Abstract:

Educational resources, such as the curriculum or the level of teacher training, though critical, do not seem to be enough to ensure a successful academic performance of the students and their meaningful learning. The interactive processes that take place in the classroom, namely the management of the classroom have risen, particularly in cognitive-social theories, to have a central role in the development of students' skills. Teaching strategies to manage the classroom undergoes to design favourable conditions to promote teaching/learning process. On the other hand, the relevance of the first years of schooling in the subsequent academic success of the students is increasingly recognized in the literature.

The present study aims to explore, in a first place, the classroom management behaviours perceived by the primary school teachers. Besides that, the present work also analyses the relationships between classroom management behaviours and the sociodemographic variables of the teachers participants. In this study 70 Portuguese teachers participated, from the districts of Lisbon and Porto, who teach 1298 students from the 3rd year of the primary school. The data was collected through a sociodemographic questionnaire constructed in the scope of the present research and the Questionnaire of Room Management Styles (QRMS). From the administration of this questionnaire the management profile of the classroom was obtained and is composed of four results, referring to four possible styles: authoritarian, persuasive, permissive and indifferent style.

Results seem to establish that the participating teachers use the persuasive style more frequently to promote the skills development of their students. However, the results also show that, depending on the particular situation, teachers seem to use differentiated styles. There was also a lack of relationships between the sociodemographic variables of the participating teachers and the classroom styles adopted. However, a surprising result was obtained, since the place of data collection was related to the permissive style adopted by the teachers. These results point to the need to invest in this thematic in the training of teachers, since classroom management has strong implications on learning, on promoting students' skills, as well as on promoting their academic and emotional well-being.

Keywords:

Classroom management styles, Primary school, Education, Teachers, School success.