Building a classroom community in primary education: findings from student observations

The study examines how the length of teaching experience and the type of school influence primary teachers’ pedagogical approaches to building a classroom community. Results of observed teachers’ professional activities related to developing pupils’ accepting behaviour, discipline, cooperation and self-assessment are presented on a sample of 137 primary teachers. A quantitative investigation with a structured observation method was used. Differences between teachers by school type were tested with the Mann-Whitney U-test and differences by length of teaching experience with the Kruskal-Wallis test. Results indicate that the school type and partly also the length of experience influence pedagogical approaches to purposeful building of a classroom community, which may have significant implications for teachers’ professional development.