Dialogical interaction as a challenge to act under uncertainty
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Abstract
Background. The development of thinking in preschool age is regarded as one of the key objectives of modern education. In this context, the readiness of educators to provide dialogical interaction that corresponds to children’s possibilities and stimulates the development of their thinking becomes fundamentally important. Tolerance of uncertainty is viewed as a significant internal resource for professional activity in conditions of growing complexity and unpredictability.
Objective. To analyze teacher-child dialogical interaction during free activity and to identify the nature of its interrelation with tolerance of uncertainty.
Sample. 68 preschool teachers fr om 12 kindergartens in Moscow, the Moscow Region, and Kostroma
Methods. To assess dialogical interaction, continuous video recording of teacher-child interaction during free play was conducted, followed by video analysis using indicators from the “Creativity Environment Rating Scale”. Tolerance of uncertainty was measured using the “New Tolerance of Uncertainty Questionnaire”.
Results. The level of dialogical interaction is negatively associated with the level of interpersonal intolerance of uncertainty (Spearman’s correlation coefficient: -0.24, P-value = 0.048). However, no significant correlation was found between dialogical interaction and general tolerance or general intolerance of uncertainty. For dialogical interaction between teacher and children, what proves significant is not the inclination toward change and novelty or toward clarity and order, but rather the acceptance or rejection of uncertainty in interpersonal relationships.
Conclusions. Teachers relatively often demonstrate interest in children’s expressed ideas and respond to them emotionally and substantively. However, they are significantly less likely to take actions that involve productive work with emerging uncertainty: posing hypothesis-testing questions and questions that require justification of a position, helping children to identify differences in perspectives, and problematizing play-based and spontaneously arising situations. Teachers who are better at organizing dialogue with children show less striving for clarity and control in relationships and experience less discomfort with unpredictability in interpersonal contexts. Openness to interpersonal uncertainty may be one of the common personal resources for a pedagogy of responsiveness and dialogical interaction with children – that is, in those forms of interaction wh ere the teacher’s actions cannot be fully predetermined and must be shaped in response to children’s initiatives.
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