Browsing by Author "Saarinen, Santeri"

Aims. Previous research has indicated that the quality of pedagogical relationship is related to students’ school-achievement. The quality of the relationship has also been shown to affect student’s engagement and coping in school. In addition, previous research shows that the quality of the teacher-student relationship is strongly affected by the somewhat permanent characteristics of a teacher and a student. For this reason, enhancing teachers’ professionality and awareness could be thought to play a significant role in developing the relationships. As the role of the teacher in the development of the relationships has been recognized as important, this thesis is focused on studying teachers' perceptions. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to examine what kind of challenges do Finnish classroom teachers associate with the forming of pedagogical relationships, and which factors do teachers describe as promoting the quality. By answering the research questions, the aim is to increase knowledge of what Finnish classroom teachers think about pedagogical relationships. Methods. The research approach adopted in this thesis was qualitative. The research data was gathered by semi-structured interviews that were carried out via video calls. Seven classroom teachers were interviewed. The interviews took place during January 2022. When selecting the interviewees, the only criteria was that the participant had to have experience in working as a classroom teacher. There were also imaginary case-examples used in the interview. The cases represented different kinds of pedagogical relationships. The data was analyzed by a phenomenographic approach. Results and Conclusions. The teachers’ views on the challenges were divided into five different categories: teacher-related challenges, student-related challenges, school-related challenges, parent-related challenges and external challenges. The teachers’ views on the promoting factors of the relationships were divided into seven categories that include pedagogical methods, teacher’s thinking and being, attitude towards students, parents, collegial support, school culture and external factories. The results strengthened the idea of pedagogical relationships as dynamic phenomena that are influenced by multiple different factors. Considering the results of this thesis provides teachers an opportunity to raise their own awareness and reflect their own principles. The results also showed the kind of challenges, recognized by teachers, that could be easier to solve with better resources for education.