Analysis of Preferences and Reality for Teacher-Student Interaction in Secondary School Science Classroom

This study was conducted for the purpose of analyzing the teachers' and students' preferences and reality with regard to their interaction in secondary school science classes. The subjects of this study were 180 teachers and 1,389 students. The contents of the questionnaire for the teachers included the quality of the personal relationships between the teachers and students as well as the teachers' recognition of teaching activities, and the questionnaire for the students dealt with the quality of the personal relationships between the teachers and students as well as the students' perceptions of their classes. The questionnaire responses were divided into preferences and reality for the research. The results are as follows. First, the levels of the teachers' and students' perceptions of their interaction were significantly lower (p<0.05) compared to their preferences with regard to such. Second, the female teachers showed higher levels of preferences and reality compared to the male teachers in the case of the teacher variables, and the middle school teachers showed higher levels of preferences and reality compared to the high school teachers. Third, the male students showed a higher perception level compared to the female students, and both the preferences and reality levels of the middle school students were significantly higher (p<0.05) than those of the high school students. In addition, the level of interaction was lower in big cities than in small cities. Fourth, there was a significant difference between the levels of the teachers' and students' preferences and reality with regard to their interaction.