Working Alliances: the Implications of Person- Centered Theory for Student-Teacher Relationships and Learning

University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 2018 WORKING ALLIANCES: THE IMPLICATIONS OF PERSON- CENTERED THEORY FOR STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS AND LEARNING Adam Parker Cogbill University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Cogbill, Adam Parker, "WORKING ALLIANCES: THE IMPLICATIONS OF PERSON-CENTERED THEORY FOR STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS AND LEARNING" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 2388. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2388 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WORKING ALLIANCES: THE IMPLICATIONS OF PERSON-CENTERED THEORY FOR STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS AND LEARNING BY ADAM COGBILL BA, Franklin and Marshall College, 2007 MFA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2012 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English May, 2018 ii This thesis/dissertation has been examined and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by: Thesis/Dissertation Director, Dr. Christina Ortmeier-Hooper, Associate Professor of English Dr. Cristy Beemer, Associate Professor of English Dr. Alecia Magnifico, Assistant Professor of English Dr. Loan Phan, Associate Professor of Education Dr. Bronwyn Williams, Professor of English, University of Louisville On April 2, 1018 Original approval signatures are on file with the University of New Hampshire Graduate School. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………………..….v LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………………..vi ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………..vii CHAPTERS I. INTRODUCTION: THE PLACE OF TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS IN WRITING PEDAGOGY. …………………………………………………………………………………..…1 Situating the Study: Overview of the Reviewed Literatures………………………………………..5 Person-Centered Theory: A Humanist Approach to Working with Others……………………......18 II. RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA COLLECTION…………………………………………31 Study Site…………………………………………………………………………………………34 Study Participants…………………………………………………………………………………34 Data Collection……………………………………………………………………………………37 Data Analysis……………………………………………………………………………………..42 III. AUTHORITY AND TEACHER IDENTITY: MAKING A PLACE FOR CONGRUENCE- BASED TOOLS IN WRITING PEDAGOGY…………………………………………………...51 A Definition of Congruence for Writing Pedagogy…………………………………………….…52 All the Ways Things Can Go Wrong: Conceptions of Power and Authority in the Composition Literature………………………………………………………………………………………….56 “It’s all about power with and for”: Therapists’ Perceptions of Authority and Congruence……….62 Violet’s Bind: Feeling Required to be—and Uncomfortable as—an Expert……………………..67 Opal: A Journey to “Comfort” in Student-Teacher Relationships………………………………..73 Harris and Bernadette: Further Evidence for the Importance of a Pedagogy that Addresses Teaching Identity…………………………………………………………………………………81 Rosia and Genevieve: The Practice of Metamonitoring………………………………………….88 Concluding Thoughts: Can One Become Congruent?…..………………………………………..95 IV. JOINING THE DANCE: EMPATHY AS A PROCESS……………………………………..96 Empathy in Composition Literature: An Undertheorized Concept………………………………..97 A Person-Centered Definition of Empathy………………………………………………………101 “I Know What You Mean”: Empathy as a Practical, and Undertheorized, Pedagogical Tool…..104 “A Radically Different Way of Relating”: Empathy as a Tool for Accepting the Unknown……..115 “Joining the Dance”: Empathy as a Tool for Letting Clients Lead the Way……………………...118 Concluding Thoughts: Empathy as a Tool for Collaborative Investigation……………………...126 V. POSITIVE REGARD: HEARING THE WHOLE PERSON………………………………..130 Positive Regard: Prizing, Accepting, and Trusting Learners…………………………………….132 Positive Regard in—and Near—Composition…………………………………………………...138 Bernadette: Using “Persona” to Effectuate Positive Regard……………………………………..140 Lydia: Assuming that Clients are Always Moving toward Health……………………………….144 Understanding the Whole Person”: Positive Regard and MSJC…………………………………150 iv A Pragmatic Reason for Positive Regard………………………………………………………...154 Concluding Thoughts: Taking a Generous Stance toward Students…..…………………………156 VI. CONCLUSIONS: HOW PERSON-CENTERED THEORY CAN POSITIVELY SHAPE THE CONDITIONS FOR LEARNING ……………………………...……………………………....162 Review and Summary of Findings…………………………………………………………….…163 Other Findings & General Implications………………………………………………………….169 A Person-Centered (Writing Conference) Pedagogy…………………………………………….172 A Final Word…………………………………………………………………………………….176 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………170 APPENDIX A: IRB APPROVAL LETTER & RESEARCH MATERIALS…………………...176 APPENDIX B: RECRUITMENT MATERIALS………………………………………………182 APPENDIX C: CONSENT FORMS…………………………………………………………....184 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’m grateful to the many people who supported and guided me through the dissertation project. Foremost among these has been Dr. Christina Ortmeier-Hooper, without whose feedback, encouragement, and mentorship, I would not have been able to complete this project. I am also grateful to Drs. Alecia Magnifico, Cristy Beemer, Bronwyn Williams, and Loan Phan, members of my dissertation committee whose feedback and advice has been invaluable in helping me plan and envision this project. I am also thankful to current students and graduates of the composition studies program at the University of New Hampshire for their support, encouragement, advice, feedback, and validation, including Dr. Brad Dittrich, Meaghan Elliott Dittrich, Marino Fernandes, Dr. Trish Portanova, Matt Switliski, Danielle Lavendier-Vitrano, and Lauren Short. This dissertation was made possible by funding I received from the English Department, and by the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics. I can’t overstate how grateful I am for their support of graduate student labor and research. I am extremely appreciative of the time that my participants took to answer my questions and to share their stories with me. Finally, I am thankful to my parents, who have always been supportive—even when my interests might have seemed arcane—and to Whiskey, my dog, who reminded me that sometimes, it is important to stop working and go for a walk. vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Summary of Data Collection……………………………………………………….......39 Table 2: Overview of Coding…………………………………………………………….……...45 Table 3: “Assume the other’s frame of reference” Subcode and Cues……………………..……45 Table 4: Samples of cue for “mentalizing” from transcripts……………………..…………..….46 Table 5: Samples of cue for “idiosyncrasy”……………………..……………………………....46 vii ABSTRACT WORKING ALLIANCES: THE IMPLICATIONS OF PERSON-CENTERED THEORY FOR STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIPS AND LEARNING by Adam Cogbill University of New Hampshire, May, 2018 In this dissertation project, I interview four therapists and four writing teachers to learn if there were similarities or differences in their approaches to dyadic relationships with students and clients. I was guided in my investigation by the core concepts of person-centered theory, which have heavily influenced the work of clinical therapists for the past half-century or more. These concepts are congruence, or whether one’s behaviors and speech match what one is feeling; empathy, the process of entering and becoming familiar with another’s private, perceptual world; and positive regard, or demonstrating that one accepts and values others, including their feelings, opinions, and selves. I found that teachers and therapists both faced challenges in developing, managing, and repairing relationships, and espoused similar values about relating to others. However, therapists were able to draw on clinical theories and tools for relating for which no parallels exist in writing pedagogy. For example, in the many teaching manuals I surveyed, I found hardly any page space devoted to the challenge of teacher-student relationships. Results from my study include conceptualizations of how person-centered intellectual tools might be synthesized with current writing pedagogy both in theory and in training. Furthermore, I hope to draw more attention to the nuances of dyadic relationships, and the unfortunate scarcity of tools that writing pedagogy currently has for working in them. 1 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: THE PLACE OF TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS IN WRITING PEDAGOGY In winter in New England, the students in your writing classes have to make some significant procedural choice about sitting when they come to your office for conferences. Some students spend a full minute taking off hats and jackets and hoodies, all of which are then hung carefully on the back of the chair in a game of reverse Jenga. Others just leave everything on, as if they’ve dropped by to return some Tupperware but can’t stay. Robby was of the latter school. He greeted me and plopped down in the chair without removing backpack or black puffer coat. He sat awkwardly, like a stuffed animal beginning to pitch over. I’m always uncomfortable when students choose to be uncomfortable, but I was even more uncomfortable because of Robby’s essay. “So,” I said, and stopped. Where to begin? Some context: for the second

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