Power in the classroom II: Power and learning

Abstract

The primary focus of this study was to determine the degree to which use of power in the classroom is associated with cognitive and affective learning. The results, based on data from 151 teachers and 2603 of their students, indicated that perceived use of power can account for approximately 30 percent of the variance in cognitive learning and up to 69 percent of the variance in affective learning. Coercive and, to a lesser extent, legitimate power were found to be negatively associated with learning while referent, and to a lesser extent expert, power were found to be positively associated with learning. Reward power was found to have no meaningful association with learning. Recommendations for teachers, based on these results, are discussed.