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Construct of caring in a sample of Singapore teachers
Author
Seow, Mavis Yee Ling
Supervisor
D'Rozario, Vilma
Abstract
Caring fosters emotional and intellectual growth of students. The focus of this qualitative study was to explore the construct of caring in our current teachers, with the hope that it can help to shape the social and emotional competencies of our future trainee teachers and enable schools to foster a caring community within the classroom and school environment.
Through the adoption of an exploratory approach using qualitative research methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 out of 13 National and Commendation Level winners of the 2006 Caring Teacher Awards (CTA). Out of the seven National and Commendation Level winners of CTA who were selected to participate in this study, three were from various primary schools, three were from various secondary schools and one was from Junior colleges. In addition, data was collected from the nomination forms of these 2006 winners of CTA in order to identify what their students or nominators had perceived as caring about their teachers' attitudes and behaviors.
All data collected from the interview transcripts and the nomination forms were analyzed individually before proceeding on to the next record. In order to emphasize on the rich descriptions of the data collected from the participants and the nominator forms of CTA winners, interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was chosen to analyze the raw data and explore the meaning participants attributed to their experiences and cognitions about caring.
The findings highlighted that all participants shared similar beliefs about the importance of caring in teaching and cited a strong desire to understand their students and consider their students' needs. All were relationship-orientated. From the nomination forms, it was evident that all participants demonstrated caring behaviors that attended to the academic, social and affective aspects of students' lives and were consistent in their caring behaviors. In addition, all participants took efforts to construct a classroom environment that was safe, orderly, predictable and consistent over time. All participants, having strong beliefs in caring relationships, demonstrated abilities in establishing harmonious teacher-student relationships in the classroom where rapport was established by the teacher sharing her identity and through modeling.
In summary, caring is necessary of transforming schools into successful living and learning environments that contribute to the development of a socially sensitive society. The integration of cognitive and emotional-affective aspects of the students must be taken into consideration by Singapore educators. Teachers, in turn, need to be aware of the student's perceptions of their actions and interactions. Having such awareness would enable teachers to increase positive relationships and increase their effectiveness.
Through the adoption of an exploratory approach using qualitative research methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 out of 13 National and Commendation Level winners of the 2006 Caring Teacher Awards (CTA). Out of the seven National and Commendation Level winners of CTA who were selected to participate in this study, three were from various primary schools, three were from various secondary schools and one was from Junior colleges. In addition, data was collected from the nomination forms of these 2006 winners of CTA in order to identify what their students or nominators had perceived as caring about their teachers' attitudes and behaviors.
All data collected from the interview transcripts and the nomination forms were analyzed individually before proceeding on to the next record. In order to emphasize on the rich descriptions of the data collected from the participants and the nominator forms of CTA winners, interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was chosen to analyze the raw data and explore the meaning participants attributed to their experiences and cognitions about caring.
The findings highlighted that all participants shared similar beliefs about the importance of caring in teaching and cited a strong desire to understand their students and consider their students' needs. All were relationship-orientated. From the nomination forms, it was evident that all participants demonstrated caring behaviors that attended to the academic, social and affective aspects of students' lives and were consistent in their caring behaviors. In addition, all participants took efforts to construct a classroom environment that was safe, orderly, predictable and consistent over time. All participants, having strong beliefs in caring relationships, demonstrated abilities in establishing harmonious teacher-student relationships in the classroom where rapport was established by the teacher sharing her identity and through modeling.
In summary, caring is necessary of transforming schools into successful living and learning environments that contribute to the development of a socially sensitive society. The integration of cognitive and emotional-affective aspects of the students must be taken into consideration by Singapore educators. Teachers, in turn, need to be aware of the student's perceptions of their actions and interactions. Having such awareness would enable teachers to increase positive relationships and increase their effectiveness.
Date Issued
2008
Call Number
LB1033 Seo
Date Submitted
2008