ERIC Number: EJ1456569
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Dec
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1381-2890
EISSN: EISSN-1573-1928
Negative Teacher Feedback toward Students Decreases the Probability of Empathic Classmates Making a Sociometric Choice
Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal, v28 Article 19 2025
Numerous studies in recent decades have shown that teacher feedback significantly influences the sociometric choices of students by their classmates. Most of these studies refer to social referencing theory, which suggests that the teacher's emotional communication expressing sympathy or antipathy toward the feedback-receiving student influences the perceptions of the feedback-observing classmates. Therefore, the classmates' emotional competencies could moderate the relationship between teacher feedback and sociometric choices. This study investigates the correlation between teacher feedback, affective empathy, and sociometric choices, taking specific student dyads into account. The research questions are: (1) Is a classmate's perception of teacher feedback related to their sociometric choice of the feedback-receiving student? (2) Is a classmate's affective empathy related to their sociometric choices? (3) Does a classmate's affective empathy moderate the relationship between their perception of teacher feedback and their sociometric choice of the feedback-receiving student? 826 primary school students from 41 classes (49% female, M[subscript age] = 9.15) participated in a cross-sectional study. Multilevel models indicate that a classmate's perception of positive and negative teacher feedback toward a feedback-receiving student and a classmate's affective empathy are both predictors of their sociometric choices. Furthermore, a classmate's affective empathy moderates the relationship between negative teacher feedback and their sociometric choices, but not between positive teacher feedback and their sociometric choices. The results suggest that empathic classmates generally seem to make more sociometric choices. However, if a student receives a lot of negative feedback, they are also less likely to get a sociometric choice by an empathic classmate.
Descriptors: Feedback (Response), Empathy, Teacher Influence, Negative Attitudes, Psychological Patterns, Sociometric Techniques, Elementary School Students, Peer Evaluation
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A