Theory of Mind Development in the School Context: The role of teachers’ mental-state conversations.

• In Event: Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood and Adolescence: Measurement, Predictors, and Consequences.

Abstract

Social constructivist models of theory of mind (ToM) predict that mental-state conversations facilitate children’s understanding of others’ minds (Hughes, 2011). Research in this area has been mainly conducted within the family context and shows that children whose parents frequently use mental-state talk outperform their peers on ToM tasks (Devine & Hughes, 2019). The present study extends this literature by looking at children’s exposure to mental-state conversations in the school context. Despite evidence that teachers vary in their use of mental-state language (King & LaParo, 2015) and that teachers can promote their pupils’ ToM via dedicated training programs (Bianco & Lecce, 2016), researchers have not examined whether teachers’ use of mental-state conversations promote children’s ToM.
To test this hypothesis, we collected data from 430 children (209 boys, Mage = 9.34, SD = .63, range = 7.95 – 11.43 years) attending 27 primary school classes (Year 4, 5 and 6) and their main teachers. Children completed a ToM task (Strange Stories task – White et al., 2009), SES questionnaire (FAS - Currie et al., 2008), and vocabulary test (PMA, Rubini & Rossi, 1982). Teachers completed the Silent Films (Devine & Hughes, 2013) and the Triangle tasks (Castelli et al., 2000), a vocabulary test (PMA, Rubini & Rossi, 1982), and a questionnaire aimed to gather information about teachers’ use of mental-state conversations in five disciplinary situations: lying, teasing, robbing, shouting, and damaging. This questionnaire was based on one developed by Ruffman and colleagues (1999) on parenting styles. We asked teachers to write down what they would do or say to deal with that specific disciplinary situation. Teachers’ responses to each situation were coded on the basis of a 3-point scale reflecting the degree to which teachers used mental-state conversations.
Given the hierarchical structure of our data (i.e., pupils nested within classrooms) we tested our hypothesis using Multilevel Linear Modelling (MLM). This allowed us to evaluate the existence of significant between-classrooms variation in children’s ToM performance and to test whether this variation could be explained by specific features of the shared classroom context (i.e., teachers’ use of conversations), over and above within-classroom variables (i.e., children’s age, verbal ability and SES). Results showed significant variation in children’s mean-level ToM scores across classrooms, with the intraclass correlation coefficient indicating that belonging to a particular class accounted for 9.7% of variation in children’s ToM performance (see Table 1). Crucially, teachers’ use of mental-state conversations, but not their own ToM ability, predicted significant variation in pupils’ ToM and uniquely explained 2.1% of between-classroom variation in ToM over and above individual child characteristics. This effect was not moderated by teachers’ years of experience and the number of teaching hours per week.
The present results extend social accounts of ToM and provide new insight into the mechanisms through which teachers influence variation in children’s advanced ToM skills. Understanding these mechanisms will provide new insights to promote ToM at school through teacher’s direct involvement.

Authors

• Serena Lecce, University of Pavia
  Presenting Author

• Federica Bianco, University of Bergamo
  Non-Presenting Author

• Luca Ronchi, University of Pavia
  Non-Presenting Author