Browsing by Author "Berg, Minna"

Teaching and learning are interactional processes between the teacher and his or her pupils. Good interaction skills are an essential part of the teacher profession. Learning good interaction skills and creating ways and practices that promote the use of those skills is of ten recommended. However, the teacher studies do not direct the students to process these skills. In the present study, it was explored whether comprehensive school teachers of Finland participating in the three credit follow-up training learned to use social interaction skills during the intervention. The studied skills were based on Gordon's theory (2003). The participants were 20 teachers who attended the training, and 20 teachers not attending the training. The effects of the intervention on teachers were examined by using the DCI-instrument (Talvio, Lonka, Kuusela, & Lintunen, 2012). Qualitative, theory-driven content analysis was used to classify the data. The statistical differences between the pre-test and post-test scores were examined with the Wilcoxon signed rank test. After the intervention, teachers who participated in the training used significantly more listening and active listening skills and communicated in more constructive ways. Furthermore, they used significantly less roadblocks to communication. In the comparison group, no differences between pre- and post-tests were perceived. To conclude, the teachers' course on social interaction skills appeared to achieve its goals, since the teachers learned to apply the studied skills during the intervention. This study adds to the development of continuing teacher training by presenting a way of teaching students skills that enhance the quality of interaction.