative data had fundamental relevance for the next phases of the
research. The descriptive statistics gave a general view about the TPA and BC characteristics
of the broad sample of participants. From this global picture, the individuals with the highest
score of the scales were selected for the next moment of the study – also considering their
availability. Hence, the analysis and results of the survey was the starting point for the
interviews, working as a purpose sampling tool.
Finally, it is important to mention that some results from the survey analysis called attention
and needed further investigation. Hence, the participants of the interview phase were asked
to express their opinions about the survey findings in order to raise multiple view points and
understandings about it.
25
3.5 Analysis of qualitative data
The analysis of the text corpus gathered with the interviews was made with the software
Atlas.ti 8, using mainly as analytical method theory guided CA based on the previous
theoretical framework. Complementarily, exploratory CA was also developed due to the
relevance of new empirical evidence that emerged from the data. Both were developed in
order to make holistic inferences about the informal learning experiences that the teachers
accomplish to improve their interactions with pupils. The analysis also aimed to grasp the
teachers´ general impression about the intensity of this learning process and its impacts on
their relationship with pupils throughout their career.
To effectuate CA, both qualitative and quantitative processes took place: before any
quantification descriptions (statistical treatment of code frequencies), contextual
interpretation of the text corpus was developed. Semantic analysis over the whole material
focused on connotation and denotation meanings of what was said by the participants
(Andren et al., 2011.)
Then, a coding frame for the analysis was developed. This is important because, “While a
text corpus is open to a multitude of possible questions, the CA interprets the text only in the
light of the coding frame, which constitutes a theoretical selection that embodies the research
purpose.” (Andren et al., 2011, p.6). In order to develop the coding frame, there are two
kinds of approaches: deductive (from theory to practice) and inductive (from practice to
theory). In this study, the deductive approach was mainly followed, because it is appropriate
to test existing theory. Hence, the units of analysis of the coding frame were selected based
on the research questions and the theoretical framework. However, the inductive method
was also accomplished, because the text corpus derived from the teachers´ reports demanded
exploratory analysis of new relevant empirical evidence.
According to Cho and Lee (2014), the process of data analysis follows three basic steps:
establishing categories and themes, selecting the units of analysis, and defining code values.
The two main theoretical models were used as global categories for the codes. Then, the
themes and units of codes were compound by the three broad domains emotional support,
classroom organizations, and instructional support of the “Teaching through Interaction”
model (Hamre et al. 2013), as well as the elements motivation to learn, efficacy beliefs,
active learning strategies, and boundary crossing of the “Teacher Professional Agency”
model (Soini et al., 2016). Finally, the code values were looked for and observed according
to the theoretical descriptions of these elements.
26
For analytical purposes, because the concept active learning strategy had a fundamental
role in the interviews, this code was rooted into two sub-groups, apprehending the following
theoretical factors: boundary crossing (Soini et al., 2016) as actually a collaborative learning
strategy; and reading, experimenting, and reflecting (Kwakman, 2003) as individual learning
strategies. Moreover, it was accentuated in the interviews that teachers most of the time
"learn by doing" (Kwakman, 2003) - further discussion in the next chapter. Consequently,
the three domains of "Teaching through interaction" model were actually considered
practices with the character of active learning strategies that teachers implement in their
daily routines and learn from them. They have both individual and collective characteristics.
Posteriorly, an inductive approach was accomplished because of the relevance of new
empirical evidence. It was observed from the teacher´s voicing the importance of a third
category regarding the learning process of teachers, when it comes to building and improving
interactions with pupils: the teacher´s personality. This factor appeared spontaneously in
three main directions according to the teachers' reports: personality of teacher as a "natural"
work tool; personality of teacher as lifelong learner, a passionate person for learning
throughout the whole life; and personality of teacher as the stable base of teacher-student
interaction and consequently an oppositional factor to change these interactions. Hence,
these three codes were added to the final coding frame, according to the following table:
Table 4. Categories, themes and codes of the content analysis
Category Teacher Professional
Agency
Teaching Through
Interaction (active
learning strategies,
“learn by doing”)
Teacher Personality
Themes/
Codes
Motivation to learn Emotional support
- Positive climate
- Negative climate
- Teacher sensitivity
- Regard for students
perspectives
- Overcontrol
Work tool
Efficacy beliefs to learn Classroom
organization
- Behavior
management
- Productivity
- Instructional
learning formats
- Classroom chaos
Lifelong Learner
27
Active learning strategies:
- Reading (individual)
- Reflecting (individual)
- Experimenting
(individual)
- Boundary crossing
(collective)
Instructional support:
- Concept
development
- Quality of feedback
- Language
modelling
- Richness of
instructional methods
Oppositional factor to
change
This coding frame was developed and evaluated along the whole analysis process by its
internal coherence, simplicity and interconnection between the code values (Andren et al.,
2011). Through these dimensions, CA was a valuable tool to find patterns, trends, turning
points and even contradictions within the teachers’ reports about their learning process. The
CA made possible to understand how the theoretical elements appeared in the participants´
discourses, as well as the intensity of their appearance in the collected material. Finally, it
was intended to build “maps of experiences”, trying not only to identify isolated experiences,
but a network between them, finding internal and external relationships (Andren et al., 2011).
Altogether, the context-oriented CA mapped from the teachers discourses how the elements
of their professional agency and the characteristics of their personality supported their
learning process to build positive interactions with pupils. Moreover, it revealed the global
impression the teachers have about the influence that their learning have on their relationship
with pupils. The hierarchical code structure derived from the theoretical framework and
empirical material can be better visualized in the Figure 1 below.
28
Figure 1. Hierarchical relationship between the codes derived from the “Teacher
professional agency” concepts, “Teaching through interaction” model and “Teacher
personality” factors
In sum, the research design adopted in this study was a confirmatory multiple-case analysis
with mixed method approach. A survey was accomplished to gather general data regarding
teacher professional agency and to select the most suitable teachers to participate in the in-
depth semi-structure interviews. The text corpus was analyzed using theory guided content
analysis, based on the theoretical framework, but also taking into account the relevance of
teacher's voicing and new concepts that came out from their participation.
29
4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The next sections present and discuss the findings of both quantitative and qualitative phases
of this study in order to answer the research questions. To approach the first inquiry of this
investigation, the survey results are presented to describe in details the sample of
participants. Next, the statistical analysis made over the questionnaire’s data is showed.
Further, the teachers´ voicing gains a fundamental role in the results in order to understand
how teachers´ professional agency and personality support their learning process to build
positive interactions with pupils. Descriptive frequencies of the qualitative data are presented
and posteriorly, the codes are analyzed regarding their relevance, meanings and
interrelations.
To approach the second inquiry of this investigation, the second part of the chapter discusses
how the teachers perceived the general character of their learning process regarding building
positive relationship with pupils. First, the role of their personality is stressed and discussed
in details. Then, the apprehension about the intensity of the teachers´ learning throughout
their career is analyzed by comparing previous literature, the survey results and teachers´
reports.
4.1 How teachers´ professional agency and personality support
teachers´ learning process to build positive interactions with pupils
The first quest of this study aimed to investigate how Finnish experienced teachers perceive
that their professional agency in terms of motivations to learn, efficacy beliefs of learning
and strategies to learn during their everyday teaching practices help them to improve their
interactions with pupils. This investigation was complemented with two teacher personality
factors (work tool and lifelong learner) that showed empirical relevance to support teacher-
pupil interactions and affect teachers´ learning processes. In the following sections, the
results of both quantitative and qualitative phases are presented in order to map how these
elements interrelate to each other.
4.1.1 Survey findings: reliable sample and the intriguing correlation
The survey with the TPA and BC scales accomplished in the initial phase of this study
gathered general data about the participants’ professional agency. The means, standard
deviations and intercorrelations for all subscales and teachers´ years of experience are
presented in Table 5.
30
Table 5. Means, standard deviations and intercorrelations among all subscales and teachers’
years of experience (N = 48)
1. 2. 3. 4.
1. Collaborative Environment and Transformative Practices (CLE)
.49** .57** -.26
2. Reflection in Classroom (REF) .54** -.40**
3. Boundary Crossing (BC) -.16
4. Years of experience
M 5.05 5.45 5.47 19.91
SD .46 .49 .53 9.02
**. p < .01 (2-tailed)
As Table 5 shows, even the broad sample of Finnish teachers presented high scores of
professional agency: CLE (M=5.05, SD=.46), REF (M=5.45, SD=.49) and BC (M=5.47,
SD=.53). Regarding gender biases in the sample, the cross tabulation analysis showed no
evidence of significant relationship between gender and any of the TPA and BC items (x²
(16) = 12.47, p = .71, V = .510). The general questionnaire, consisting of 2 TPA subscales
and the BC scale, totalizing 13 items, reached a Cronbach α of .83. The subscales
Collaborative environment and transformative practice (CLE, 6 items, α = .74), Reflection
in classroom (REF, 4 items, α = .72) and Boundary crossing (BC, 3 items, α = .74) were
considered reliable.
Non-parametric correlation (Spearman´s rho) between TPA subscales, BC scale and years
of experience were run and showed the following results: the TPA subscales were
moderately positive correlated with each other. The strongest correlation was between CLE
and BC subscales (r = .57, p < .01). Among these correlations, it was found an intriguing
moderate negative correlation between teachers´ years of experience and the subscale REF
(r = -.40, p =.01), which suggested that the more years of experience a teacher has, less
probably he/she is reflecting about classroom experiences in order to learn from it. As
previously explained, this correlation was investigated directly with the participants of the
interview phase, in order to further understand how the teachers perceived that their years of
experience affect their practice of reflecting in the classroom in order to learn from it (this
topic is further discussed in the section 4.2).
These findings assured the reliability of the collected data and the trustworthiness of the
selection of the participants with the highest scores of the scale, who were selected to the
31
interview phase. These participants should be considered highly engaged with their
professional practices, with strong motivations to learn about their pupils and their own
work, high efficacy beliefs about their capabilities to learn and improve their teaching
practices, as well as effective strategies to continuously learn from their everyday work.
4.1.2 Interviews’ findings: building the map of teachers´ learning process
As previously discussed, the warm up phase of the interviews gathered general indicators
about the classroom atmosphere of the participants. The colors chosen by all teachers were
the variations of yellow: dark (orange) and bright. Moreover, all participants referred to their
classrooms and schools’ atmosphere as a warm environment. To represent the meaning of
the color, there were variations of wonderful, exciting, cheerful and warm, confirming the
previous findings of Wexner (1954) about how the color yellow can be generally interpreted
as a cheerful and joyful tone of mood.
Table 6. Interviews’ participants profile by classroom atmosphere and keyword
CLASSROOM ATMOSPHERE (COLOR) KEYWORDS
1. Dark yellow Cheerful 2. Bright yellow Wonderful 3. Dark yellow Exciting 4. Dark yellow Warm 5. Dark yellow Warm
Taking this into account, the sample of participants was considered an experienced group of
teachers who have a general positive classroom climate with their pupils. This is supported
by the teachers´ reports about what they think of the importance of teacher-pupils
interactions, as the following quote:
It is the base of all work in the school. If we don´t have it, we don´t have anything.
The first, if I think this process education or building our education is like a wall or
house made out of little bricks, the first brick, the basement, will be trust between
each other. But the basement, before bricks, is this interaction between teacher and
student. Everything happens in interaction, if we´re thinking about teaching (Subject
4).
32
Next, Table 7 provides an overview of the codes’ frequency of appearance along the text
corpus derived from the interviews. The frequency distribution of the codes featured a broad
range of minimum four to maximum 94 times of appearance (excluding the codes that had
null frequencies). The codes motivation to learn, efficacy beliefs to learn, reflecting,
boundary crossing, positive climate, teacher sensitivity, and personality as work tool are
equal or above the global mean of appearance (M = 35.07, SD = 25.54). On the other hand,
the codes negative climate, overcontrol, productivity, classroom chaos, concept
development, quality of feedback, and language modelling did not appear in any relevant
moment as pertinent factors that supported teachers to build positive interactions with pupils.
Therefore, they will not be discussed further. Nevertheless, the value and importance of the
factors that emerged from the interviews are not given exclusively based on their
frequencies, but rather on a holistic perspective supported by a contextual interpretation of
how they appeared in the text corpus.
Table 7. Overview of codes´ frequency in the text corpus derived from the interviews
Category Teacher Professional
Agency
Teaching Through Interaction
(as active learning strategies)
Teacher
Personality
Themes/
Codes
Motivation to learn (38) Emotional support:
- Positive climate (64)
- Negative climate (0)
- Teacher sensitivity (65)
- Regard for students perspectives
(27)
- Overcontrol (0)
Personality work
tool (35)
Efficacy beliefs to learn
(43)
Classroom organization:
- Behavior management (11)
- Productivity (0)
- Instructional learning formats (21)
- Classroom chaos (0)
Personality
Lifelong Learner
(15)
Active learning
strategies:
- Reading (15)
- Reflecting (94)
- Experimenting (33)
- Boundary crossing (55)
Instructional support:
- Concept development (0)
- Quality of feedback (0)
- Language modelling (0)
- Richness of instructional methods
(4)
Personality
oppositional factor
to change (6)
In the next sub-sections, the codes which appeared in the text corpus will be analyzed in
order to understand what their relevance is, how they relate to each other, and – most
importantly – how they support the informal learning process of teachers, when it comes to
build positive interactions with pupils. Considering that the analysis has to adapt itself to the
33
text corpus derived from the interviews, the best way to describe the findings is by presenting
the coding frame in three main groups. These groups showed interconnection between each
other according to the role they played in the informal learning process of the teachers:
professional agency factors that support teacher learning (motivation to learn and efficacy
beliefs to learn); active strategies to learn (both individual and collective, including the
“learning by doing” aspects taken from the “Teaching through Interaction” model); and the
two aspects of teacher´s personality that base teacher-pupils interactions (work tool and
lifelong learning).
Figure 2 presents this hierarchical relationship between the codes and categories found
through the analysis of the interviews, also differentiating them by color according to the
groups indicated before: professional agency factors that support teacher learning are in red;
active learning strategies are in blue, and teacher personality factors are in green. The code
“oppositional factor to change” within the teacher´s personality group is in yellow and is not
discussed in this first section, because it answers the second inquiry of the present research
– hence, it will be presented and discussed in the section 4.2.
Figure 2. Hierarchical relationship between the codes, grouped in colors by the role they
played in the informal learning process of teachers
Professional agency factors that support teacher learning
34
Motivation to learn
The teachers´ motivations to learn about their interactions with pupils varied in content and
intensity. In general, the pupils were the main reason for teachers to learn, in the sense that
teachers learn in order to contribute to their pupils’ education and general growth. Also, the
interaction per se was considered a strong motivator for teachers´ work.
Good interaction is very good motivation in teacher´s work. […] Another big thing is
that my pupils, they are growing mentally, as persons, they are growing in knowledge,
they understand more and more and they achieve academic tasks. This is another big
thing (Subject 4).
Teachers were also motivated to learn about pupils with the explicit aim to include their
interests in the classroom discussions and in the subject content. It was also mentioned as a
way to “break the ice” of a talk in order to orient the class or individuals to the main topic
of the lesson.
I´d like to know more and more of my pupils, so I can be on the same level as them, if
they are discussing about ice hockey […] I can understand what they´re talking about.
[...] If the boys are talking something in the class, I can ask them if this is ice hockey
talk or are you talking about dogs or something else. [...] So I can use their interests in
our discussions (Subject 1).
Another motivator for learning about different ways to interact with pupils was the character
of repetition that teaching sometimes can have. That is, in order to avoid routine repetitions
of the same lessons and classroom structures, teachers learn new methodologies to bring
something new in the class and interact differently. Besides, when they tried something that
had positive effects in their classroom activities, it also motivated them:
I always make changes. I don´t know what´s that called, learning yourself, having
some ambitious, getting bored doing the same things. I´m getting bored easily doing
the same thing, so I have to make change. Although I don´t know if they´re getting any
better, but they´re different […]. If you notice something works, then you have to
[take] this encouragement for yourself. Ok, this works. In some other situation I can
use the same type of thing (Subject 3).
35
As showed before, most of the teachers were responsible for other activities than teaching,
which appeared as an important factor for their motivation into teaching and learning in
classroom, especially because they could choose what they wanted to work with. This
appeared in their reports as explanation for the fact that they are still engaged in their
profession. Consequently, the lack of autonomy of other teachers and the fact that they are
exclusively teaching for years was given by the interviewees as possible explanations for
some of their colleagues not to be willing to reflect about classroom situations in further
stages of their careers. This opinion confirms a previous study by de Vries et al. (2013).
I´m such level, that I´m able to choose what I want to do, so that, of course, keeps me
motivated [...] It could be that some might get a bit fed up with the job [because they
can´t choose what they work with] (Subject 2).
Another factor that was given as reason for older teachers to be unmotivated to continue
professional development was the “self-confidence” image that experienced teachers might
have and its negative side-effect.
If you have more experience, you are a little bit wiser, that´s true. But if you have more
experience, you might be a little bit more tired with your work. You might be. And
then, if you have more experience, you might think, I have done good so far, so I don´t
need to change anything (Subject 5).
Finally, the phase of teachers´ personal life and their health conditions were major factors
that appeared to affect their motivation to learn. One participant reported the period of his
life when he was under dialysis and, consequently, his involvement with work was quite
low. Another participant explained how her family situation affected her focus on
professional development:
The learning process or what you´re learning depend on your life situation. You don´t
have energy when your children are small, you focus more on your family and you
have to do that (Subject 3).
36
In sum, teachers´ motivations to learn were centered in pupils´ growth and learning process,
trying to involve the children as much as possible in the activities developed in classroom.
Besides personal factors, professional well-being, such as autonomy at work, mattered.
Efficacy beliefs to learn
Four out of five teachers had strong beliefs that they are still learning and want to continue
to do so, stating that they like it and they know how to do it. Only one teacher responded
differently to this topic. Although he considered himself an active learner, when he compared
his attitude with other Finnish teachers, he evaluated that there are many others much more
active than him.
We have really lot of active teachers here in Finland. If I compare me to them, I´m not
so active. But by myself, I feel, quite little bit active learner. [...] They want to learn
everything, all the time, something new. [...] They take a lot of course, they educate
them all the time. [...] And if I compare me to them, I´m not so active, but I´m a little
active (Subject 5).
This can be considered a strong characteristic of the sample: the participants were highly
engaged with their work and they believed that learning in different ways improve their
professional competencies. They also considered themselves capable of learning due to all
their previous experiences they have been through with teaching and interacting with pupils.
In one´s words:
[…] how you see yourself as a teacher and how many different situations you have in
your backpack of social problems or interaction problems. So you probably come up
with many situations in your career. You might reflect on those (Subject 2).
One teacher also reported about how his own self-efficacy beliefs changed across time,
because getting more experienced lead him face the fact that he might not know everything
– against his youth beliefs. Hence, the years of experiences made him more open to learn
new things and readjust his efficacy beliefs to a more “unlocked” and “humble” attitude
towards learning:
37
When you´re younger, you know, you know what´s right, what is wrong, you´re like
very innovative and you´re always right when you´re young. Older people, they don´t
know anything. But now, when I´m old, I know, they know something. [...] Little bit
more open eyes (Subject 5).
As previously described, both motivation to learn and self-efficacy beliefs in learning
presented higher frequency than the average of the total codes, which is the first indicator of
their relevance for teachers’ learning through their everyday work experiences. From this
sample, it is possible to conclude that the teachers have student-centered pedagogical
approaches, placing their pupils in the heart of teaching and as the main actors of their own
learning process. Moreover, the participants appeared to be a representative sample of a
broad group of Finnish teachers, who are engaged in continuously learn to improve their
work.
Active learning strategies
Reading
The teachers talked only briefly about reading, mainly as a strategy to learn in the contexts
of formal education, such as in-service courses, further studies after teacher education,
researching and publishing papers. However, even that it presented low rate of frequency,
different opinions emerged about this topic. One participant mentioned that reading was not
viable because of heavy workload. On the other hand, another teacher reported that reading
books and scientific papers was considered an insightful strategy, which was still used to
search for theoretical background to teaching practice. For another interviewee, reading was
considered a general common sense of teaching task, since teaching means to have always
new knowledge to share.
[…] if you teach you have to learn by yourself, of course. If you share new information
and knowledge on anything, you have to know, you have to study, you have to watch
and listen and read and try (Subject 4).
Here, reading meant also reading from the Internet or be updated with the news in the world.
The same participant reported that his readings focused mainly on Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) topics, because of his difficulties to keep himself updated
in this field spontaneously, as he used to do before.
38
Now everything grows so fast, for example, IT, you really have to say yourself, study,
you have to take your calendar and book some time, some days and hours. Now it´s
time to study this thing. It doesn´t happen automatically anymore, like it happened
when I was 20 something. It´s demanding (Subject 4).
In short, reading was not found to be a frequent strategy to learn about interacting with
pupils. However, it is used for teachers to keep themselves updated with their interests and
to learn in formal contexts.
Experimenting
Experimenting can be more powerful than “just doing” in terms of learning, because it´s
when the teachers change the routine and try something new (Kwakman, 2003). It was
mostly reported when teachers were in the beginning of their careers, when they were trying
and developing their professional competences until they got stabilized in the work. It makes
sense, considering that their professional experiences were not so varied in initial years and,
progressively – with time and experiences – the teachers tend to experiment less, but not
necessarily stop. This finding confirms previous literature (de Vries et al, 2013). In the
following quotation, the participant mentions how he “discovered” his way of teaching in
the beginning of his career and how he has been following the same general strategy since
then.
When I was in a very small school as a teacher, I decided to have a project week, one
in autumn and one in spring season. Well, we started to plan the project week with
pupils and we made it [...], but after that I noticed that this is the way I want to work.
Project weeks. Project work. We´re planning the week on Monday morning all
together, we´re checking our curriculum and after that we´re making a timetable and
how we´re going to work and how we´re going to evaluate and that was the project
week [...] anyway, that was my possibility to grow myself, educate myself [...] (Subject
1).
In addition, it must be stressed how experimenting teaching methods was accomplished in
cooperation with the pupils, in the sense that pupils have an important role in the experiment
of ideas and activities, following their interests and motivations.
39
When we are studying and plan that kind of project week for example or some kind of
learning session, we´re planning together. What do you want to do? OK, we have here
history of Rome, how would you like to learn a lot of as much as possible from Rome
and we´re discussing with pupils. OK, so one says, we want to make a play, we want
to make a video, we want to make a puppet show, we want just to read here and make
exercise books. […] I put them to groups, make them plan, make a mind map and give
me some ideas how we´re going to learn this (Subject 1).
Experimenting also occurred with the support and deployment of extra equipment, such as
ICT actuators, animals from the forest, toys etc. This topic is also discussed within the codes
“classroom organization and instructional support”, because of overlapping and
interconnected meanings.
In the new environment in our classroom, we have a multisensory, like possibilities,
so there are many affordances, we have lights we can adapt and also, like the sound,
let´s say sound words. So if we´re studying for example the tropics of Brazil, I have a
room about this size, I can reflect like a video of the jungle, I have good audio systems
of the classroom, I can put sound of the jungle, so children are able to more live the
thing than just looking from the book. I´m not sure if this has to do with interaction,
but anyhow is interaction with the help of technology so we can get this kind of sensing
things. A little bit helping (Subject 2).
How teachers evaluate their interactions with pupils has also shown to have an experimental
character, in the sense that teachers try different approaches of everyday classroom situations
to talk about pupils’ emotions and relationships. As illustration, when a teacher has some
challenges in the classroom, because pupils are going through a difficult situation and needed
more attention and support from the teacher, experimenting ways to interact with these
pupils was reported to be an important strategy to keep the bond between teacher-pupils.
Teachers need skills, experience, ideas how would pupils change the direction. What
does this child needs. Sometimes it can be setting limits, sometimes it can be giving
comfort, sometimes it can be encouraging the child, sometimes it can be something
else […] You can use also physical situations, you can say OK let´s sit down and talk
40
about this. The teacher can use slow or physical feeling of the teacher to calm the child.
But it´s also interactions with the pupils in the classroom, and if it´s restless in the
classroom, you can use the same method (Subject 3).
Overall, experimenting was also found in this group of teachers not to be, in comparison
with others, such a frequent strategy of learning to interact with pupils. Still, two
observations must be highlighted: the relevance of experimenting in the beginning of the
teachers´ career, when it was mostly used for their learning process, and the fact that, when
experimenting, the teachers brought their pupils as co-protagonists of these practices.
Reflecting
Reflecting about their practice and expressing their beliefs were constantly present in the
teachers´ voicing, even without their awareness. First of all, the teachers seemed to have
reflected about the topic teacher-pupil interactions considerably, taking into account their
strong beliefs of how important this relationship is.
Reflecting due to formal education was by far the least frequent way of reflecting mentioned
by the teachers. On the other hand, thinking and “feeling” spontaneously about classroom
situations were constant ways to do it. One of the teachers even explained his own theory
about education as an interconnected broad ecosystem that builds community, which,
according to Korthagen (2010), is a rare stage of theoretical conceptualization found among
teachers and other professionals.
Here is the class in the middle, how teachers work in the class, how pupils work in
their class. Then the cooperation between classes and how it works the cooperation in
our school. Then there is school and parents, school-home cooperation. After that the
school and the surrounding communality. Commune. And then, well, the whole world
is in the next level (Subject 1).
Reflecting about pupils´ verbal and non-verbal spontaneous feedback as well as the own
teachers´ feedback to pupils were considered important learning processes that teachers
accomplish in order to evaluate how their interactions with pupils are and if something need
to be changed. This learning behavior is further discussed within the code “emotional
support”. Below are illustrative quotations of how the teachers reflect everyday about the
interactions they have with pupils and also about the interactions between pupils.
41
The real time feedback that they´re giving to me in our classroom and how they´re
acting against me and against the other pupils there. And where the cooperation goes
nicely, they give advices and support each other. Then I can see that everything is
working fine. But of course you have to know what you´re watching, what you´re
noticing there (Subject 1).
In our job, it´s quite nice that we have the mirror [the pupils] in front of us all the time.
Because I´m with the children and I see how they react and if I´m able to look at the
mirror, then it gives me quite a lot of feedback. […] We, as teachers, as professionals,
we don´t get feedback, like about our work or how we´re with the children. It´s quite
not very often that someone says, that we find you as a good teacher or something like
that. So you have to take the feedback yourself. And if you do well, you have to
appreciate that. And if you see that, OK, that wasn´t like good way to do things or it
wasn´t interesting exercise or you gave bad instructions, then you see it and OK, that´s
what happened and try to be better next time. That´s what I mean by the mirror, that
you get the reflection quite easily. […] We try to listen and evaluate and reflect
(Subject 2).
Reflecting also appeared in other instances of the teachers´ lives that have repercussion in
their teaching practices. For example, it can be when they are walking in the forest, exploring
the environment, and there they think of something to bring to the school. But it can also be
other strong personal experiences that call them to reflections and end up impacting their
general interactions with others, including with pupils. In the following quote, the teacher
expressed all his reflection process about a period of his personal life, how it was affecting
his interaction with pupils and how he decided to change that, by changing his focus from
negative to positive thinking:
I woke up and realized that in certain times, I felt so tired and negative. Angry and
irritated in winter time. […] I was the same tired or stressed or angry man in the
classroom, and in the home and everywhere. [...] Maybe I figured it out, something
was wrong about the thinking. First you only think some kind of negative thoughts.
Was it about the weather, or you´re tired, or the traffic jam. You´re searching things
that are wrong. […] What if you try to find something good. It´s not easy. Maybe in
42
the beginning, when I started, tried to change my way of thinking, I had a notebook
and every morning in the classroom, before the pupils came in, I tried to write three
things which were really good in this morning. It was really difficult, nothing good in
this morning. But I need to find three. So it was like a way of think. And when I dig
that, I found that, OK there are a lot of good things. But you’re shutting your eyes and
taking only the bad things (Subject 5).
In general, all teaching experiences also revealed to be a valuable material for teachers to
reflect about and base their decision-making processes:
We teachers, we might teach for 40 years, so you have seen a lot of things that have
happened in the classroom, then you might understand or think about how they´re
going to go further based on your experiences (Subject 2).
The teachers also mentioned that the situations in which they most needed to think about
were when something went wrong in their interactions with pupils. The majority part was
when they approached the pupils too fast and too hard, and consequently, they regretted later.
Sometimes in a situation when I have been reacting too fast. I noticed it´s not good.
Saying something too much, I should have counted to 10 and then say something. […]
The teacher also has to learn to face their own negative feelings and also to face the
children negative feelings towards the teacher. [...] I think it´s a process you need to
go through in your own mind. Think why is the child doing like that, why is the child
doing this, and sort of rationalize it and think. Did I do something, this is the natural
question, I think, but is there other factors why the child is doing this. […] I don´t
know, but I have the feeling one seems to need to think about it more, and sometimes
you think more when you have made yourself sort of stupid thing. That makes you
think, that´s a natural thing to do. [...] And that´s again a process, how can you avoid
that in the future (Subject 2).
The reflection process also occurs when the experienced teachers need to update and
conform new knowledge to old costumes.
43
You always have new information and what´s interesting when you work as a teacher
for long time, you have to kind of fit in the new information. The new things that you
learned into your old ones and then you have to find the balance again (Subject 3).
Different types of external factors seemed to be relevant to initiate teachers´ reflections, such
as changes of the school building, the national curriculum and also the group of pupils.
According to one participant, these changes bring new physical and intellectual work
environments that demand from the teachers new perspectives to see teaching and learning
processes.
We started to plan this new school about 5 or 6 years ago. We knew the new curriculum
was about to come after few years. I think, all teachers, what we have in our school,
we need to have, we need to think what we´re going to do in future, how we´re going
to teach in future. How would we change our teaching, little bit. […] I spent 6 years
with that class and when I knew, now I´m going to start with new pupils, I was thinking
what would I like to change, what I´d like to do in different way (Subject 5).
Interestingly, reflecting seemed to be a genuine, authentic and personal way of learning,
which comes “from inside” as insights and precisely because of that, has more powerful
impacts on teachers´ practices:
Maybe that was the way I thought I could make changes. If someone would have come
to me and tell me, you need to do this and this, ‘Oh don´t tell. How can you tell me,
it´s not working for me’. But everybody needs to find out by himself. What is good for
you is not necessarily good for someone else (Subject 5).
In general, this learning strategy was reported to be used by the teachers to become aware of
their past and current professional practices and interactions with pupils, as well as base new
future possibilities for them to improve their work, as the next quotation resumes:
It helps even if you can think aloud, put your thoughts into words. And that usually
makes you think, ‘Ah OK this is what I should do and what I should have done and
this is what I do next time’ (Subject 3).
44
In short, reflecting, as previously mentioned, was the most frequent code in the text corpus,
appearing with different formats, such as simple recollections, awareness of feelings,
decision-making processes, thinking about personal experiences and, most importantly,
thinking about pupils´ verbal and non-verbal feedback in order to constantly adjust
interpersonal interactions between teachers and pupils. These results corroborate previous
studies (Kwakman, 2003; Hoekstra, 2007).
Boundary crossing
After the codes reflecting and the ones of the group “learning by doing”, boundary crossing
comes in the rank of the most common strategies the teachers use to learn how to relate with
pupils. Interacting and exchanging ideas, not only with colleagues, but also with children´s
parents and other people that are recognized as important resources for the educational
process, was considered a valuable strategy for teachers to learn.
According to one teacher, other colleagues build together a collective memory and share a
common language that facilitate the learning process among themselves.
I think we have some kind of collective memory and we have some kind of collective
skills and we have also the same language. So if I´m talking about, with some engineer,
with how to manage some kind of educational problems or challenges, he has got
different language. But my colleagues, we have the same language. And when we have
the same language and direction, aims, for example, communality, we know what
we´re talking about. It´s easy to get ideas, it´s easy to build whole school projects and
so on. Of course, colleagues are really important thing in every teacher´s work (Subject
1)
Mentoring, normally understood as a private face-to-face conversation between teachers, is
a way to help each other (Kwakman, 2003). Besides mentoring, the exchange with other
teachers was also reported to happen many times when they join classes together and
cooperate within the same lesson. Likewise when one teacher needs help from another as a
third part to mediate a difficult situation in classroom.
Complementarily, parents were considered valuable resources by the participants, because
of their knowledge regarding the family and the children particularities. However, in most
part of the cases, the contact between parents and teachers were rather sporadic and happened
in an intensive short period of time, for instance, during school meetings. This pointed to the
45
fact that teachers need to have skills to mediate the conversations with parents in order to
apprehend the most useful information regarding their pupils and establish good home-
school partnership.
According to the interviewees, another way that parents contribute to teachers´ work is when
they develop educational activities together and parents use their professional expertise into
it. Moreover, they were reported to be a resource for teachers, when they comment with the
teachers what their children talked about the classes they had and how they felt at school.
However, it is important to mention that the teachers wanted the cooperation with parents,
but not in their everyday work. According to this participant, parents can be sometimes
invasive in the teacher´s work, hence, they´re not welcome to join the everyday class,
because they could interfere too much on their teaching activities.
I´d like to keep them [parents] away. I´m not sure if we should involve more parents
in school work. Maybe I´m afraid they´re going to tell me how to do my work and I
don´t like that. That´s maybe reason I don´t like to involve parents. If we have some
kind of special day or, we have sport day or something like that, it´s nice to have
parents to take part. But when we´re working here, basic work, I don´t like to have
them here (Subject 5).
Besides parents and teachers, other learning resources were mentioned, for instance,
international visitors that come to Finnish schools to exchange experience. Or the other way
around, when teachers are able to visit other schools, even in other countries, was considered
a rich involving learning experience.
Also, when teachers interact with teacher students, they reported to learn about new teaching
methodologies and classroom interactions, because the teacher students bring fresh
knowledge from their Teacher Training programs. This interchange between different
teacher generations have strong potential to decrease some gaps in knowledge, skills and
attitude regarding different educational issues. For instance, it was already mentioned the
difficulty of one teacher to be updated with new ICT trends. New generations of teacher
students can develop peer teaching and learning with the old teachers in order to fill this gap.
The previous example can be generalized for other situations, including teacher-pupils
interactions. Old generations of teachers that are still using traditional approaches of teacher-
centered classroom activities can learn from their new fresh colleagues new methodologies
that emphasize student-centered learning environments. On the other hand, older teachers
46
can bring all their background of experiences to help teacher students to face challenges well
known by the formers. Of course this exchange of knowledge has to be supported and
promoted by the whole school community, as Jacobs and Struyf (2015) recommended.
When some children present learning difficulties, disabilities, hard family backgrounds or
other situations that call for external support, teachers interact and cooperate with other
instances of society and learn from them too. Moreover, teachers´ personal life ventures,
outside the school environment, also bring them opportunities to exchange experiences that
contribute to their informal learning process, as this teacher reported:
I have been to do with sports most of my life. I´ve been [...] coaching and all kind of
interaction I´ve had. They might be looked upon as resources. Dating and getting
married and having a family and such. It´s also some kind of resource. And of course
all the communities you´ve been involved with, whether they be in schools or prior to
that, I´ve worked in factories, like Mc Donald and such. So there are lots of
communities that you´ve been involved and been in many different kind of roles
(Subject 2).
The other direction of boundary crossing also appeared through the interviews. The teachers
believe that they´re learning resources for others, even if they´re not fully aware when they
are helping:
When my colleagues are resources for me, they don´t know when they are resources.
Also I might be for them and I don´t know. (Subject 4).
Besides all these previous examples, boundary crossing did not appear only as a way that
teachers exchange ideas and experiences with others to reach short-term practical goals. It
was also mentioned as a mean of working together in order to build a collective identity,
from within the school towards the whole surrounding community. For instance, according
to the next quotation, this teacher understands all the interchanges between school and
community actors as a mean to reach an abstract, collective and empowering conscious
regarding the educational process:
We´re working whole school together. We´re planning something in our gym hall. Our
aims are there. […] And we go to have the trip forest and then we come back to school
47
and work in the school and get the result from each class and after that, we´re telling
our results in the gym hall or in the other classes. This is one tool to build communality.
This was our trip. This was our project. […] I´m not working alone, I cooperate all the
time with my pupils, with my teachers, parents and other staff and so on. The other
people in our town´s organization. […] Our union of people who live surrounding the
school. I hope I can give them whatever they ask, they need to build the cooperation,
the communality (Subject 1).
In sum, boundary crossing showed strong relevance for the teachers´ learning process,
because their interactions with other teachers as well as with parents, student teachers and
many other resources support them to interact in different ways with their pupils. This
finding goes along with other studies (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Soini et al., 2016).
Learning by doing
The most important active strategy to learn how to build positive interactions with pupils
explicitly mentioned by the teachers was learning by doing, because of the practical and
relatively fast learning outcomes it gives in their everyday work. With this tactic, they do
not need to get out of classroom to improve their teaching and interactions. Classroom is
their school as well. Below, the “learning by doing” strategies are categorized according to
the three domains of “Teaching through interaction” model.
Emotional support
When it comes to learn how to interact with pupils, everyday practices of providing
emotional support to pupils, such as showing sensitivity, building positive climate and taking
pupils´ perspective into account, were the most important strategies reported by the teachers.
First, it was considered fundamental that teachers are not only sensitive and aware of pupils’
academic and socio-emotional levels of functioning, but also respond to their needs. Second,
teachers reported that, in order to build positive climate in the classroom, it is necessary to
develop horizontal cooperation, express their trust on the pupils and even share their own
personal lives. Those were considered powerful means to build teacher-pupils connections.
Third, emphasizing pupils´ interests and points of view and taking these into consideration
to build classroom activities showed relevance to support the positive atmosphere and
student-centered learning environment in the classroom.
48
In the following quotation, one participant described how teachers need to be sensible and
respond to the pupils’ individual background and needs to be able to build a cooperative
relationship with each other.
I think listening is more important than talking. You need to read students. You need
to listen them. This ‘reading pupils’ means that you really understand what is going
on in her/his life. You cannot come like a robot in your classroom and start to teach or
give information […] I think […] there is a process above every single pupils and we
need to understand this process, is like a journey somewhere and then we have good
interaction, good trust with this pupils, we can little bit move this road, this trip.
Sometimes we can see […] that the direction is not very good. But we cannot […]
move by force, it´s not possible. We need to come inside of this process and then, with
good interaction, we need to have trust and simple elements of cooperation and then
we can little bit effect the direction of this process. Where it is headed (Subject 4).
Teacher sensitivity and positive climate in the classroom can be translated through the
interviews into many elements, such as good communication between teacher-pupils,
horizontality in the dialog and openness to the otherness of pupils and their individual
personalities.
Good communication is good example of good cooperation. Dialog is equal. Like two
human beings, other one is older, other one is younger, but they can communicate, it´s
not ordering or saying you have to do this. Younger one is very open, also teacher must
be open for this young personality or whatever he/she is (Subject 4).
As other illustration, the participant of the next quotation specifically explained how before
he did not care about personalizing the communication with each pupil and how he,
nowadays, recognizes the importance of this individualization for teaching, because it
integrates the individual pupils into the group and recognizes his/her individual value to the
educational process. Moreover, he linked the individualized approach with more
communication and reflection about his own teaching process, while he connected not taking
care of the individual characteristics of pupils with the predominant negative (denial and
punishment) approach he used to have years before.
49
[…] with communication, I think, I did communicate, like same way with everybody,
but now I told you, I need to do different way with different pupils. I think I didn´t do
it quite well 19 years ago. […] Now, I´m lot of softer and smoother and positive
Pedagogy wasn´t on the frame 19 years ago. I did mostly the negative way. Don´t do
that, why did you do that, don´t ever do that again [...] Now I think, I talk and more
talking, more reflecting. Lots of things have changed (Subject 5).
In opposition to the old habit of over control reported by the teacher in the last example, the
participants explained that when teachers want to develop horizontal relationship with
pupils, they must take the first step, showing trust and giving pupils autonomy. For instance,
some teachers delegate pupils tasks that demand responsibility and they do not control how
the pupils are going to do the tasks, but rather leave them to develop it by themselves. This
autonomy of pupils based on trust is fundamental for their cooperative relationship,
according to this participant:
The cooperation builds trust and trust is very important here because pupils are very
freely in the school. If I send them to our B hall and then trust them that they´re doing
what we agreed that they do there, that´s why the trust is very important (Subject 1).
Moreover, according to the teachers, in order to build a strong connection between teachers
and pupils, it must happen in two directions. Not only pupils should be asked to share their
personal interests and needs, but teachers also have to be opened for pupils’ inquiries to share
their personal lives with them. This sharing process guarantees a strong bond between
teachers and pupils, because they have signalized to each other their trust by sharing a
valuable personal information. The result is that they become partners. Below, the teachers
reported how sharing their personal lives with their pupils supported building strong
connections:
If I want to be close to my class, then I have to tell them things about me. So it´s not
just like a profession, or from a professional side, then OK, this is kind of subject
content. I am, like as a person, quite involved in what we do and try to give pieces of
myself to my class and then I get more from them also. So they know a lot about me.
[…] I like to think of it as a, like if you give a little bit, then you get much more. Like
50
of things about yourself also, then you´re able to get more closer to the children and
have more impact (Subject 2).
In the beginning I don´t talk very much. I give something to do for them. And then I
see how their personal process is beginning and growing and going on. Then I give
a drop of my personal information, a drop of knowledge to them and this start to
communicate little by little. After few days maybe we have kind of mutual trust. Then
we can, afterwards, after sometime, we can talk about real interaction (Subject 4).
Then, this connection and trust between teacher-pupils was reported to build a global
positive climate that allows pupils to feel safe, which in turn, facilitates their learning
process, because the pupils are not afraid of making mistakes or being punished because of
a mistake (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Building this safe environment for pupils was
considered one of the most important teachers´ roles by the participants.
You can get more from the pupils with the positive interactions. Get more everything.
[...] If you´re giving too much negative interactions, they´re closing doors, they don´t
wanna share with you anything. I think, they can do better in Math or Reading or in
Physical Education if they try to. If they´re afraid of negative interactions, they´ll be
afraid of trying to do. If they´re afraid of, he´s going to tell me something negative,
they´ll sit still and do nothing. I don´t want to do wrong, so I do nothing. But if […]
you give the positive reactions and positive interactions, they´ll go and try everything.
Ok, it´s OK, he´s not going to tell me anything bad. [...] They´re not afraid of anything
(Subject 5).
The participants also reported how this safe environment affects the general children’s
growth, because they could feel confident about themselves and, consequently, they would
allow themselves to show their own personalities without fear of being rejected.
At first, they need to feel themselves safes, emotionally safe. That they can be like just
like they are. That they don´t need to be anything else what they are. If they need to
act in classroom situations between other pupils or between adults, it´s not good
situation. It´s not possible to grow, if they cannot be what they really are (Subject 4).
51
The interviewees also stressed the relevance of spontaneous dialogues and feedback from
pupils, because based on it, teachers can constantly code and decode implicit messages
(Titsworth et al., 2013) in order to adjust their behavior accordingly. However, getting
feedback from pupils is a very complex task. First of all, the teacher must be opened to dialog
with pupils and receive their feedback, that is, he must be accessible for them. Teachers can
show this in different ways, whether by talking with them in an informal matter or making
their time flexible to talk with them, for instance. Then, after being open to dialog with
pupils, to be sensible in order to adequately approach pupils regarding educational and
personal matters was considered very important.
That I am able to see how the child is feeling today. If I, and teachers usually know if
something especial happened in the family, at least I try to follow the situation, what´s
going on there and try to adapt my way, what to say or how I want to contact the child.
[…] I think that is quite difficult for a teacher to notice. Well, they notice, but to decide
what kind of interactive things would be suitable in this situation (Subject 3).
Moreover, feedback can be given directly from the pupils or observed in everyday classroom
situations between pupils. Here, to know how to “read” pupils’ interactions through corporal
expressions is a fundamental competence for teacher´s daily work. According to one of the
participants, what is necessary is that teachers need to know what they are observing to
analyze it. This topic was also referred within the section about the code “reflecting”.
In the next example, a teacher analyzed the interactions between two pupils, basing the
judgment in the context of one of the child – who had just lost one member of the family –
and their non-verbal communication. From this quotation, one can conclude that observing
in classroom is not a simple and passive task, but rather a very demanding one that calls
teachers’ full attention and critical thinking capabilities to understand the meaning of pupils’
actions.
I noticed that was, because this little child gave a pencil to the other one, that was the
concrete demonstration of empathy. I didn´t hear what they were talking, but I noticed
that they were sitting next to each other. And I noticed that the other one understood it
right and I was kind of happy for that. I could see from the face. […] The teachers use
observation a lot (Subject 3).
52
The other way around is also important, that is, the teachers need to be aware and attentive
of their own body behavior and expressions towards the pupils by reflecting about it, as
previously mentioned in the section about “reflecting”. The next quotation explains how the
teacher, though busy, considered relevant to stop what he´s doing to give attention to their
pupils.
Just now I´m practicing, it´s basically word and, of course, face [...] my expression and
my face. How do my face look? Do I look angry, or irritated? Of course, my voice, if
they have done something wrong, how do I express myself? […] In every case, how I
react, when they´re going to talk to me. If I´m very busy, I try to be peasant and stop
what I´ve been doing and take the conduct and let them telling me, OK what´s your
problem (Subject 5).
At last, besides being open and accessible to pupils, being sensitive for their needs, and
taking care about how to approach them, the teachers also reported the importance of actively
showing interest and investing time in the everyday interactions to build positive
relationships with their pupils:
In my work, that´s one thing I try to do: give them time. Every time they want to tell
me something, stop and listen. Make it important, make some questions. One or two
questions. OK, ah that´s really cool. Now you need to go because I have to work
(Subject 5).
The participants even mentioned to be necessary, depending on the occasion, to take from
their personal time after class to talk with pupils, confirming previous literature (Lam & Hui,
2010). In other situations, the teachers reported to take time from the lessons’ content to
invest it in the teacher-pupils and pupil-pupil relationships. For instance, they plan classroom
activities in which pupils would mostly work on their personal matters among themselves
and with the teacher.
The form how to approach pupils of different ages was also reported to vary because of both
developmental and cultural factors. This is particularly important in Finland, considering
that many primary teachers teach in different grades. For instance, the participants reported
to have more body contact with younger children, while touching the older pupils was
considered as something that is not common in Finnish schools. Also, they explained that
53
the older ones demand more active observational analysis from the teachers, because they
talk about their personal matters less spontaneously than their younger peers.
Finally, to build up emotional support in the classroom, taking pupils interests and
perspectives into account to plan and develop classroom activities was reported to be a strong
strategy by the participants. This practice was illustrated by the teachers, for instance, when
they discuss with their pupils new projects and activities, as previously mentioned in the
section “experimenting”. Lastly, the positive emotional atmosphere progressively built from
all these emotional support strategies show them practical evidence to help in return to
facilitate all the learning process in classroom.
Classroom organization and instructional support
As the theoretical framework (Hamre et al., 2013) pointed out, planning and organizing
different classroom activities also play significant roles to build positive interactions. The
teachers’ reports confirmed it, even if the frequency of these codes are not above the mean.
The participants mentioned that group work and surprising learning activities make pupils
excited and, consequently, they enjoy learning – also the teacher, because he/she is who
brings the interesting tasks. Likewise, managing pupils´ behavior during class in order to
minimize disturbances was also reported to be relevant to strengthen their relationship,
because both teachers and pupils have the sense of order, cooperation and partnership in
their activities.
Working together with other classes, even from different ages, or doing field trips related to
some subject-content were also mentioned as ways to connect with pupils and other teachers
in order to build rich interactions within the school community. As previously explained in
the section “boundary crossing”, these interactions across classes, involving teachers and
pupils from different grades, contribute for the construction of the classes’ identity, as well
as the community sense within the school. In this kind of work, each class presents its own
results, which in turn are complemented by the results of the other grades and so on. Bringing
all the activities together and showing how they relate to each other finally builds the strong
sense of union across the groups.
[…] today, 1st graders and my 3rd graders, we´re doing cooperation between classes.
So it´s multi age teaching or learning. […] Whole school together, for example, we´re
having trip to forest, nature trip or something like that. We´re working whole school
together. We´re planning something in our gym hall. Our aims are there. And we´re
54
discussing what the 1st grades are doing and the other grades. And we go to have the
trip forest and then we come back to school and work in the school and get the result
from each class and after that, we´re telling our results in the gym hall or in the other
classes (Subject 1).
Bringing extra equipment to the classroom also revealed to mediate teacher-pupil
interactions, as previously commented in the section “experimenting”. Besides, more
important than just bringing something into the class is how to connect the equipment within
the classroom context and children’s interests.
Sometimes I have some kind of strategies to use some kind of equipments to build
interactions with pupils, but those equipments or animals or pictures or something,
they´re not so important, it´s more important how you act with those things (Subject
1).
Presenting to the pupils clear expectations of how each person in the classroom should
behave in different situations was reported by one of the participants as fundamental for the
interactions. As he explained, the pupils should be aware of what their teacher expects from
them, what they have to do, should do and also cannot do. Moreover, these rules are
negotiated between teachers and pupils in order for the pupils, as actors in this process, to
appropriate and apply the rules by themselves. At the same time, the pupils know what they
can expect from the teacher, what he can do, should do and cannot. In the particular case of
this teacher, who is also the headmaster of the school, the children know that many times he
has to leave the classroom to deal with some outside situation. Hence, if it happens, the
pupils must go on in their learning activities.
Having these roles clear facilitate the teacher-pupils interactions and avoid
misunderstandings. When these expectations are broken, discussions between the involved
are brought up in order to correct the damages and adjust new expectations to a more realistic
level. These interchanges and negotiations between teachers and pupils were reported to
build progressively stronger bonds based on their trust in each other.
I have also trained my pupils. They know what´s my role as a principal at school. They
know I´m the one who´s responsible for everything in school, so they understand our
teacher is also principal and he must go somewhere if there are visitors or some other
55
things are happening, he must be there. […] They know I want they´re doing and they
know how to cooperate with me (Subject 1).
However, in specific situations, these procedural dialogues between teachers and pupils were
reported as not possible. For instance, when developing some activity in a big group, such
as rehearsing in the gym hall to present something to the school community, the participants
reported to use direct instructions and commands with the children. To initiate a discussion
or negotiations would take more time from the whole big group. In case the pupils are
resistant to the teachers´ instructions, the teachers reported to come up with different
decisions, such as taking the pupils out of the group or interfering somehow with the pupils’
actions.
We had our whole school happening in our gym hall. We were practicing our
Christmas songs. The 5th grade boys were speaking and doing something else, they
had small camp there. Maybe 5 or 6 boys. I said at first, please be quite, we´re singing
here. You have to sing or be quite. I´m not discussing them, maybe you please, maybe
you´d be more quite here. Something like that. But when we´re working all together,
there are 130 pupils, we´re not discussing. Be quite. That’s it. Well. These gentlemen
didn´t understand my small words there. They continued their own stuff, own
discussions there. I just stopped the music and I said. You come here, this is your place.
And 5 boys were sitting in different places in that gym hall. Next morning, when we´re
practicing again, I ask them: can you sit down OK and be quite, if you don´t sing, just
be quite. OK, they didn´t sing, they just sat there. The third morning, they were
sitting really nice and singing. (Subject 1).
To consider all these different group dynamics was reported as a very important competence
for teachers to deal with different classroom situations. Moreover, avoiding to deal with
these behavioral issues was considered by the participants a sign that the teacher is not doing
his/her job properly. Even if these difficult situations demanded more energy from the
teachers or requested extra time with the children.
Finally, due to the stress and excitement that some challenging behaviors might bring to
those involved, committing mistakes was commonly reported by the participants. One
interviewee narrated one case he regrets the way he dealt with the situation. However, he
commented that the event served as a very important learning process for him. He had a new
56
group of pupils, hence, he was still getting to know them, and one of those new pupils was
disturbing the class consistently. He asked the pupil to stay after class to talk about what
happened and he screamed at the child. In this case, the teacher even explained how he
“incorporated the bad teacher role” in an unauthentic way to make the pupil be afraid of him.
Consequently, the way he approached the child hurt their relationship and also the pupil´s
further learning process. The child did not feel comfortable in the classroom anymore. From
this situation, the participant concluded that he should have approached the pupil only when
he was calmer, after taking some time to think about what to do.
In sum, emotional support, classroom organization and instruction support are not only
considered the different ways teachers interact with pupils, but also the most relevant means
to learn how to improve these interactions. Teachers reported to develop and improve their
interactions with their pupils when they show sensitivity and take pupils into consideration,
by building open and personalized communications, horizontal relationships, sharing their
personal lives with pupils, as well as showing interest about pupils´ personal lives. Likewise,
integrating to classroom activities different equipment and devices or planning extra
activities outside the classroom, as long as connected to pupils´ needs and interests, showed
evidences to strengthen teacher-pupils relationship. Moreover, setting limits in demanding
situations and clarifying behavioral expectations were mentioned as important strategies to
keep these interactions functional.
All of these strategies demand time and teachers need to invest energy and attention on it,
whether during a lesson or after class. However, according to teachers´ reports, all this work
is worthy, because the general positive climate created from this effort allows authentic
relationships among pupils and between teacher and pupils. This psychological environment
was considered a fundamental condition for their health general growth and learning process.
Teacher´s personality
Personality as a work tool
Teacher´s personality as a work tool appeared significantly in the whole group of codes. It
was described spontaneously by the participants as an intrinsic and natural factor that not
only contributes to, but rather bases their interactions with pupils. Moreover, opposing to the
evidence of previous findings, the teachers reported that they did not have to train how to
relate to pupils along their teaching careers, because the way they interact with pupils comes
naturally from their own personality.
57
I think it´s quite natural for me, I don’t have to train to be a positive person. […] I’m
here just what I am. I don´t have to act in anything. Just here as I am. And the other
teachers also. I hope so. To be yourself is very important tool to build trust between
teacher and pupils, so that´s why is important (Subject 1).
As this participant explained, the personality comes into play to the interaction with pupils
as a factor that guarantees the authenticity of the teacher-pupils relationships, hence really
important to build the trust between those involved. He also mentioned that the professors,
during his teacher training, thought him to support his teaching with his own personality in
order to develop a good work. This finding raised interesting questions about how Teacher
Education in Finland approaches this topic nowadays, but it was beyond the scope of this
study.
Another participant confirmed what the previous teacher said and used the concept
“personality” to explain why there are so many different methodologies in Finnish schools:
because the teachers develop methodologies based on their individual personalities. The
participants not only reported the personality as a factor regarding their own teaching styles,
but they also generalized this factor to the whole group of teachers in Finland.
That´s why the teachers in Finland, everybody do the same thing little bit different
way, because they´re doing with their personality. That´s why we don´t have some
headmaster or some boss who is going to tell us: you go and do it in that way. Because
there are no one way. If you do that with your personality. You have freedom to move
little bit in your actions (Subject 5).
Stressing even more the importance of this factor, when the same participant mentioned that
he needed to change his teaching methodologies and interactions with pupils, in order to
achieve that, he needed to change his global personality.
It´s mostly about my attitude and if I like to make some changes, the changes have to
come from me. I have to change a little bit first. Then I can do it. I told about the
personality. I´m the same person everywhere. I need to do this thing also in the
teacher´s room and try to do this also in my home, it´s very difficult. Because I can´t
take that positive role: ‘I´m a positive teacher and this is my role. I´m here and when I
58
go out I ‘rgh’’. I can´t do that, because it´s, then you´re fake and it´s really
hard. Changes have to come inside of me (Subject 5).
This code is relevant to this study, because it brings up contradictions inside the teachers´
discourses. Regardless of all their explanations and descriptions of how their professional
agency factors support them to learn to interact with pupils, they still affirmed that all their
relationship with pupils is based on their personality, and they did not have to learn how to
develop it. In the second part of this chapter, these contradictions are brought up together
with the purpose to develop a holistic perspective on this matter.
In order to understand more about the teachers´ personalities, it is also possible to track and
analyze the previous voices of teachers in the other sub sections through a “personality lens”.
The participants spontaneously spoke about their personality when they mentioned how they
have a general positive attitude towards their profession, how they consider themselves open
and accessible to communicate with pupils or how they´re attentive to the classroom
situations. These aspects equally support their interactions with pupils. Most importantly,
the teachers constantly mentioned how curious about the world and surrounding
environments they are, which leads to the next category: teachers as lifelong learners.
Personality of lifelong learners
It is well known that Finland, among other Nordic countries, present plentiful of lifelong
learning practices, both as a strong cultural aspect of this society, as well as an educational
policy (Antikainen, 2005). In accordance to that, the interviewees reported to unceasingly
educate themselves about the teaching profession in varied ways. However, according to
them, this learning was not focused in the teacher-pupils relationship, since it happens
naturally, as previously explained.
The following quotation illustrates how the teachers see themselves engaged with
continuously learning about something they´re interested and curious. This marked
characteristic of all the participants fits theoretical and empirical indications that some
teachers´ personality factors, as openness, do have a strong impact in their work engagement
(Perera et al., 2018).
You cannot be lay down and think, OK I know how to teach, but you don´t know. You
have to be very active and I´m behind of my pupils in many cases and I should study
much more for example, for tablet computers (Subject 4).
59
Overall, this last group of codes showed strong relevance for the interpretation of the
research findings. In order to fully answer the first inquiry of this research, it is important to
understand the ways that the teachers´ personality influence how they perceive to build
positive relationship with pupils – despite all the support of the teachers´ professional agency
factors previously discussed.
First, teacher personality as a work tool was a code that appeared above the mean of the
global group of codes, the first indicator of its importance. Then, the teachers explained how
being themselves in their everyday work was the guarantee of an authentic relationship with
their pupils. As discussed in the theoretical chapter, it was expected that teachers´ personal
characteristics would affect their work engagement, such as interest in the profession, love
for learning, initiative and commitment to professional development (Lohman, 2006). All
these factors were observed and strongly stressed by the participants, as described in the
previous sections. Moreover, the interviewees´ reports also confirmed Perera et al. (2018)
findings: teachers with "well-adjusted" personality profile, such as agreeable with pupils,
open to experiences and curious for learning (lifelong learning), do show strong self-efficacy
in teaching, job satisfaction and work engagement.
However, these considerations did not predict the fact that Finnish experienced teachers
would strongly rely their interactions with pupils on their personality, with such a sense that,
if this relationship is not based on their personality, there´s no authenticity on it, “it´s faked”
– which also points out to the fact that it´s not so flexible or open for changes, otherwise, it´s
an indication of a supposed “teacher role” in classroom. What is interesting here is that the
teachers’ reports about the authentic stability of teachers´ personality confirms a meta-
analysis of more than 150 longitudinal studies about personality, developed by Roberts and
Delvecchio (2000), who concluded that personality does reach a level of stability around the
age 30. From this life period on, not many changes in personality traits were found.
This phenomenon can be seen as a double-edged sword. In other words: if teachers have the
profile that corresponds to a “well-adjusted”, open, curious, agreeable person, one can
consider that this teacher will have good interactions with pupils and passion for the
profession, trying to improve oneself constantly along his/her career. However, what if some
teachers do not present this personality profile? Should the school community accept it and
tolerate teachers who are not engaged with their work and are “fated” to not inquiry about
new teaching methods, neither about new and better possibilities to relate with their pupils?
In case teachers do need to change and learn more about interacting with pupils, is there a
60
real possibility to change it? And if so, does this change need to be done in the core of the
teacher´s global personality, or can it target the teacher´s professional competences?
Indications for further teacher practices, teacher education and further research are given in
the Conclusion chapter.
4.2. Teachers´ apprehension of the general character of their learning
process regarding their interactions with pupils
The second quest of this study tried to understand how the teachers perceive the character of
the learning process related to build positive relationship with their pupils. First, the teachers´
personality code “oppositional factor to change” is presented and discussed regarding the
role it played to shape the global apprehension that the teachers have about their learning
process. Next, the findings from the survey and interviews about the intensity of teachers´
learning are compared in order to extract possible contradictions of interpretations or even a
holistic comprehension of it.
4.2.1 It is not changing, it is growing
Even though the code oppositional factor to changes had low frequency, its relevance must
be stressed by the fact that it directly faced the second part of the research investigation by
giving important information about how the teachers perceive that their learning process
affects their interactions with pupils.
Usually the participants expressed their opinions related to this factor when they were asked
how they used to interact with pupils in the beginning of their career and, in case these
interactions changed, how it changed. The teachers negatively reacted to this question,
stating that their interactions did not change significantly across time – regardless of all their
learning processes – because teacher-pupils relationship is based on their personality.
Therefore, considering their personality as something stable across time, as previously
discussed, it´s not something faked that changes from time to time or between places where
they go. The teachers are the same persons as teachers, as fathers, as friends etc. Being
teacher is not a role. The following quotations illustrate more this idea.
Actually, I wouldn’t say that it changed that much, because who I am is also very much
the teacher I am. For me, I don´t see myself as having like a role of a teacher. So if I
61
communicate in school or somewhere else, it doesn´t vary. It´s the same thing. Of
course, it might be something I forgot, but I don´t remember that my way of interacting
has changed during the years. I always found important to be close to my class and the
children within the class (Subject 2).
I think the basic idea of interaction it has been quite same all these years […] I haven´t
changed, it has been growing and there are more knowledge in my little head, but the
basic idea hasn´t been changing (Subject 4).
Shortly, the teachers do believe that they learn about teacher-pupils interactions, but these
learnings do not change the main aspects of their relationship with pupils. A possible
explanation for this apparent controversial opinion of the participants is that, because of the
nature of informal learning, the learners – in this case, the teachers – are not fully aware of
all the learning and possible changings (Hoekstra et al., 2007) they went through in their
entire career. Hence, they account all the fundaments of their interactions with pupils to their
personality and report it as generally stable.
An interesting inquiry that comes from this finding is about the degree to what their Teacher
Education and further formal Professional Development programs contributed to model
these interactions without their awareness.
4.2.1 Learning more or less than before?
Besides the global impression (qualitative meaning) that the teachers had about their
learning, it is also important to understand how they perceived the intensity (quantitative
value) of this learning process as experienced teachers.
As discussed previously, the interviews showed that all participants have a general warm
and positive classroom environment with their pupils and care about their everyday
relationships, confirming what de Vries et al. (2013) already pointed out in their study: more
experienced teachers tend to be professionally engaged. However, an apparent contradiction
emerged from the two methodological approaches of the present investigation: while the
survey outcomes revealed a moderate negative correlation between years of experience and
reflection about classroom situations – also confirming de Vries and colleagues (2013)
findings – when the participants were asked their opinions about this result, they showed
different reactions, such as surprise, disappointment, but also moderate agreement.
62
Nevertheless, all of them confidently stated that they are still reflecting and learning.
Sometimes even more than before.
You have this kind of result, I´m sorry you have that. [...] Not good news, because I
think that every teacher, every pupil are learner all the life. Lifelong learner. So you
are never ready teacher. So, you must educate yourself and reflect your doings, what
you´re doing and so on. Sad news. But I hope I´m not that kind of teacher never
(Subject 1).
I go with it, I agree partly, at least. […] I´ll put in very simple way. Sometimes, older
teachers are too lazy to take care of everything. Sometimes, some of them, […] they
don´t know how to go anywhere else, out of their routines. And this is not so good
(Subject 4)
This apparent contradiction is worthy the discussion, because it can have different meanings,
and is also important to understand the second quest of the present research. First of all, it is
necessary to consider the limitations of teachers´ self-evaluation and how they cannot
impartially and accurately assess if they are reflecting and learning more or less across all
their years of experience. This momentary evaluation can be under influence of the teacher´s
day mood or week, partial memories that were activated during the interviews etc. Hence,
the partiality of the participants´ recollections must always be taken into account.
Having said that, the participants´ reports can both contradict and/or confirm the survey and
previous literature findings, presenting different understandings regarding how teachers
perceive the general learning process of interacting with pupils. The contradictory
interpretation of this phenomenon indicates that the teachers interviewed are a very specific
group of Finnish experienced teachers. They´re still highly engaged and motivated, hence,
their learning curve continues to increase throughout their entire careers. That means,
according to their opinion, that they´re still reflecting about classroom situations and learning
from it in a constant rate.
On the other hand, the confirmation interpretation with previous findings leads to the
understanding that these teachers are, indeed, a group of highly motivated and engaged
professionals, and they self-evaluate themselves accordingly so. However, even though they
continue to try new methods and still reflect about those practices, it probably happens less
than their previous career years – but they cannot evaluate so, because of memory biases.
63
What can be hypothesized, yet needs further investigation, is that because one can expect
that the natural tendency would be that experienced workers would reflect less than when
they were apprentices, the fact that one continues to do so, even if it is statistically less, still
gives the person the impression that she´s reflecting at the same rate.
This study tends to look at this phenomenon according to the second interpretation, that is,
these experienced teachers are professionally engaged with their teaching practices and
because of that, they perceive their learning process still as active as before, even though
they probably reflect less about it than in their early years of career. As discussed previously,
this tendency is expected, considering that teachers need to learn, experiment, try and adjust
themselves much more in their initial years of career than when they are already stabilized
and experienced (de Vries et al., 2013).
64
5 CONCLUSIONS
5.1 Research summary
The present study aimed to investigate how Finnish experienced teachers reflect about their
informal learning process for improving their interactions with pupils. First, it approached
how teachers understand that their professional agency and personality support the learning
process to build positive relationships with pupils. Second, the research also inquired about
how the teachers perceive the global nature of this learning process. It contributed to
decrease the lack of literature and raise awareness about the importance of teachers’ informal
learning in their everyday classroom situations, specifically with regard to learn about how
to build positive and better interactions with pupils.
In sum, three groups of multidimensional factors emerged from the research: professional
agency factors that support teacher´s learning; the active strategies to learn and the
personality factors that base teacher-pupils interactions. First, the teachers´ motivation and
efficacy beliefs in learning strongly supported their learning process regarding building
better interactions with pupils. Second, the learning strategies showed a broad range of
complexity. Reflecting about classroom situations, especially about pupils´ feedback, was a
constant strategy. Boundary crossing appeared to happen across different settings and with
different actors, such as colleagues, parents, teacher students etc. Learning by doing was the
most relevant learning strategy, with emphasis on teachers´ developing sensitivity for pupils
and building up positive climate. The evidence showed that both can be accomplished by
thriving horizontal relationships, open communication, trust and personal life sharing.
Finally, although all these learning mechanisms were presented, teachers perceive that the
fundamental base for their relationship with pupils is their personality, which guarantees the
authenticity of the interactions.
The teachers apprehended the general character of their learning process regarding building
positive interactions with pupils in two ways. First, in their opinion, they´re still learning and
reflecting about classroom situations as much as their initial years of career – even though it
is believed that this self-perception is most probably biased by memory limitations. Second,
they perceive that their learning process does not have an impact of changing their
interactions with pupils, because they are fundamentally based on their own personality.
Hence, this learning process does not have predominantly a character of change, but rather
of professional “growing”.
65
Due to the mixed methodological approaches, the present study was able to give a qualitative
perspective of statistical findings, which can be considered one of the most interesting aspect
of this research. Trying to comprehend how the different data relate to each other made
possible a richer understanding of the complex phenomenon under investigation (Creswell
& Clark, 2018).
5.2 Implications for teaching practices and further research
From the collected material and research analysis, it was possible to identify a set of
strategies that experienced teachers considered relevant to build positive relationships with
pupils in the classroom. These findings, although represent small-scale results, can support
everyday teacher practices by stressing the importance of specific professional competences,
such as reflecting, sharing ideas with colleagues, being sensible to pupils´ particularities and
needs, as well as building up positive classroom climate.
The fact that teacher´s personality showed a fundamental role on the quality of this
interactions calls teachers and the school community to reflect about this topic. Awareness
should be raised regarding what kind of personality “profiles” are present in the schools and
reinforced through everyday educational practices and organizational culture. For instance,
Beard, Hoy and Hoy (2010) showed in their study that “teacher optimism” can be, in fact,
promoted by school´s characteristics.
In the present research, it was showed evidence that the teachers who are engaged on their
work and concerned about building positive interactions with their pupils correspond to the
“well-adjusted” profiles (Perera et al., 2018) and develop student-centered practices.
However, other methodological approaches, such as classroom observations, must be
accomplished in order to confirm these indications.
This research also stressed the fact that the role of teachers in school is not only about
teaching, but also about learning. The typical challenges of the fast-paced changing society
today call for constant adaptations of new teaching methodologies and new ways to interact
with pupils. They demand from teachers a type of attitude towards this relationship that can
be uncomfortable to some of them, who have a more teacher-centered traditional approach.
That is, a type of “humble” attitude that allows teachers to have “eyes and heart open” to
pupils´ otherness and to the fact that the teachers, sometimes, are the ones who must learn
first to be able to teach.
66
Finally, it is also important to consider that building positive connections that drive and boost
the learning process does not depend exclusively on the individual capacities of teachers,
but also on the educational systems and their pedagogical orientation in which these
relationships are embedded (Wang et al., 2017; Casassus, 2009; Jennings & Greenberg,
2009). Authors already pointed out for the need of redesigning the school organization in
order to create collaborative environments that foster participation of all school community
in its development (Jacobs & Struyf, 2015, Nunes, 2008, Pyhältö et al., 2015, Edwards,
2016).
However, contradictorily, some of the substantial factors, which make difficult for teachers
to engage into professional development practices were most related to work conditions
(Kozubovska & Popovych, 2015; Edwards, 2016). For instance, teachers’ work instability
due to seasonal contracts; work overload; weak support from school managers; and not
enough professional formation. Hence, teachers´ occupational well-being (Pyhalto et al.,
2015) is a fundamental factor that policy makers and stakeholders must take into account
when approaching teacher´s professional agency and work engagement.
5.3 Implications for teacher education practices and further
research
As previous research showed, it is still recurrent the dissatisfaction of teachers about the gap
in their professional trainings that approach practical strategies of classroom management
and socio-emotional competences that support and enhance good emotional climate between
teachers and pupils (Dicke et al., 2015; Waajid, 2013; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Jacobs
& Struyf, 2015).
Although the practical competencies and strategies mentioned in the previous section can be
highlighted in new Teacher Education programs, research warns that only a two-hour pre-
service or in-service course that brings a “bag of tricks” to deal with youth´s behavior is not
enough (Weinstein, 1999). Because relationship building is context-dependent, these
programs must incorporate real-life experiences for students and professionals (Jennings &
Greenberg, 2009; Waajid et al., 2013; Korthagen, 2010).
Moreover, despite the need of constant critical reflexive thinking based on empirical
evidences (de Vries et al., 2013), Nunes (2008) and Korthagen (2010) have showed that
there is a strong tendency of teachers to don’t consider the academic knowledge they
67
acquired during their Teacher Education after getting in classrooms anymore. Neither they
look for new scientific research as resource of learning, because of what they consider a huge
gap between the academia world and classroom realities – what many educational
researchers also agree (Gray, 2013).
Considering this phenomenon, authors (Kozubovska & Popovych, 2015; Gray, 2013; Nunes,
2008) stress the need of developing, during Teacher Education, an active posture that
supports teachers throughout their careers. That is, an attitude that stimulates professional
empirical-based inquiring in order to learn, evaluate and improve their own teaching
practices through investigations they can accomplish in their everyday work (Nunes, 2008).
Studies are pointing out many benefits of developing Teacher Education programs that are
research-based and emphasize the formation of teachers-as-researchers of their own
practices. Teachers become able to formulate questions deeply embedded in classrooms and
school contexts; they can take more responsibility in their decisions, since they would first
evaluate theoretical and empirical evidences for their next actions. Teacher’s perception of
self-efficacy, dignity, and control over their work is also enhanced, because of the
empowering effects due to more in-depth knowledge about a problem. Teachers strengthen
their resilience and become more capable to overcome social challenging situations due to
the constant improvement of their learning skills (Gray, 2013; Nunes, 2008; Soini et al.,
2010). Moreover, as a “side effect”, teacher’s own learning strategies have shown to work
as a learning model for their students as well (Soini et al., 2016).
According to Westbury, Hansén, Kansanen and Björkvist (2005), authors who write about
the long-term policy of the research-based characteristics of teacher education in Finland –
considered one of the countries with the most developed educational system in the world –,
teacher training must aim to prepare student teachers to base their teaching practices on
empirical evidences. In order to do so, they need to have the skills to develop research “in
their on-going teaching and decision-making.” (p.477). Hence, Teacher Education programs
should emphasize the building process of professional agency and teacher-research attitude
for the newcomers teachers that need to face the fast-paced challenges of this century.
In addition, studies developed by teachers and based in their everyday situations have higher
generalizability and ecological validity. Recently ethnographic, biographical and narrative
works in educational settings have brought under the spotlight the “lived realities” of
everyday classroom situations, expressing as never before students’ and teachers’
experiences to the academic world (Coffey, 2001; Gray, 2013). An approach of doing
educational research that can break the gap between academic and school worlds – or
68
research and practitioner realities – is the “action research” (Coffey, 2001). It consists of a
small-scale intervention accomplished by the teacher-researcher, who, in turn, is responsible
for examining the impacts of such intervention. This methodology has been traditionally
accomplished by prospective teachers who are in the end of their Education under educators’
supervision (Coffey, 2001; Nunes, 2008). Another beneficial factor of this method is the fact
that the teacher students bring to schools their new fresh “teaching tools” and can share them
with the older generations of teachers.
Looking through a more psychological perspective, a recent study by Taylor (2017) has
showed a gap in teacher research field regarding the sustainability of research practice in
classrooms. The author considered that a strong reason for teachers to not accomplish
research beyond Teacher Education is that they don’t identify themselves as researchers. It
assumes that the process of becoming a teacher researcher is not only related to putting into
practice theoretical and methodological premises, but also to identifying oneself as a teacher
researcher. Related to that, there is a high correlation between how teachers identify
themselves professionally and their teaching practice, commitment, resilience, effectiveness
and engagement in new activities (Taylor, 2017; Edwards, 2016). Hence, the relationship
between teacher´s identity construction and teacher agency in learning must be further
studied: how the first affects the second (Taylor, 2017; Soini et al., 2016), which in turn is a
substantial element for teachers to shape their identity (Edwards, 2016).
Moreover, according to the literature of teacher identity and the sociocultural approach of
identity, identity construction is an active, ongoing, non-linear and social process. Therefore,
it is constructed within interactions in situated contexts through actions and discursive
positionings. Hence, considering the interactional aspect of identity construction, teacher
educators and how they interact, promoting (or not) this identity formation in student
teachers has an important role in this process and must be deliberately considered in Teacher
Education programs (Taylor, 2017.)
Another topic that deserves attention and further research within Teacher Education
programs is related to the role that personality plays on the teachers´ practices and
interactions with pupils. Considering its importance, is it possible that programs, courses and
activities can have influence on the personality traits of the teacher students in order to
progressively build the “well-adjusted” teacher profile (Perera et al., 2018)?
From professional development perspective, if one takes into account the stability that
personality reaches around the age of 30 (Robert & Delvecchio, 2000), how can teacher´s
69
personality be reached out in in-service programs, in case some teachers’ personalities
conflict with positive interactions among teachers and pupils?
Others can think that another way to approach this issue is to try to identify personality
profiles already in the selection process of students that want to become teachers. However,
is it valid, and even ethical, to select students based on their personality traits, if one
considers that they still did not reach their personality stability? Moreover, is it valid to take
students’ personal traits in a certain period of life as granted for the rest of it? Definitely
more investigation needs to be done regarding these topics.
5.4 Ethics, trustworthiness and limitations of the study
The present study was developed with the voluntary participation of teachers that worked as
informants of their work practices. During the whole process, participants´ anonymity was
preserved and they could stop their involvement in the study at any moment.
As any other research, this study has some limitations. It is still under discussion the real
impact that teachers’ beliefs have in their everyday practice and in their attitude to change it
(Hamre et al., 2012). Hence, the fact that this research is based solely on teacher’s self-
reported beliefs and opinions about their process of building teacher-pupils interactions is a
limitation of this study. Moreover, pupils´ perspectives also have to be taken into account in
order for one to be able to understand the whole picture of teacher-pupils relationship.
However, both making classroom observations about teacher-pupils interactions and
approaching the children points of view were beyond the possibilities of the researcher.
Related to the previous constraints of this research is the fact that teacher learning processes
in informal contexts, such as everyday classroom situations, occur partly implicitly, that is,
without the awareness of the learner. Therefore, it cannot be easily reported by the teacher,
since he/she was not aware of what was happening (Hoekstra et al., 2007). It is a fact that
tacit and unconscious learning processes have been under investigated, precisely because it
requires more demanding methods, such as follow-up classroom observation (Hoekstra et
al., 2007). In order to reduce this limitation, during the interviews, the participants were
asked to describe at least one challenging situation they faced during their career in order to
remind how was their decision-making processes in the past and learning steps to improve
their performance.
70
Furthermore, the theoretical models used to support this investigation have also restraints.
The “Teaching through interaction” framework does not approach all the different
dimensions of teacher-pupils relationships that happen in classroom. For instance, content-
specific instructional support, multicultural backgrounds within classroom, gender issues,
among others factors that were not taken into account may interfere as well in the quality of
teacher-pupils interactions (Hamre et al., 2013).
The “Teacher´s professional agency” scale also approaches only partially the complex
dimensions of continuous informal learning of teachers. The three main factors that it
measures – motivation, efficacy beliefs and learning strategies – are only implicitly
described in the items of the scale. More specifications can be added, as the teachers reports
showed that those dimensions are bigger and more complex than the scale actually gauges
(Soini et al., 2016).
Regarding the framing code developed for this study, it is important to mention that some
categories overlapped with each other during analysis. To mention one example, when the
teachers’ reflection process was being reported, many times it occurred when they were
reflecting about their pupils´ feedback. However, reflecting about pupils´ feedback also
appeared when the teachers were concerned with the emotional tone of the classroom and
regarded for their pupils´ needs and perspectives. On the other hand, some reflections were
also mentioned as feelings and had a strong emotional character.
From all these considerations one can assume that teacher´s learning process is a complex
and multidimensional phenomenon that must be understood as such and interpreted under
theoretical models that approach these different levels and dimensions (Soini et al., 2016;
Hoekstra et al., 2007). Complementarily, Hamre (2001) criticized the predominance of
domain specificity in previous academic tendencies and the need for more cross-domain
studies. In other words, the author affirms that classroom organization not only affects
children behavior, emotional support not exclusively influences socio-emotional
competences and instructional support not solely induces cognitive development. Rather, all
these factors are interdependent and relate to each other. Research designs, methodological
approaches and measures must take this complexity into account.
Related to the nature of CA procedures, its analysis is, in fact, biased to focus on frequencies
of codes and can, therefore, neglect absences (what is not told) or low appearances. Even
though the codes’ frequencies were not taken as absolute determinants in this study, it had
still a strong weight for the analysis of the findings. Hence, because the codes negative
climate, overcontrol, productivity, classroom chaos, concept development, quality of
71
feedback and language modelling did not appear in the interviews as factors related to the
teachers´ learning process to build positive interactions with pupils, they were not analyzed.
However, this does not mean that they had absolute no importance in this process. It can
rather indicate that the methodological approaches of this study could not assess them
properly. Another limitation of CA is that it is not bias free, as some researchers give the
impression of “perfect” reliability due to the systematic and quantitative coding processes.
There are always impacts of the researcher’s interpretation over the material and results
(Andren et al., 2011).
Finally, two relevant limitations of this research are related to problems due to language
barriers. Unfortunately, the researcher does not speak Finnish and some school teachers,
though they could speak English fluently, were shy or insecure when it came to speak or
write in English. Hence, answering the questionnaire and interviews in a foreign language
could have affected the answers of the participants, making them feel less confident or lack
some vocabulary they needed to explain their experiences. This language barrier could also
have been the cause of not so many participants answering the survey, lowering the
reliability of the data in comparison to bigger samples.
72
REFERENCES
Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects. Review
of Educational Research, 81(2), 132–169. http://doi.org/10.3102/0034654311404435
Altheide, D. L., Johnson, J. M., Andren, G., Bartholomew, D. J., Campbell, D. T., Stanley,
J. C., … Steinke, I. (2011). Towards public accountability: Beyond sampling, reliability
and validity. In M. W. Bauer & G. Gaskell (Eds.), Qualitative researching with text,
image and sound: A practical handbook (pp. 1–17). SAGE Publications Ltd.
Andren, G., Bauer, M. W., Bauer, M., Ragnarsdottir, A., Rudolfsdottir, A., Durant, J., …
Weber, R. (2011). Classical Content Analysis: A Review. In M. W. Bauer & G. Gaskell
(Eds.), Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound: A Practical Handbook for
Social Research (pp. 1–15). SAGE Publications Ltd.
http://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781849209731
Antikainen, A. (2005). Transforming a learning society: The case of Finland. Frankfurt am
Main: Peter Lang AG, European Academic Publishers.
Bion, W. R., Farr, R., Glaser, B. G., Strauss, A. L., Gordon, W., Langmaid, P., … Lewin, K.
(2011). Individual and Group Interviewing. In M. W. Bauer & G. Gaskell (Eds.),
Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound (pp. 1–22). SAGE Publications
Ltd.
Beard, K. S., Hoy, W. K., & Hoy, A. W. (2010). Academic optimism of individual teachers:
Confirming a new construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(5), 1136–1144.
Brophy, J. (2006). History of research on classroom management. In Evertson, C.M. &
Weinstein C. S. (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management: Research, practice, and
contemporary issues (pp. 3-16). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Brown, J. L., Jones, S. M., LaRusso, M. D., & Aber, J. L. (2010). Improving Classroom
Quality: Teacher Influences and Experimental Impacts of the 4Rs Program. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 102(1), 153–167. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0018160
Casassus, J. (2009) Fundamentos da educação emocional. Brasília, UNESCO, Liber Livro
Editora, 2009.
Cho, J. Y., & Lee, E.-H. (2014). Reducing confusion about grounded theory and qualitative
content analysis: similarities and differences. Qual Rep, 19(64), 1–20.
http://doi.org/http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR19/cho64.pdf
Creswell, J. W. & Clark, V. L. P. (2018). Designing and conduncting mixed methods
73
research (Third edition). Thousand Oaks, California; London, United Kingdom; New
Delhi, India; Singapore: Sage.
De Vries, S., Jansen, E. P. W. A., & Van De Grift, W. J. C. M. (2013). Profiling teachers’
continuing professional development and the relation with their beliefs about learning
and teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 33, 78–89.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2013.02.006
Dicke, T., Elling, J., Schmeck, A., & Leutner, D. (2015). Reducing reality shock: The effects
of classroom management skills training on beginning teachers. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 48, 1–12. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2015.01.013
Domitrovich, C. E., Gest, S. D., Gill, S., Bierman, K. L., Welsh, J. A., & Jones, D. (2009).
Fostering High-Quality Teaching With an Enriched Curriculum and Professional
Development Support:The Head Start REDI Program. American Educational Research
Journal, 46(2), 567–597. http://doi.org/10.3102/0002831208328089
Edwards, A. (2005). Relational agency: Learning to be a resourceful practitioner.
International Journal of Educational Research, 43(3), 168–182.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2006.06.010
Edwards, E. (2016). Language Teacher–Researcher Identity Negotiation: An Ecological
Perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 50(3), 735-745.
Finney, D. (2006). Stretching the Boundaries : Schools as Therapeutic Agents in Mental
Health . Is it a Realistic Proposition ? International Journal of Personal, Social and
Emotional Development, 24(3), 22–27. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-
0122.2006.00375.x
Gray, C. (2013). Bridging the teacher/researcher divide: Master’s-level work in initial
teacher education. European Journal of Teacher Education, 36(1), 24–38.
http://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2012.682648
Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2001). Early Teacher-Child Relationships and the Trajectory
of Children’s School Outcomes through Eighth Grade. Child Development, 72(2), 625–
638. http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00301
Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2005). Can Instructional and Emotional Support in the First-
Grade Classroom Make a Difference for Children at Risk of School Failure? Child
Development, 76(5), 949 – 967.
Hamre, B. K., Pianta, R. C., Burchinal, M., Field, S., LoCasale-Crouch, J., Downer, J. T.,
… Scott-Little, C. (2012). A Course on Effective Teacher-Child Interactions: Effects
on Teacher Beliefs, Knowledge, and Observed Practice. American Educational
74
Research Journal, 49(1), 88–123. http://doi.org/10.3102/0002831211434596
Hamre, B. K., Pianta, R. C., Downer, J. T., Decoster, J., Mashburn, A. J., Jones, S. M., …
Hamagami, A. (2013). Teaching through Interactions: Testing a Developmental
Framework of Teacher Effectiveness in over 4,000 Classrooms. The Elementary School
Journal, 113(4), 461–487. Retrieved from http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/psy_fac
Henning, J. E., Rice, L. J., Dani, D. E., Weade, G., & McKeny, T. (2017). Teachers’
perceptions of their most significant change: source, impact, and process. Teacher
Development, 21(3), 388–403. http://doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2016.1243570
Hoekstra, A., Beijaard, D., Brekelmans, M., & Korthagen, F. (2007). Experienced teachers’
informal learning from classroom teaching. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and
Practice, 13(2), 191–208. http://doi.org/10.1080/13540600601152546
Hornby, G. Atkinson, M. (2003). Framework for Promoting Mental Health in Schools.
Pastoral Care, 3–9.
Hultin, H., Eichas, K., Ferrer-Wreder, L., Dimitrova, R., Karlberg, M., Galanti, M. R.
(2018). Pedagogical and Social School Climate: Psychometric Evaluation and
Validation of the Student Edition of PESOC. Scandinavian Journal of Educational
Research, 1-17.
Jacobs, K., & Struyf, E. (2015). A first step toward a comprehensive model of integrated
socio-emotional guidance: Investigating the effect of teachers task perception and a
supportive network at school. Journal of Educational Research, 108(2), 95–111.
http://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2013.839542
Jarvis, P. (2004). Adult education and lifelong learning: Theory and practice (3rd ed.).
London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The Prosocial Classroom: Teacher Social and
Emotional Competence in Relation to Student and Classroom Outcomes. Review of
Educational Research, 79(1), 491–525. http://doi.org/10.3102/0034654308325693
King, Bruce M. ; Newmann, F. M. (2000). Will Teacher Learning Advance School Goals?
Phi Delta Kappan, 81(8), 576-80.
Korthagen, F. A. J. (2010). Situated learning theory and the pedagogy of teacher education:
Towards an integrative view of teacher behavior and teacher learning. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 26(1), 98–106. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2009.05.001
Kozubovska, I., & Popovych, I. (2015). Training Of Teacher-Researcher As Prior
Consideration Of Professional Training Of Pedagogues In Great Britain Abstract.
Comparative Professional Pedagogy, 5(2), 47–51. http://doi.org/10.1515/rpp-2015-
75
0039
Kwakman, K. (2003). Factors affecting teachers’ participation in professional learning
activities. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19(2), 149–170.
http://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(02)00101-4
Lam, S. K. Y., & Hui, E. K. P. (2010). Factors affecting the involvement of teachers in
guidance and counselling as a whole-school approach. British Journal of Guidance and
Counselling, 38(2), 219–234. http://doi.org/10.1080/03069881003674962
Lohman, M. C. (2006). Factors influencing teachers’ engagement in informal learning
activities. Journal of Workplace Learning, 18(3), 141–156.
http://doi.org/10.1108/13665620610654577
Lohrmann, S., Forman, S., Martin, S., & Palmieri, M. (2008). Understanding School
Personnel â€TM s Resistance to Adopting Schoolwide ... Journal of Positive Behavior
Interventions, 10(4), 256–269.
Nunes, D. R. P. (2008). Teoria , pesquisa e prática em Educação : a formação do professor-
pesquisador. Educação E Pesquisa, 34(1), 97–107. http://doi.org/10.1590/S1517-
97022008000100007
Pakarinen, E., Lerkkanen, M. K., Poikkeus, A. M., Salminen, J., Silinskas, G., Siekkinen,
M., & Nurmi, J. E. (2017). Longitudinal associations between teacher-child interactions
and academic skills in elementary school. Journal of Applied Developmental
Psychology, 52, 191–202. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2017.08.002
Pakarinen, E., Silinskas, G., Hamre, B. K., Metsäpelto, R.-L., Lerkkanen, M.-K., Poikkeus,
A.-M., & Nurmi, J.-E. (2017). Cross-Lagged Associations Between Problem Behaviors
and Teacher-Student Relationships in Early Adolescence. The Journal of Early
Adolescence, 1–42. http://doi.org/10.1177/0272431617714328
Perera, H. N., Granziera, H., & McIlveen, P. (2018). Profiles of teacher personality and
relations with teacher self-efficacy, work engagement, and job satisfaction. Personality
and Individual Differences, 120(August 2017), 171–178.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.08.034
Pianta, R. C., Mashburn, A. J., Downer, J. T., Hamre, B. K., & Justice, L. (2008). Effects of
web-mediated professional development resources on teacher-child interactions in pre-
kindergarten classrooms. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 23, 431–451.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2008.02.001
Pietarinen, J., Pyhältö, K., Soini, T., & Salmela-Aro, K. (2013). Reducing teacher burnout:
A socio-contextual approach. Teaching and Teacher Education, 35, 62–72.
76
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2013.05.003
Pietarinen, J., Soini, T., & Pyhältö, K. (2014). Students’ emotional and cognitive
engagement as the determinants of well-being and achievement in school. International
Journal of Educational Research, 67, 40–51. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2014.05.001
Pyhältö, K., Pietarinen, J., & Soini, T. (2015). Teachers professional agency and learning-
from adaption to active modification in the teacher community. Teachers and
Teaching: Theory and Practice, 21(7), 811–830.
http://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2014.995483
Rice, J. S. (2002). The therapeutic school. Society, 39(2), 19-28.
Roberts, B. W., & DelVecchio, W. F. (2000). The rank-order consistency of personality
traits from childhood to old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies.
Psychological Bulletin, 126(1), 3–25. http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.126.1.3
Soini, T., Pietarinen, J., & Pyhältö, K. (2016). What if teachers learn in the classroom?
Teacher Development, 20(3), 380–397.http://doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2016.1149511
Soini, T., Pyhältö, K., & Pietarinen, J. (2010). Pedagogical well-being: Reflecting learning
and well-being in teachers’ work. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 16(6),
735–751. http://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2010.517690
Taylor, L. A. (2017). How teachers become teacher researchers: Narrative as a tool for
teacher identity construction. Teaching and Teacher Education, 61, 16–25.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.09.008
Titsworth, S., McKenna, T. P., Mazer, J. P., & Quinlan, M. M. (2013). The Bright Side of
Emotion in the Classroom: Do Teachers’ Behaviors Predict Students’ Enjoyment,
Hope, and Pride? Communication Education, 62(2), 191–209.
http://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2013.763997
The First Steps study (2006). Retrieved from
https://www.jyu.fi/edupsy/fi/laitokset/psykologia/tutkimus/alkuportaat/en
Waajid, B., Garner, P. W., & Owen, J. E. (2013). Infusing Social Emotional Learning into
the Teacher Education Curriculum. International Journal of Emotional Education,
5(2), 31–48.
Wang, Y., Mu, G. M., & Zhang, L. (2017). Chinese inclusive education teachers’ agency
within temporal-relational contexts. Teaching and Teacher Education, 61, 115–123.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.10.009
77
Weinstein, C. S. (1999). Reflections on best practices and promising programs. In Freiberg
H. J. (Ed.), Beyond Behaviorism: Changing the classroom management paradigm (pp.
145–163). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Weissberg, R. P., Durlak, J. A., Domitrovich, C. E., & Gullotta, T. P. (2017). Handbook of
social and emotional learning: Research and practice. The Guilford Press.
Westbury, I., Hansén, S.-E., Kansanen, P., Björkvist, O. (2005). Teacher Education for
Research‐ based Practice in Expanded Roles: Finland's experience. Scandinavian
Journal of Educational Research, 49(5), 475-485.
Wexner, L. B. (1954). The degree to which colours (hues) are associated with mood tones.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 38(6), 432–435.
78
APPENDICES
Appendix 1. Study permit application
79
Appendix 2. Teacher professional agency questionnaire (English
version)
Teachers’ professional agency scale
On a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree), please rate how much you think
you´ve learned and are still learning from situations in the classroom, interacting with your
pupils and exchanging ideas with other teachers. The more you think you learn, the higher
you would rate it. The less, the lower you would rate it.
1
Strongly
disagree
2
Disagree
3
Slightly
desagree
4
Slightly
agree
5
Agree
6
Strongly
agree
01. I’ve been able to build functioning interactive relationships with my
pupils. 1 2 3 4 5 6
02. I’m able to create a nice atmosphere together with my pupils. 1 2 3 4 5 6
03. When planning my work, I’m able to utilize the feedback I get from
my pupils. 1 2 3 4 5 6
04. I can modify my teaching to adjust to different groups of pupils. 1 2 3 4 5 6
05. I’m able to find teaching methods to engage even the most
challenging groups of pupils. 1 2 3 4 5 6
06. I’m able to find ways to support the learning processes of all my
pupils. 1 2 3 4 5 6
07. I still want to learn a lot about teaching. 1 2 3 4 5 6
08. I’d like to understand children’s ways of thinking and acting better. 1 2 3 4 5 6
09. I regularly endeavor to estimate my success in teaching situations. 1 2 3 4 5 6
10. I think we can all learn something in a teaching situation. 1 2 3 4 5 6
11. I can utilize other teachers’ ideas in my own teaching. 1 2 3 4 5 6
12. I’m willing to share my classroom inspirations with other teachers. 1 2 3 4 5 6
13. Developing my own teaching will benefit the entire teacher
community. 1 2 3 4 5 6
80
Appendix 3. Teacher professional agency questionnaire (Finnish
version)
Opettajan ammatillinen toiminta ja oppiminen
Arvioi asteikolla 1-6 (täysin eri mieltä - täysin samaa mieltä), kuinka paljon olet oppinut ja
opit edelleen luokkahuoneessa, itsesi ja oppilaittesi välisessä kanssakäynnissä sekä
keskustelussa toisten opettajien kanssa.
1
Täysin eri
mieltä
2
Eri mieltä
3
Jokseenkin
eri mieltä
4
Jokseenkin
samaa
mieltä
5
Samaa
mieltä
6
Täysin
samaa
mieltä
01. Olen onnistunut rakentamaan toimivia, vuorovaikutteisia suhteita
oppilaitteni kanssa. 1 2 3 4 5 6
02. Pystyn luomaan mukavan ilmapiirin yhdessä oppilaitteni kanssa. 1 2 3 4 5 6
03. Kun suunnittelen opetusta, pystyn hyödyntämään oppilailta
saamaani palautetta. 1 2 3 4 5 6
04. Pystyn muokkaamaan opetustapaani kuhunkin oppilasryhmään
sopivaksi. 1 2 3 4 5 6
05. Löydän sopivan opetusmetodin myös haastavien oppilasryhmien
kanssa. 1 2 3 4 5 6
06. Löydän keinoja tukea kaikkien oppilaitteni oppimisprosesseja. 1 2 3 4 5 6
07. Haluan yhä oppia uutta opettamisesta. 1 2 3 4 5 6
08. Haluaisin ymmärtää paremmin lasten tapaa ajatella ja toimia. 1 2 3 4 5 6
09. Pyrin jatkuvasti arvioimaan onnistumistani opetustilanteissa. 1 2 3 4 5 6
10. Mielestäni kaikki voivat oppia jotain opetustilanteessa. 1 2 3 4 5 6
11. Pystyn hyödyntämään muiden opettajien ideoita omassa
opetuksessani. 1 2 3 4 5 6
12. Olen halukas jakamaan ideoitani myös muiden opettajien kanssa. 1 2 3 4 5 6
13. Oman opetukseni kehittäminen auttaa koko opettajayhteisöä. 1 2 3 4 5 6
81
Appendix 4. Semi-structured interview protocol
INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW
Greetings. Presenting myself. Presenting my research.
Participant's information: name, grade(s) of teaching, years of experience, something they
like about teaching (ice breaker).
Explaining how an interview works. My role and participants’ role. Ask permission for
recording all the interview.
Warming up: emotional tone of teacher-student interactions
As a starter to warm up, I would like you to think about the environment of the school,
more specifically the atmosphere of your classroom. I would like you to think and most
important, to feel:
How is your interactions with pupils, how you feel in the morning when you wake up and
you know you’re going to the school to work with your pupils, how you feel in the end of
the day after all the activities you made with your pupils.
Please, don’t think only about the last week or past days, try to think generally, try to
remember how was the whole past semester with your pupils and even the last years.
Having this in mind: [Present papers with different colors]
1) What color would you choose to represent the general emotional tone you have
regarding the classroom interactions with your pupils?
2) Can you write keywords on the paper that represent\explain this emotional tone?
Teacher-student interactions in the classroom
3) For you, what does teacher-student interactions mean?
a. What are the elements of these interactions? Why these?
b. When these interactions happen? Why?
c. Where these interactions happen? Why?
4) What does positive teacher-student (classroom) interaction mean?
a. Do you believe that positive interaction with pupils is important for your work as a
teacher? Why?
b. Do you believe that positive interaction with pupils is important for students learning
outcomes? Why?
Teacher professional agency
82
Please, think of your own professional experiences that made you be aware of you, as a
teacher who has positive interactions with your pupils. Recall those situations that made
you think you were doing a good work. Also recall the challenging situations that made
you think, you should improve your interactions with pupils and make something better.
5) How do you describe your way of interacting with your pupils in the initial years of
your work? Can you explain why you used to do like that?
6) Do you think you changed something about how you interact with your pupils? Why?
7) If yes, can you explain…
a. What have you changed in the elements you cited in the question 3)a.? Why?
b. What has happened after the changes? Why?
c. What changes do you see as positive? Why?
d. What changes do you see as negative? Why?
e. How have you evaluated these changes? (For instance, were they effective, did they
solve problems, are you happier with the interactions you have with your pupils now than
before...). Why?
f. How have your pupils evaluated these changes? (For instance, have you asked them for
feedback or have they given you comments spontaneously etc.). Why?
8) How do you describe your way of interacting with your pupils nowadays?
a. How are the elements you cited in the question 3)a.? Why?
b. How do you evaluate these interactions with your pupils? (For instance, are they
positive, negative, efficient, happy...). Why?
c. How have your pupils been evaluating these interactions? Why?
In case you have been changing your performance over the years:
9) What has motivated you to change your way of interacting with your pupils? (For
instance, were situations in the classroom, e.g. conflict with your pupils or misbehavior
that called you for changes? Has any teacher that suggested you to do so? Were you
personally willing to change something in your daily routine? Etc.). Why?
10) How much motivated have you been to change your interactions with pupils? Why?
a. Has your motivation changed along the time? (Consider from your initial years of work
to nowadays). How? Why?
b. How is your motivation nowadays? Why?
11) Do you see yourself as an active learner in your profession? Why?
a. Do you think this image of yourself has changed along the time? Why?
83
12) What were the learning strategies you have used to improve the interactions with your
pupils? (For instance, reading books, analyzing your classroom etc.)
a. Why did you use these learning strategies?
b. How do you evaluate your learning strategies? Are they good enough? Why?
c. Do you think you should have other learning strategies? Why?
d. How would you order all your learning strategies, from the most to the less important?
Why?
13) What have been your learning resources?
a. Do you consider your pupils as learning resources? Why?
b. How do you see your pupils as learning resources? (For instance, do you ask your pupils
for feedback and take it into account for planning lessons, take their particularities and try
to engage them in the activities etc.?). Why?
c. Do you consider your professional colleagues as learning resources? Why?
d. How do you see your professional colleagues as learning resources? (For instance, do
you exchange ideas with them, implement these ideas etc.?). Why?
e. Do you consider parents as learning resources? Why?
f. How do you see parents as learning resources? (For instance, do you exchange ideas
with them, implement these ideas etc.?). Why?
g. Do you have any other learning resources? Why?
h. How do you evaluate your learning resources? Are they good enough? Why?
i. Do you think you should have other learning resources? Why?
j. How would you order all your learning resources, from the most to the less important?
Why?
k. Do you consider yourself as a learning resource for others? Whom? Why?
14) Describe in details one challenging situation that made you reflect about your actions
and led you to think about how to improve your interactions with the pupils involved.
a. How did you deal with the situation? What were your actions? Why?
b. How motivated you were to deal with this challenge? Why?
c. How confident did you feel to face the situation? Why?
d. How do you evaluate your actions: do you consider it was a success or a failure in the
end?
e. If you could come back in time, would you change something? Would you make
something in the same way?
84
15) In my research, I found that there is a negative correlation between years of experience
and reflecting in the classroom, which means: the more years of experience a teacher has,
the less probably he\she is going to reflect about classroom situations in order to learn from
them.
a. What do you think about this result?
b. Does it apply to you? Please, explain why.
End the interview. Turn off the recorder.
Thank the teacher!