Supporting Shy Students in the Classroom

Abstract

Abstract. The current era is characterized by rapid changes, multiple transitions, an emphasis on communication skills, and the frequent need to adapt to new social frameworks. Consequently, in recent years, there has been a rise in awareness regarding the consequences of shyness, a phenomenon that dictates various aspects of a person’s life, for example, career choices and forming relationships. Research in this field indicates the necessity of supporting shy individuals from an early age in order to assist them expand the scope of their social experiences and realize their personal potential. This review sums up the theory and the research of support for shy pupils in the school framework. There are two parts to the article. The first reviews the nature of shyness, including its impact on the lives of children, adolescents, and adults, and risk and protective factors. The second part focuses on support of shy pupils in educational frameworks, including teachers’ outlooks on the subject, supportive strategies, and a proposal for how to present the subject to teachers. The last part describes directions for further research.

Adolescents’ profiles based on student agency and teacher autonomy support: does interpersonal justice matter?

“…As reported above, prior research has provided evidence that student agency and teacher autonomy support can be considered as interdependent variables with positive and reciprocal influences on each other (Matos et al 2018). Nevertheless, the literature has also provided insights that these two variables can be combined in different ways, as in the case of students avoiding self-exposure (Korem 2019), or of students willing to challenge teacher control (Bolkan and Goodboy 2016). Whether these are only to be considered exceptions is not known, as most previous studies made use of a variable-oriented approach which allowed to investigate, in broad samples, whether a global level of one variable is associated, on average, with a global level of another dimension.…”

“…Nevertheless, given the complex interplay of agency and autonomy support in the classroom interactive dynamics, we also expected to find students who scored high in teacher autonomy support and low in agency, i.e. who tend to avoid the stress or discomfort induced by exposing themselves (for a review, see Korem 2019), as well as students who manifest agency even if teachers do not support autonomy, i.e. in case they mean to challenge the teacher's authority and power (Mameli et al 2019a).…”

“…This would not be surprising, as several studies (Goodboy 2011;Rajala et al 2016) have highlighted that teachers often look at students' agentic participation, especially in its challenging and resistant forms, as an undesirable threat to their authority. A second explanation lies in students' individual differences, as their dispositions to expose themselves in class may vary to a great extent (Korem 2019).…”

“…Notably, perceived interpersonal justice did not significantly distinguish the likelihood of belonging to the compliant or committed profiles. As mentioned in the introductory section, it is possible that when perceptions of teacher-provided autonomy support and of interpersonal justice are similar, other variables-possibly linked to students' individual characteristics (Korem 2019) -may be relevant in leading students to be committed, thus inclined to offer their agentic contribution in class, or compliant. According to our results, gender is one of these variables, as in the comparison of groups, we found that female students reported a higher likelihood to belong to the compliant rather than to the committed profile.…”

Strategies to Transform Introverted Students into Better Public Speakers: A Case Study

“…With teachers' scaffold, introverted and shy students may feel more comfortable and confident to venture into a new ZPD, where the students can experience more academic challenges, improve their interpersonal skills and expand their opportunities to realize their potential [15]. In the process of jumping the hurdles of anxiety and fear, 1) the challenge the new ZPD poses, the teamwork with supportive teacher and peers, their positive feedback, the satisfaction about overcoming the challenge, together with a better control of anxiety and fear, bring about an optimal experience to the withdrawn individual.…”