Open Collections

Fung, Tsz Yin

University of British Columbia

Evidence suggests that teachers being attuned to students’ peer relationships may be conducive for creating a positive classroom social environment. Using data from 558 children (grades K-5) in the classrooms of 34 general education teachers, this study examined: (1) whether teacher attunement is associated with students’ peer relationships; and (2) whether the associations differ in classrooms participating in an intervention designed to bolster peer relationships, compared to a typical practice control condition. All measures were collected in fall and in spring of one school year. Students’ relationships with peers (positive and negative nominations received) were measured using a sociometric procedure. Teachers also estimated the proportion of peers who liked and disliked each child. Teacher attunement was operationalized as the degree to which teachers’ reports overlapped with the sociometric data. Hierarchical Linear Modelling was used for data analyses and all results accounted for fall nominations. When teachers overestimated a student’s peer liking in fall, reflecting a lower absolute attunement, this was associated with the student receiving more positive peer nominations in spring. Teacher overestimation of a student’s peer disliking in fall was associated with receipt of both more positive and more negative nominations in spring, and teacher absolute attunement to peer disliking predicted the student receiving more positive nominations in spring. Intervention versus control condition did not moderate any results. Findings underscore the importance of considering whether lack of attunement reflects overestimation versus underestimation of student peer relationships, and potential differences between peer liking and peer disliking.

Text

2022-08-29

Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/82577

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/