Need for Cognitive Closure of Student Teachers and Their Classroom Management Strategies in Their Teaching Practice
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Classroom management (CM) can be viewed as a system of strategies employed by a teacher to influence the physical and social space of the classroom to foster an environment where learning can occur. One of the key individual characteristics influencing the teachers´ classroom management strategies is their need for cognitive closure (NFC) which can be defined as individual´s motivation in information processing and judgement. The relation of NFC and CM strategies (CMS) was investigated on a non-probability sample of student teachers in their first year in master study programme – in their long term practice in lower secondary schools. Data were collected by video-recordings of classes, interviews, reflective diaries and questionnaires in a mixed methods design. Regarding questionnaires, CMS were measured by the adapted Behavior and Instructional Management Scale – BIMS (Martin & Sass, 2010). Need for cognitive closure was measured by the adapted Need for (Cognitive) Closure Scale – NFCS (Roets & Van Hiel, 2011; Czech version Širůček et al., 2014). Confirmatory factor analysis and reliability estimates supported the predicted structure of the two scales. NFC is reflected in the CMS of student teachers. Student teachers with higher NFC use more CMS focused on rules and leading the classroom. The higher the NFC is the more the student teachers prefer teaching in frontal settings, deviate less from their lesson plan; they have more strict requirements of student´s discipline, and insist on students to follow the rules. These findings show that NFC plays an important role in teacher behaviour and should be therefore reflected in teacher education as well. |
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