Development and preliminary psychometric study of the Teaching Styles Questionnaire

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop and preliminary evaluate a teacher’s version of the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire. The Teaching Styles Questionnaire intends to explore the three parental styles as they may be applied to the teacher-student relationship (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian and permissive); items were reworded accordingly. Participants were 128 teachers (93.8% female), 73 of which answered the instrument twice, with a 3-month gap, to ascertain for test-retest reliability, whereas the remaining 51 in addition filled in the Student-Teacher Relationship Questionnaire for validity evidence. Preliminary psychometric analyses confirm that the instrument addresses three teaching styles, which presented with reasonable reliability and validity indicators. The way teachers relate with their students has a significant impact not only on their students’ academic success, but also on their intraclass behavior. The instrument under analyses may prove to be an important tool to better understand this impact, and how it relates to better holistic school outcomes.