Children's Perspectives of Close and Conflicting Relationships with Teachers

The aim of the study is to determine the perspectives of the children who experience close and conflicting relationships with teacher on the basis of teachers’ perceptions. The study applied case study design which is one of... [ view full abstract ]

The aim of the study is to determine the perspectives of the children who experience close and conflicting relationships with teacher on the basis of teachers’ perceptions. The study applied case study design which is one of the qualitative research methods. In the study, three preschool teachers completed the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) for the 65 students in their classes. To the analysis results of STRS, two children with whom these teachers were the closest and two children with whom they experienced the most conflicts were determined. Thus, four children from each class, 12 children in total, participated in the study. With the aim of describing the children’s perspectives, different methods were applied. Firstly, interviews with these children were held and they were asked how they felt at school, what their likes and dislikes were at school, and they were asked questions concerning their relationships with their teachers. In the second week of the study, the children were interviewed within small groups. The researcher started the group interviews with a story which helped reveal the close and conflicting relationships with the teachers, and then the children were asked to complete this story. As the third data collection instrument of the study, the researcher made use of children’s drawings. The children were asked to draw a picture depicting themselves and their teachers. The obtained data underwent content analysis.

To the study results, on the basis of teacher perceptions, few of the children who experienced close relationships with their teacher perceived these close relationships. Hence, it seems vital for teachers to make use of any possible opportunities to understand their students’ thoughts in their classes. If teachers learned about children’s true thoughts about school and their relationships at school, it would reflect positively on teachers’ practices in class.