First-Year Students’ and Teachers’ Interpersonal Perception in Connection with Satisfaction with Training in the Discipline
Authors:   Saint Petersburg Mining University (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation), Makhovikov Aleksei B. , Vakhnina Ekaterina G. ,   Saint Petersburg Mining University (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation), Kurta Ivan V. ,   Ukhta State Technical University, Vorkuta Branch (Vorkuta, Russian Federation)
Published: March 2021

The aim of the research was to identify the relationship of students’ satisfaction with the study of the discipline and interaction with the university teacher, including the features of mutual perception. The following objectives were formulated: to conduct a questionnaire survey of students identifying their satisfaction with interaction with the teacher in the framework of the academic discipline, the level of knowledge on the subject before studying the discipline, the growth of knowledge after studying the discipline, and the correspondence of the mark obtained in the exam to the subjective level of students’ knowledge; to conduct a questionnaire survey of university teachers identifying their satisfaction with the interaction with student groups in which they conduct classes; to compare the results of mutual evaluations of students and teachers. The following research hypotheses were proposed: (1) there is a positive relationship between mutual evaluations of students and teachers; (2) lack of knowledge growth in the discipline is interconnected with a low evaluation of students’ satisfaction with interaction with the teacher; (3) presence of a problem in the relationship between the teacher and the student group can be identified based on the analysis of the evaluation spread. Students and teachers were offered questionnaires with numerical values assigned to answers. Questions in both questionnaires were comparable and allowed studying the same aspects of mutual perception of students and teachers and its impact on satisfaction with education. The respondents were 643 first-year students (representatives of 76 study groups divided into 131 subgroups) and 20 teachers who conducted the same general professional discipline in the previous semester for these students. The following methods of statistical data processing were used: analysis of primary statistics, Spearman’s rank-order correlation, the Mann–Whitney U test, and the Kruskal–Wallis H test. Data processing was done using Statistica software. The following conclusions can be made from the empirical study. In general, students and teachers are satisfied with the interaction with each other in the educational process, and their mutual evaluations are interconnected. The low teachers’ evaluation of the student group is interconnected with the unsatisfactory students’ evaluation of the relationship with the teacher. The trend will be stronger if the teacher does not adjust the methods of presenting educational material taking into account students’ abilities. The lack of knowledge growth in the discipline leads to a low evaluation of students’ satisfaction with interaction with the teacher. Summarizing the above, it is important for university teachers to have a flexible approach to the presentation of educational material depending on the initial abilities of students while forming their self-reliance, interest in the subject, and training in general, which ultimately helps students to develop as specialists.