Abstract
Teacher behaviors are one of the most significant factors influencing student learning. Students from different cultures may have different interpretations of their teachers’ behaviors. This study compared the associations between teacher strictness, teacher feedback, and students’ motivational beliefs using data from six Western countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand) and six East Asian regions (Japan, Korea, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015. A total of 89,869 15-year-old students were included in data analysis. The findings indicate that (i) teacher strictness was negatively associated with Western students’ motivation, but positively related to that of East Asian students; (ii) teacher feedback had significant positive associations with the motivational beliefs of both Western and East Asian students; and (iii) there was a positive relationship between teacher strictness and teacher feedback in East Asian context. These results highlight the need to consider cultural factors when interpreting students’ reactions to teacher behaviors.
Highlights
In the past few decades, teacher behaviors have attracted considerable attention in the fields of learning environment and educational effectiveness (e.g., den Brok et al, 2004; Kyriakides et al, 2020)
This study aims to explore the associations between two kinds of teacher behaviors and four motivational beliefs of Western and East Asian learners
Teacher strictness was most strongly correlated with intrinsic motivation (r = −0.154, p < 0.01), followed by instrumental motivation (r = −0.094, p < 0.01), self-efficacy (r = −0.074, p < 0.01), and achievement motivation (r = −0.026, p < 0.01)
Summary
In the past few decades, teacher behaviors have attracted considerable attention in the fields of learning environment and educational effectiveness (e.g., den Brok et al, 2004; Kyriakides et al, 2020). A growing body of studies have revealed the significant influence of teacher behaviors on students’ engagement, motivation, and achievement (Brekelmans et al, 2000, 2002; Roorda et al, 2011; Wubbels et al, 2016). Previous empirical studies showed that teachers’ favorable interpersonal behaviors are strongly correlated with student motivation Maulana et al (2011) found high student motivation was moderately related to teachers’ proximity and influence behaviors with Indonesian samples. Likewise, van Uden et al (2014) reported positive correlations between student engagement and teachers’ influence and proximity in the Dutch context. Teacher’s interpersonal behaviors have been identified to influence students’ learning attitudes (Quek et al, 2007)
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