129285509 Relationship Between Teacher Interpersonal Behaviour and Students Attitude Toward Mathematics in Indonesian Lower Secondary School1

Relationship between Teacher Interpersonal Behaviour and Students Attitude toward
Mathematics in Indonesian Lower Secondary School
Irfan Rusmar
Post Graduate Programme, SEAMEO RECSAM
Penang, Malaysia
Abstract
This paper reports students’ view on teachers’ interpersonal behaviours and the relationship
between these perceptions with students’ attitude toward Mathematics in Indonesia lower
secondary schools. This study involved 424 students from 17 schools in Central Java,
Indonesia. The data were gathered using two questionnaires, specifically the Indonesian
version of Questionnaire Teacher Interpersonal (QTI) and Test of Mathematics Related
Attitude (TOMRA). The data were statistically analysed using SPSS programme. The results
show that the questionnaires are valid and reliable. Cronbach alpha coefficients ranged from
0.65 to 0.86 (for actual) and from 0.69 to 0.93 (for preferred). The students perceive the
teacher as having relatively good in leadership and understanding towards students, less
uncertainty, dissatisfaction and admonition in the classroom. However, the students show the
deficient in their perception on student’s freedom and teacher strictness. Furthermore, there
are considerably differences between actual and preferred on all scales of QTI except on
Dissatisfaction. There are no significant differences between male and female perceptions on
scales of QTI, Leadership, Freedom, Helping, Understanding, Uncertainty, Admonishing and
Strict. The results also show that Students Enjoyment have significant correlation with almost

all of the scales of QTI, except Students’ Freedom. Finally, the multiple correlation analysis
shows that there is a significant correlation between a scale of QTI and enjoyment towards
mathematics in which only Admonishing significantly affect Students’ Enjoyment.
Keyword: Teacher Interpersonal Behaviour, Students’ Attitude, Mathematics Classroom
Rationale
In Indonesia, mathematics is an important lesson that has to be taken by students. This
lesson learned by students from the primary until the university level. Based on that reason,
teachers required to be more active and creative to improve their students’ ability, so that the
students would be more interesting in learning mathematics. Most mathematics teachers
believe that having better relationships with their students are important. Therefore, it is
necessary for the teachers to determine a teaching strategy and learning materials which lead
toward a conducive learning environment.
In the last decade, many countries have applied learning environment instruments in
conducting research studies and was widely validated in diverse setting such as, USA,
Australia, Canada, England, Israel, Nigeria, Brunei, Singapore, South Korea and the countries
in South pacific Island (Fraser, Giddings & McRobbie, 1995; Giddings & Waldrip, 1996;
Wong & Fraser, 1996, Lee & Fraser, 2001).
The main purposes for this article are to elaborate the appropriate questionnaire
designed to assess the teacher-students interpersonal behaviour and its relationship with
students attitude, the differences between male and female students perception on their

teacher interpersonal behaviour and to report its use in answering the research questions.

Research Questions
This study is framed with the following research questions:
1. Are the questionnaires valid and reliable?
2. What are students’ perceptions toward their teacher interpersonal behaviour?
3. What are students attitude toward Mathematics subject?
4. Is there any relationship between students’ views on teacher interpersonal behaviour
and their attitude toward Mathematics?
Overview of Questionnaire on Teacher Instruction (QTI)

This instrument was originally from the Netherland and using Dutch language.
Researchers in the Netherland have expanded this sector two times and made the area become
instruments to assess the relationship between teacher’s behaviour and their students. First, in
1992 it has been done by Wubbles, Creton, and Hooymayers and the second by Wubbles and
Levy in 1993. Those researchers investigated the teacher interpersonal behaviour by adopting
a theory communications processed developed by Watzlawick, Bavin and Jackson (1967). In
the system perspective communications, it is said that the behaviour of participants
commonly influence each other. Behaviour of students influences the teacher’s behaviour
which ultimately affects the students’ behaviour itself.

Based on the Lary’s work in 1957, a model map of teacher interpersonal behaviour
could be described with two dimensions that named Proximity and Influence. The proximity
indicated has cooperative behaviour at one end and oppositional at the other. The influenced
indicated has dominant behaviour at one end and submissive at the other. The person’s
interpersonal behaviour plotted on the diagram, where submissive/dominant continuum (DS)
as the vertical axis and cooperative/oppositional continuum (CS) as the horizontal axis
(Leary, 1957). Teacher interpersonal behaviour will be more similar if the two sectors, DS
and CS, are closer each other. In QTI, those two main sectors labelled into 8 scales as
mapped by Wubbles (1993).
Descriptions of Scales in the QTI and sample of each item scale are provided in Table 1
below.
Table 1. The Description and Examples Items for each Scale in the QTI
Scale Name

Leadership

Scale Description

Extent to which the teacher provides
leadership to class and hold students

attention.

Helping/Friendly Extent to which the teacher is
friendly and helpful towards
students.
Understanding
Extent to which the teacher shows
understanding/concern/care to
students.
Students
Extent to which students are given
Responsibility/
opportunities to assume
Freedom
responsibilities for their own
activities.

Example of the item

This teacher explains things

Clearly.
This teacher helps us with our
work.
If we don’t agree with this
teacher, we can talk about it.
We can influence this teacher.

Uncertain
Dissatisfaction

Admonishing
Strict

Extent to which the teacher exhibits
his/her uncertainty.
Extent to which the teacher shows
unhappiness/dissatisfaction with
students.
Extent to which the teacher shows
anger/temper/impatient in class.

Extent to which the teacher strict
with and demanding of students.

It is easy to make a fool out of
this teacher.
This teacher thinks that we do not
know anything.
The teacher is impatient.
We are afraid of this teacher.

Each of scale grouped into 4 sectors, Dominance (Leadership and Strict), Cooperation
(Understanding and Helping), Opposition (Dissatisfied and Admonishing) and Submission
(Uncertain and Freedom). Each of the two scales in each sector interrelated to explain the
interpersonal behaviour of teachers. Figure 1 display a model of teacher interpersonal
behaviour proposed by Wubble (1993).

Figure 1. Model of teacher interpersonal behaviour (Wubble, 1993 p.4)

Teacher behaviour is mapped on a Proximity dimension [Cooperation or Opposition]
and on an Influence dimension [Dominance or Submission] to form four groups of scales of

QTI. These are then divided into a total of eight sectors, each describing different behaviour
characteristics of the teacher that may exhibit. (See Figure 1)
However, these instruments are yet to be used in Indonesia in research studies.
Therefore, to look into the nature of mathematics classroom and its environments, it was
considered proper and useful to select such convenient questionnaires.

Method
Data about the students’ perception on their teacher was collected using the instrument that
named Indonesian Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI). The instrument was adopted
from Australian’s QTI, which consists of 8 scales and 48 items. These items were grouped
into 8 scales where each scale consists of 6 items. This research study involved students in
grade 7, 8, 9 in mathematics classes in Indonesia. The samples consist of 424 students in 17
schools in the central Java.
There are five tables in the result that consist five result also, Reliability, Students perception
on the actual teacher interpersonal behaviour, students perception on actual and preferred
teacher interpersonal behaviour, male’s and female’s perception on the actual teacher
interpersonal behaviour and correlation.
To indicate the validity and reliability of the questionnaires, we use Cronbach Alpha variable.
If the Cronbach Alpha of each scale ranged more than 0.5, the questionnaires are valid and
reliable. Meanwhile, actual mean used to measure the students’ perception on their teacher

actual interpersonal behaviour. If the teacher got the higher score, the teacher is assumed
better in leadership, helping, understanding and freedom. However, for the uncertain,
dissatisfaction, admonishing and strict scale, is vice versa. However, to measure the actual
and preferred teacher interpersonal behaviour, we used the comparison between mean actual
and preferred. To find the difference perceptions between male and female students, we
observe the t-value from average item mean and average item standard deviations between
male and female students. Finally, for the correlation of QTI toward mathematics, we observe
the correlation between Enjoyment and scales of QTI by using Standardized Regression
Coefficient (Beta).
Result and Discussion
Table 2 Cronbach alpha reliability of QTI scales

Scale
Leadership
Helping/Friendly
Understanding
Students Responsibility/ Freedom
Uncertain
Dissatisfaction
Admonishing

Strict

Alpha
Actual
0.73
0.77
0.79
0.72
0.70
0.81
0.86
0.65

Preferred
0.82
0.81
0.84
0.77
0.88
0.93

0.86
0.69

Table 2 gives information about the cronbach alpha reliabilities of QTI scales for actual and
preferred forms. The data also shows that the reliabilities for preferred were higher than the
actual one. The reliabilities of different QTI scales ranged from 0.65 to 0.86 (for actual) and
0.69 to 0.93 (for preferred). According to the data, the questionnaires are valid and reliable
because the reliabilities for actual and preferred are beyond the acceptable value (more than
0.5). This finding reveals the reliabilities of all scales of QTI were satisfactory and valid with
this sample. It was same with the previous research that has been done in Thailand (Fisher &
Santiboon, 2005).

Table 3 Students perception on the actual teacher interpersonal behavior

Scale
Leadership
Helping/Friendly
Understanding
Students Responsibility/ Freedom
Uncertain

Dissatisfaction
Admonishing
Strict

Number of Item
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6

Mean
3.95
3.45
3.87
2.42
1.49
1.57
1.88
2.91

SD
0.57
0.73
0.66
0.68
0.51
0.59
0.76
0.63

Table 4 Students’ perceptions on the actual and preferred teacher interpersonal behavior
Average Item Mean
Average Item
Standard Deviation
Scale
Actual
Preferred
Actual
Preferred
Leadership
3.95
4.44
0.57
0.52
Helping/Friendly
3.45
4.20
0.73
0.60
Understanding
3.87
4.41
0.66
0.66
Students Responsibility/ Freedom
2.42
3.08
0.68
0.85
Uncertain
1.49
1.80
0.51
0.96
Dissatisfaction
1.57
1.49
0.59
0.83
Admonishing
1.88
1.64
0.76
0.77
Strict
2.91
2.73
0.63
0.71
**  < 0.01; *  < 0.05

t value

-15.67**
-19.09**
-15.08**
-17.72**
-7.22**
1.95
6.03**
5.18**

Table 3 displays about students’ perceptions on the actual teacher interpersonal behaviour.
According to the data above, students view about the teacher as having a good leadership
when she teaches in the class. The number of mean 3.95 and standard deviation 0.57 support
the explanation. In addition, students also consistently perceive as being less uncertain. The
students also consider, the teacher is relatively friendly with them, this is indicated by mean
is 3.45 and standard deviation is 0.73. Therefore, the students were satisfied with the teacher
during the teaching and learning process. Less admonition, making students more understand
in learning process. In this case, students will be understand the learning process if the
teacher lacking admonish them during the learning process. This is indicated by mean= 3.87
and standard deviation= 0.86.
Students are also considered, the teacher rather strict in teaching, so that, the students can not
have freedom in teaching-learning process. As shown by the data above, the mean= 2.91 and
standard deviation= 0.63, inversely proportional to mean= 2.42 and standard deviation= 0.68.
Finally, the teacher has relatively good in his/her performance during teaching and learning
process. In response, according to table 4, there are significantly differences (0.05)
toward their teacher. Male and female students give similar perceptions to the teacher interpersonal
behaviour. This means, both male and female students indicates same perceptions about the teacher
have relatively good performance on mathematics classroom.
Table 6 Correlation of QTI scales to student attitude toward mathematics

Enjoyment
Scale

Leadership
Helping/Friendly
Understanding
Students Responsibility/ Freedom
Uncertain
Dissatisfaction
Admonishing
Strict
**  < 0.01; *  < 0.05

Correlation
0.19**
0.21**
0.28**
0.72
-0.12**
-0.18**
-0.32**
-0.14**

Standardized
Regression
Coefficient
(Beta)
0.06
0.03
0.10
0.02
-0.07
0.07
-0.28**
-0.00**

All eight simple correlation between QTI scales and students’ attitude toward mathematics classroom
were significant (