Intrapersonal consistency of teacher responding in good student-teacher relationships

Ninety eighth grade students participated in the study by describing two teachers with whom they had had good relationships, rating the quality of each relationship, indicating the frequency with which each teacher had used each of the seven response roles after seeing them demonstrated on videotape, then identifying the one response role used most by each teacher.

Ranking by frequency means showed that sharing was the role used most in both relationships. Binomial tests using a conditional probability model showed that the two teachers with whom the students had good relationships responded to them consistently by using the same type of verbal response both in an overall sense and with respect to the two individual response roles of encounter/encouragement and confrontation.