ARTICLE REVIEW AND SUMMARY
Article Review And Summary
The research paper entitled What Students Think When Teachers Get Upset: Fundamental Attribution Error and Student-Generated Reasons for Teacher Anger, was written by Mary B. McPherson and Stacy L. Young. This paper discusses what students thought or felt when their teachers would get angry. The researchers discussed two different types of anger, one was passive-aggressive and the other was assertive. The paper also identifies different reasons for the anger. There were reasons including student misbehavior or lack of participation, and there were other more internal reasons that involved the personal life or feelings of the said teacher. They took a sample of 301 college students who answered a survey on teacher anger. The data in the survey was treated in a mixed qualitative and quantitative method. There were questions relating to teacher anger and what the students perceived the anger was from. They could answer the questions with strongly agree to strongly disagree. The researchers’ purpose for the study was to see if there were negative effects on the students on how teachers would express their emotions.
The researchers presented three hypotheses for their study. The first was that the anger expressed aggressively will be positively associated by the students internally. The second was that the teacher expressing anger assertively will have students associate this emotion internally in a negative way. The third and final hypothesis stated that the intensity of the anger is strongly related to the students’ internal perception. The first research questions asked what the students thought whenever the teachers are angry. The researchers stated that an overwhelmingly large group believed that the reasons teachers would show aggressive types of anger was because of student misbehavior. Another reason for this was lack of participation from students. Other reasons that were chosen by students were students challenging the power of teachers and poor student performance. However, there are still some students who think that the reason for anger is found internally within the teacher. The degree of teacher anger is also measured. This was seen in different levels from cold looks to angry outbursts.
The researchers wanted to see if the performance of the students was directly related to the way teachers would handle their anger and express their emotions in the classroom. They wanted to get an image of the way anger can shape student performance. The anger was seen through different perceptions: internally, the aggressiveness, assertiveness, appropriateness.
This study is an important way of determining how teachers can better communicate with their students. The non-verbal means of communication such as body language, and emotional communication can be useful when it comes to training professors and teachers. The way that teachers handle and show their anger can affect students, positively or negatively. If teachers are not aware of how their misbehavior is affecting a whole classroom of students, it could limit students’ performance. Teachers are seen to be in a difficult position where they will have to be able to communicate their anger in a constructive way so that students do not take it the wrong way. Or worse, blame the teacher for their expression and thereby regress in class.
References
McPherson, M. B., & Young, S. L. (2004). What students think when teachers get upset: Fundamental attribution error and student‐generated reasons for teacher anger. Communication Quarterly, 52(4), 357-369.
