A Qualitative Study of English Students’ Perceptions of Teacher’s Pet Phenomenon in the Iranian Higher Education Context

Teachers perform a substantial role in students’ learning (Tikly& Barret, 2013). Their relationship with students coupled with the range of emotional factors at play in their behavior can stimulate the development of students’ affective learning (Woolfolk Hoy & Weinstein, 2006). Their status as a prominent figure in the classroom lowers once the students perceive a sense of injustice. Hence, it is well worth looking at instances of injustice in teachers’ behaviors toward students. Regarding the leading role of fairness in teachers’ behaviors toward students and the effect of their fair treatment on students’ learning, the present study aims to qualitatively scrutinize TPP, a unique example of unfairness in educational contexts (Babad, 2009), in the context of higher education in Iran.
To this end, thirty graduate and undergraduate students of both genders were interviewed. They were all majoring in English Translation, English Literature, and English Language Teachingat different universities and institutes of higher education in Mashhad, Tehran, Shiraz, and Ahvaz (e.g., Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Tarbiat Modares, Tehran, Shahid Beheshti, Alzahra, Shiraz, Shahid Chamran, Imam Reza, and Tabarn Universities). They answered five questions which were related to their feelings about a pet and an instructor who has a pet, the characteristics of a pet, the terms they use to call a pet, and the reasons for which a teacher-pet relationship ends. Then, the collected data were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.
The results showed that the students had negative feelings towards the instructor and his/her pet, and their negative feelings triggered negative and hostile reactions against the instructor and his/her pet. It was also revealed that they tended to use offensive terms to call pets. Moreover, they mostly described pets negatively, and most of them believed that pets are incompetent students who become pets to compensate for their insufficient knowledge of the field of study. The participants also asserted that the teacher-pet relationship can be broken off if both the instructor and his/her pet cannot take advantage of each other. Finally, the reasons underlying the findings were discussed.