1. BUILDING PEDAGOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS IN DIVERSE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS Ph.D. Dina Bethere, Ph.D. Linda Pavitola, Ph.D. Svetlana Usca Liepaja University, Rezekne Higher Education Institution, Latvia

2. Pedagogical relationships A key element penetrating the whole process of lifelong education and existing as a common denominator between the process of education and professional performance, where especial role has been allocated to professional competence of teachers. The value of pedagogical relationships lies in attitudes and understandings that the educator employs in the educational context. IJAS 2015

3. Pedagogical relationships The research studies focus more on the content of teacher education, outcomes and competences in general, but hardly on the significance of pedagogical relationships as one of the main aspects reflecting the professionalism of university teachers (e.g., Snoek, Swennen, & Van Der Klink; Brooks; Merriam & Caffarella). IJAS 2015

4. Research questions What is the correlation between the evaluation of students and the aspects of personal and didactic competence of teachers? How to apply these results for professional competence improvement of students and teachers? IJAS 2015

5. Research procedure and design: Participants (N=1583) GroupsStudy level/yearN % (of total amount) A Bachelor level/ study year 1 - 4 143390.5 BMaster level/ study year 1-2 15009.5 IJAS 2015

6. Research procedure and design: Method Likert-type response questions with five possible degrees of agreement: 1 - strongly agree, 2 – rather agree, 3 – rather disagree, 4 - strongly disagree, 5 – cannot say. Cronbach`s alpha is 0.815 - high level of internal consistency. The results were analysed with SPSS Statistics 17.0 using a Spearman’s correlation coefficient and Mann–Whitney test. IJAS 2015

7. Research procedure and design: Results Group of questionsPMean Rank Group AGroup B Didactic competence of the teachers0,0008735,798325,06 Personal competence of the teachers0,0003184,302970,14 Evaluation of students0,0003190,472908,84 IJAS 2015

8. Research procedure and design: Results (Group A) Didactic competencePersonal competence q07q03q08q15 q06 0,5010,590 0,500 0,450 q16 0,3940,4970,5060,694 q18 0,4290,5420,4890,515 q19 --0,088-0,127-0,140 IJAS 2015

9. Research procedure and design: Results Group BDidactic competence q01q04q07q09q14q17 q06 0,5400,6520,5160,5460,4570,387 q180,4930,4520,5230,5460,5690,537 IJAS 2015

10. Research procedure and design: Results Group BPersonal competence q03q08q15 q06 0,4660,3740,474 q16 0,4880,5460,600 q180,6290,5050,578 IJAS 2015

11. Conclusions The study shows a tendency towards the perception of teachers as subjects that is of greater importance than the study course. The findings certify low correlation between the evaluation of students and the aspects of didactic competence of teachers, and considerably higher correlation between the evaluation of students and the aspects of personal competence of teachers. It is necessary to provide furher education for teachers emphasizing the aspects of personal competence. The issue of further studies is to improve the research instrument, as it was not possible to obtain the data pointing to the students` achievements and gains from pedagogical relationships. IJAS 2015

12. Thank you! IJAS 2015