Handle Colour affects the teacher-student relationship

Red pen makes pupils and students feel depressed and melancholy, according to an American study, which encourages teachers to refrain from the use of red rod
 
In a paper published in Social Science Journal, sociology lecturer Richard Dyukes and Associate Professor Heather Albanesi from the University of Colorado have shown that the use of teacher red pens when checking the work has a negative impact on the relationship between teacher and student.

Dyukes says, despite the fact that the results do not have the critical exponents, they nevertheless show clear statistical regularities.

"I would compare it with a drizzling rain: it does not change life dramatically, but its impact on the quality of its hard not to notice," - he said.

For the study, researchers selected 199 random students from 19 to 21 years and gave them one of four versions of the essay on the same topic, written by a hypothetical student named Pat.

These versions include four good answers, a perfect score, and weaker with comments from the teacher, written in blue or red ink.

Students were asked to read the works, noting whether they agree with the certification of teachers, offer evaluation, which they themselves have set, and evaluate different quality teachers, based on his comments to the essay, including such as the qualification (a teacher versed in the matter) the level of its organization, politeness, enthusiasm subject bias.

Students were asked to complete a questionnaire consisting of similar questions, which is a result of their work, which allowed the researchers to estimate the overall picture.

Teachers' clock »

Dyukes says the results show that students' opinion about the quality of education had to do with the color of pen used by the teacher. However, most of the students felt that the comments written by the teacher about the work in blue ink, were made with great teachers' tact than the comments made by a red pen. Consequently, the relationship between students and teachers did not have, depending on the comments themselves, because in both cases they were the same, and the color, which saw students.

"When the student learns well, actually manifests itself well and gets high marks, there is a situation of" win-win ": the teacher and the student feel good - says Dyukes. - However, when a student does not demonstrate a high level, at least part of the blame falls on the shoulders of the teacher ».

Congestion emotions

The researcher said: there is a feeling that the use of red pens in the mind of the student is equal to cry, as if the teacher wrote all capital letters. Therefore, the researchers say, "written in red overloaded emotions».

This additional emotional burden, which, according to the perception of the students, the teacher are no comments for certification of student work will likely not be regarded as disciples constructive, critical comments, the researchers said.

Dyukes says that change color pens in the evaluation work can "have unexpected and significant results and to facilitate interaction between student and teacher without having to affect the level of complexity of control or verification activities».

"If the red ink on paper pupil added emotional burden, which the teacher does not intend to do in the process of communication with the student, you may want to reconsider its former opinion on the choice of color pens," - say researchers.

Dyukes says he does not know the story of why the color red was chosen as the color of the teacher's pen, "but maybe it is time to change this tradition?».

He said that the results showed the negative effects of communicative use red pens are likely to apply to other professions, "unless, of course, there is no purpose to shout."