Teachers' emotional expressiveness and classroom management practices: Associations with young students' social‐emotional and behavioral competence

Abstract

Using data from 832 kindergarten and first grade primary teachers and 662 of their students, the current study investigated teachers' use of behavioral and instructional classroom practices and whether these strategies moderated associations between teachers' expressions of positive and negative classroom emotion and students' social‐emotional and behavioral competence. Results indicated that teachers' positive expressiveness positively predicted young students' social competence and was inversely related to negative child outcomes, irrespective of teachers' behavioral and instructional classroom management practices. In contrast, teachers' negative emotional expressiveness positively predicted students' anger/aggression, but only when teachers reported using controlling and teacher‐centered approaches to classroom behavioral management. At the same time, teachers' negative expressiveness predicted low levels of student anger/aggression when teachers reported more child‐centered instructional management approaches. Findings contribute to the understanding of the intersection of teachers' expressiveness and their classroom management practices for explaining children's social‐emotional and behavioral competence in early childhood classrooms.

The relationship between teachers' day‐to‐day classroom management practices and anxiety in primary school children: A systematic review

“…The number of schools recruited for each study also varied considerably. Two studies focused on data collected from a single school (Hargreaves & Affouneh, 2017; LaBillois & Lagacé‐Séguin, 2007), one using data from three schools (Zimmerman, 1970), one from 80 schools (Ford et al, 2019), and one from 165 schools (Poulou et al, 2021). The three remaining studies reported data in terms of how many classrooms or states, rather than schools, were represented in the sample.…”

“…Quantitative studies used published questionnaires relating to child anxiety/internalising symptoms or behaviours. Zimmerman (1970) used the School Anxiety Questionnaire to assess state anxiety in contexts relating specifically to test, report card and performance anxiety, Kreutzmann et al (2014) used a questionnaire on mistake culture to assess students' fear responses, Hughes and Coplan (2018) used selected items from the Teacher Report Form (TRF) relating to social anxiety/withdrawal, and three studies used broader measures of internalising/emotional symptoms, namely the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) (LaBillois & Lagacé‐Séguin, 2007), the Social Competence and Behaviour Evaluation (Poulou et al, 2021) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Ford et al, 2019). The two qualitative studies used bespoke measures including an open‐ended online survey, drawing, and sentence‐completion exercises and interviews.…”

“…LaBillois and Lagacé‐Séguin (2007) aimed to identify whether different teaching styles predicted parent‐reported anxiety levels in children. Poulou et al (2021) examined whether emotions expressed by teachers (both positive and negative) and their classroom management practices were associated with children's social–emotional and behavioural competence. Zimmerman (1970) considered the effects of teacher reinforcement (i.e., acceptance of feelings, praise and encouragement) on students' anxiety.…”

“…In their examination of teaching styles, LaBillois and Lagacé-Séguin (2007) also found that higher 'formal authority' was associated with higher child anxiety, with a small effect. This is echoed in the study by Poulou et al (2021), which found a small positive association between teachers' use of more controlling, teacher-centred behavioural/instructional management approaches and children's anxious/withdrawn behaviour. Teacher-reported anxious/withdrawn behaviour was lower in students whose teachers had rated themselves highly on positive expressiveness compared to negative expressiveness, but again, with small effects.…”

“…Two studies specifically reported on urban settings (Hargreaves & Affouneh, 2017;Kreutzmann et al, 2014) and one in which the majority of participants were from suburban settings (Kowalski & Froiland, 2020). All studies were conducted in mainstream primary/ elementary schools, with three studies making specific reference to school type: private (LaBillois & Lagacé-Séguin, 2007), public (Poulou et al, 2021), and state (Hargreaves & Affouneh, 2017). Year groups recruited from schools ranged from Reception/Kindergarten to Year/Grade 6.…”