The relationship between academic optimism and classroom management styler of Chinese teachers in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

As there is an increasing demand to learn Chinese, schools in Thailand offer Chinese classes for the students. As for students' learning achievement, a teacher plays an important role in terms of professional knowledge, teaching skills, and classroom management. Academic optimism is a teacher's personal beliefs on his or her abilities to help students to learn. Studies have demonstrated that teacher academic optimism has a correlation with classroom management styles. The purposes of this research were to study the level of academic optimism and classroom management styles, and to study the correlation between academic optimism and classroom management styles of Chinese teachers in Bangkok, Thailand. This research was conducted by using quantitative and qualitative methods. Questionnaires were distributed to 160 Chinese teachers in 22 Chinese schools in Bangkok, Thailand, and 138 questionnaires were recovered. The data were analyzed by using a statistical package. To obtain detailed information about Chinese teachers' academic optimism in different classroom management styles, 6 Chinese teachers were interviewed. The research results showed that Chinese teachers in Chinese schools in Bangkok, Thailand had overall high level of academic optimism with the mean score of 3.73. Interactionist management style was the most chosen style by (58.70%) Chinese teachers, followed by (26.81%) interventionist management style and (14.49%) non-interventionist management style. There was a strong relationship between academic optimism and classroom management styles with the Eta (η) correlation coefficient of 0.61. The proportion of variance in classroom management styles associated with academic optimism was 0.37. Teachers in interventionist classroom management style got the highest academic optimism mean score. The content analysis confirmed the quantitative research findings. Based on the findings, recommendations were provided. For teachers, measurements should be launched to enhance the trust between teachers, students and parents, and teachers should take advantages of different management styles. For schools principals, professional training in terms of teaching skill, management strategies and language ability should be provided to teachers, and measurements to enhance the trust between teachers, students, and parents from the school level should also be considered.