Shyness has been studied a lot over the past decades. Yet, this construct still remains complicated to define. In 1972, Kohlberg, LaCrosse and Ricks called it the social withdrawal. Back then, shyness was not seen as an important variable because searchers often concluded that it had no link with children’s development. Lazarus’ (1989) work brought an important fact to light when he studied shyness among children in primary school: half of them wished they would be less shy and participate in therapeutic groups in order to get rid of what they called an issue. Gradually, searchers grew interest in studying shyness and many studies reported that shyness played an important role in children’s school adjustment and their socio-emotional development. From a social perspective, shy children tend to be less talkative and initiate less interactions with adults and peers. At school, they are said to be more obediant and closer to their teachers but they have a lower self-esteem.
An empirical study recently concluded that a close teacher-child relationship is important and may positively influence the developmental trajectory of school attainment. Moreover, a few studies indicate that shyness moderates the student-teacher relationships quality: shy children are less likely to have conflict in their relationships with teachers. For exemple, Hamre and Pianta (2001) stated that kindergarten teachers were more likely to be close to girls rather than boys.
All of these reasons drawn us to study the influence of shyness in an academic environment, as well as the links between shyness and the teacher-student relationships quality.
Our study examined the moderating role of teacher-child relationships quality in the association between children’s shyness and their gender. As far as we know, no study associating gender, shyness and teacher-student relationship among french children has been made. We hypotesized that a boy with a high level of shyness is less likely to be close with his teacher. 187 children between 58 and 94 months of age and from regular classes (CP, CE1, and CE2) participated in the study. Children’s parents assessed their child’s level of shyness using the Child Behavior Questionnaire Short-Form (CBQ-SF, Putnam & Rothbart, 2006) and Teacher-child relationships quality was measured using the Teacher-Student Relationship Scale Short-Form (TSRS-SF, Pianta, 2001).
Findings revealed that children’s gender and their shyness level had no influence on teacher-child closeness. Shy boys tend to be as close to their teachers as non shy children. Even though the results suggested that boys were as close to their teachers as girls, we noticed that boys tend to have higher scores of conflict with their teachers than girls.
This study had several limitations. First, we chose to assess children’s shyness with a parent-report measure. It could have been interesting to collect datas of teacher-reported shyness. School and home are both distinguished environments: a child does not act the same way at school among his peers and at home with his family. Hence, perceived-shyness will not be assessed the same way by teachers and parents.
Second, only 187 children participated in the study. The sample was too small to conclude that shyness and gender moderated the student-teacher relationships quality. It could explain why results contradicted some of our hypotheses and why, most of the time, there were so significant differences between the studied variables.
There is no doubt that much work remains to be done in studying the influence of shyness on the teacher-child relationships quality in order to help shy children adjust at school. Future research, more particularly longitudinal studies, should take into consideration not only the parent-reported assessment of their child’s shyness but also the teacher’s and children’s perspective.
Even though our results differ from those found by Rudasill (2011), our work provided support for the notion of shyness at school and demonstrated its contribution to school adjustment.
Teachers also play an important role in a successful school adjustment. Because a close teacher-child relationship predicts better outcomes, it is important for teachers to give children positive and negative feedbacks so they can improve in class and have a better self-esteem.
——
Bibliography
Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2001). Early teacher-child relationships and the trajectory of children’s school outcomes through eighth grade. Child Development, 72(2), 625-638. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00301
Kohlberg, L., LaCrosse, J., & Ricks, D. (1972). The predictability of adult mental health from childhood behavior. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.), Manual of child psychopathology (pp. 1217-1284). New York, NY US: McGraw-Hill.
Lazarus, P. J. (1982). Incidence of shyness in elementary-school age children. Psychological Reports, 51, 904-906. doi: 10.2466/pr0.1982.51.3.904.
Pianta, R. C. (2001). Student-Teacher Relationship Scale: Professional manual. Florida, USA: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Putnam, S. P., & Rothbart, M. K. (2006). Development of the short and very short forms of the children’s behavior questionnaire. Journal of Personality Assessment, 87, 103-113. doi: 10.1207/s15327752jpa8701_09.
Rudasill, K. M. (2011). Child temperament, teacher-child relationships: A longitudinal investigation from first to third grade. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 26(2), 147-156. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2010.07.002.
