Teachers’ strategies for managing shy students’ anxiety at school

Abstract

The aim of this quantitative study was to analyze teachers’ most common and perceived effective strategies for reducing anxiety in shy elementary-school students. Participants were 275 elementary-school teachers, representative of the teacher population of Norway. Participants nominated a shy student they had taught and completed a questionnaire including strategies for reducing anxiety, reporting their use and effectiveness of each strategy. Latent class and profile models identified groups of teachers that differed in terms of how often they applied strategies and in how useful they found their attempts to intervene. Strategy use and usefulness ratings were consistent across participants although there was evidence of an association with student grade, student gender and school size on a number of strategies. A consistent theme across the strategies is the reliance on protective strategies, which may help a child cope with anxiety in the short term but can be less productive in the longer term. Results are discussed in terms of best practices for teachers in helping shy students cope with anxiety at school.