Students’ Resistance Behaviors: What Do Turkish Primary Teachers Face?

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Students could react to the learning activities, teachers, or administrators knowingly and willfully, many times intentionally by resisting in various ways. A detailed analysis of this definition indicates that unlike naughty behaviors, resistance behaviors do not develop suddenly, they are often planned beforehand by the student, and they contain some messages to the person or institution they are directed at. These kinds of behaviors could have negative effects not only on students’ academic, social, and psychological development but also on teachers’ professional satisfaction. Therefore, these issues should be elaborated carefully. However, despite the importance indicated in the literature, students’ resistance behaviors are one of the neglected issues that are not investigated adequately. With reference to this need, the presented study aims to identify perceptions of primary school teachers about students’ resistance behaviors. Methods: The participants were 152 primary school teachers. Data were collected through the Student Resistance Behaviors Scale for Teachers (SRBS-T) and Teacher Interview Form. In addition to descriptive statistics, data were analyzed using t-test and one-way ANOVA. Also, a qualitative descriptive analysis was conducted regarding qualitative data of the study. Results: Results show that the mean scores for SRBS were “medium” on a 5-point Likert scale. While teachers’ perceptions about resistance behaviors showed no significant differences according to gender and the type of school they graduated from, scores showed significant differences in terms of teachers’ years of seniority. According to the teachers, the most encountered resistant behaviors were gathered under the themes of resistance to teacher authority and hostile attitudes towards the teacher/peers. Discussion: Through discussion, the results obtained by the scale and interviews were discussed. All the findings showed that teachers are important receivers of resistance behaviors and they are facing with different types of resistance in the classroom. Limitations: It is obvious that these results were limited to the reached primary school teachers. Another limitation was that the data within the study collected via SRBS-T and interviews. Conclusions: The study showed that teachers and students are the key components of the educational process and students could show resistance to both the process and teachers in different ways. As this study only focused on primary teachers’ experiences, more studies could be organized through understanding the resistance middle and high school teachers face with as well. Further research could be conducted with students to see how they feel and behave when they feel resistance as well as with other teachers working at various levels of education and in various institutions.