Education, dechentshomo.pce@rub.edu.bt

Abstract

This article reports a small scale survey study which examined Bhutanese teacher educators’ perspectives of compassionate classroom teaching, encapsulating its five key dimensions of Academic Performance, Role Modelling, Communication, Relationship Building and SelfConsciousness. The practice of compassion in teaching profession is crucial in ensuring a safe and caring environment for learners, while teacher educators must model values such as love, humility and care to their student-teachers. The data was gathered through administration of a newly developed instrument called the ‘Compassionate Teaching Survey Questionnaire’ (CTSQ) to a sample of 42 teacher educators. The factor structure of the instrument was validated using the principal component factor analysis for the given sample. Findings of the study revealed that the participants in general perceived practice of compassion in their pre-service classrooms favourably as indicated by the mean values for all the five scales, which were calculated above 4 with standard deviation of less than 1. It was also evident that there is little difference in their views about practice of compassion in the classroom teaching in terms of gender and age groups. The study is significant in providing insights to teachers, teacher educators and educational leaders that how the practice of compassion in classroom teaching implicates in creating a positive learning environment to learners.