Teacher Misbehavior and its Effects on Student Interest and Engagement

Abstract

This study sought to investigate whether there was any relationship between teacher misbehaviors and student interest and engagement. Consistent with Emotional Response Theory and models for how teacher behavior impacts student interest and engagement, teacher misbehaviors were strongly correlated with student interest and weakly correlated with student engagement. Teacher incompetence predicted the most variance in student interest, followed by indolence and offensiveness. There was a difference in teacher misbehaviors between the two universities where this study was conducted, but not in student interest or engagement.