Principal Investigator: Surita Jhangiani, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Department of Educational & Counselling Psychology & Special Education
Project description
Teacher-student relationships are fundamental. Supportive learning contexts foster the satisfaction of students’ need for relatedness; that is, feeling cared for and socially connected with others. Despite its significance, teacher candidates’ perceptions of relatedness have yet to be explored. This project aims to study teacher candidates’ understandings of belongingness and how these vary across class size. Participants will be teacher candidates in their first term of their program and will all complete a survey exploring relatedness’ importance. Semi-structured interviews will then be conducted with a group of participants to further explore their understandings and identify patterns of shared meaning around them.
Research questions
- What are teacher candidates’ understandings of the relevance of relatedness/belongingness in their teaching education program?
- How do teacher candidates’ understandings of the relevance of relatedness/belongingness vary across class size (large-lecture vs. small-lecture instruction contexts)?