The relationship between secondary school students perception of teacher closeness and motivation: An İstanbul case

The study focuses on whether secondary students? perception of the level of teachers? close concern varies according to type of school, course content, gender of student, gender of teacher and parents? education level, and the relationship between this attitude and student motivation. 385 male and 261 female students were selected among different secondary schools in Istanbul. A teacher-concern scale and a course motivation scale were used in the study. Non-parametric, parametric analysis techniques, independent group t test, one way ANOVA, post-hoc Scheffe, Tamhane?s T2 tests, non-parametric Kruscal Wallis test, pearson Çarpım moment Correlation analysis?s have been used in this study. Results indicated that there is a relationship between students? perception of teachers? close concern and motivation. The highest mean scores obtained through items in the Teacher Concern Scale were ?8: The teacher jokes on my personality traits?, ?3: The teacher makes fun of my behaviors, which deflates me.? ?5:When I make a mistake, the teacher pronounces my name loudly in front of my friends and this embarrass me.? Meanwhile, the lowest mean scores obtained through the following items. ?10: When I feel sick, the teacher calls me home and wishes well.? ?32: when we play in the garden, the teacher joins us in football, basketboll etc.? ?9: The teacher cares for me.? It was also clear from the results that as the mothers? level of education increases, teachers? concern level also increases. Student perception of teacher closeness was also found increasing according to the type of school and class size. Additionally, it was also found that the smaller the class size the higher the motivation. Results were discussed through all these findings. Key words: student, closeness to teacher, motivation