Examining the roles of teachers’ explanatory styles related to their teaching experience on students with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD)

The explicit emotions and behaviours of students can create a lot of challenges and difficulties for teachers. This research project critically examined the mediation roles of teachers’ explanatory styles. The project involved two phases. Phase One was a quantitative study which focused on a proper Chinese tool for measuring teachers’ general explanatory styles. The new Chinese measurement tool was translated and validated with good reliability and was applied in Phase Two of this research project. Phase Two used a mixed methods approach to test the research hypotheses in order to address three research questions. For the qualitative research aspect of Phase Two, nine teachers from two ordinary schools and one special school took part. Their explanations about their teaching experiences were explored through individual interviews. The findings revealed that teachers from all schools have optimistic explanatory styles about the difficulties and challenges they face. For the quantitative research part, 198 teachers were recruited from ordinary primary schools, ordinary secondary schools, special primary schools and special secondary schools in Hong Kong. The research found that teachers had low helplessness levels concerning their work and life, and low helplessness levels related to teaching EBD students. There were no differences found amongst the different types of schools. Teachers’ anxiety levels were low. Meanwhile, teachers from special schools had significantly lower levels of anxiety than those from ordinary schools related to teaching EBD students. Finally, teachers’ general explanatory styles, especially the Internality-Externality dimension of explanatory styles was examined as a good mediator of teachers’ different anxieties. All rights reserved.