Exploring student and teacher perceptions of the ideal teacher in Russia

ABSTRACT

To improve current teacher education and teacher evaluation practices it is important to collect and critically examine different perspectives on who the ideal teachers are. The present study explores and compares how the ideal teacher is conceptualised by students and their teachers. Data were collected from 53 high school students and 16 of their teachers in urban and rural schools in Russia using an exploratory mixed-method study. The results indicate that students saw teachers’ ability to recognise students’ individual differences but treat everyone equally as the two most important teacher qualities. Teachers, however, attributed the most value to professionalism and ability to follow ethical principles. In addition, rural teachers self-assessed their own teaching quality more favourably than urban teachers while both rural and urban students gave similar ratings to the quality of teaching provided by their teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher qualities
• teaching qualities
• teacher education
• student beliefs
• teacher beliefs

Introduction

While it is indisputable that teacher education and professional support mechanisms have to be designed to maximise the number of good teachers, as Murphy, Delli and Edwards (2004) suggest, ‘what is open to debate is exactly what characteristics define good teachers’ (69). Indeed, the concept of ‘good teaching’ represents a complex philosophical issue which entails pondering various perspectives held by different stakeholders in the education system. Despite the fact that obtaining any definitive definition might not be possible, Korthagen (2004) emphasises that building an effective system of teacher education starts with the question ‘What are the essential qualities of a good teacher?’ (77). Indeed, investigating this question has the potential to produce valuable insights into the most appropriate teacher education policies and practices as well as teacher support mechanisms (Harris and Sass 2009).

The discourse around ‘good teaching’ is continuously evolving and adjusting to the current societal demands in different countries. With ongoing technological advancements, geopolitical shifts, mass migration and various global and local changes, the field of education, and teacher education in particular, have been undergoing significant transformations (Hadar et al. 2020). In Russia, for example, teachers are currently expected to develop a competence-based profile, effectively respond to the challenges presented by the twenty-first century, and fulfil the requirements outlined in Russia’s official professional standards for teachers (Valeeva and Kalimullin 2022). Notably, the current understanding of what constitutes good teaching is developing in parallel with the system of teacher quality assessment. Typically, the models of teacher evaluation are rooted in a standards-based view of teaching quality and are often centred around the indicators of students’ academic progress (Hallinger, Heck, and Murphy 2014), while students’ and teachers’ perspectives on good teaching get sidelined. Within the context of the current Russian education system specifically, skill development is prioritised while student voice is pushed aside (Khanolainen et al. 2023).

Students’ perspectives, however, can reveal important insights. Indeed, over recent decades the body of research arguing in favour of including students’ perspectives to guide educational change has been consistently growing (Cook-Sather 2002a; Fielding 2004, 2012). Studies show that school children are capable of recognising teacher competence (Aleamoni 1999; Corbett and Wilson 2002) and distinguishing between ‘liking a teacher and acknowledging her role as one who taught them something’ (Peterson, Wahlquist, and Bone 2000, 137). The idea that students’ evaluations of their teachers can be viewed as one of the reliable indicators of good teaching is reflected in the shift towards more child-centred, inclusive, and participatory education (Unicef 1989). The ‘new social studies of childhood’ (James and Prout 2003; Prout and James 1997), herald a shift in how children are perceived – no longer as mere objects or passive recipients but as active contributors (Hodgkin 1998) – set the backdrop for our study.

The present research explored students’ perceptions of good teaching and their ideals regarding teachers. Furthermore, with an aim of building a more holistic picture around the concept of ‘good teaching’, teachers’ views on good teaching and the image of the ideal teacher were also examined. Additionally, this study considered the setting as a crucial contextual variable (Knoblauch and Chase 2015) and distinguished between urban and rural contexts. Grossman, Ronfeldt and Cohen (2012) emphasise that school settings play a significant role in shaping opportunities for teaching and learning. Communities residing in rural areas tend to be poorer than their urban counterparts and this socio-economic inequality is most apparent in developing countries (Lichter and Schafft 2016). Russia, too, contends with this issue as well as with the problem of teacher shortages in rural areas (Amini and Nivorozhkin 2015). Taking these contextual characteristics into account, the following research questions were formulated:

1. What are rural and urban students’ perceptions of the ideal teacher?

2. What are rural and urban teachers’ perceptions of the ideal teacher?

3. Do students and teachers differ in their perceptions of the ideal teacher?

4. How do students perceive their teachers’ alignment with the ideal and how do teachers assess themselves against their own ideal?

Good teaching provided by an ideal teacher

Throughout human history the importance of good teachers has been acknowledged. Research shows that teachers significantly influence student motivation and educational outcomes (Heyder et al. 2020; Montalvo, Mansfield, and Miller 2007) and as such, they form the core by which education takes place (Tickle 1999). Teachers, therefore, are constantly under the pressure of the highest expectations and it is taken for granted that they hold sufficient expertise and commitment to do the ‘right thing’. Prawat (1992), however, cautions that what constitutes the ‘right thing’ is a matter of judgement or opinion.

A plethora of research has made attempts to understand what constitutes good teaching. Along the way researchers proposed and explored various concepts to help themselves and others grasp the essence of the teaching grand master. Key among these concepts are ‘good teaching’ (Murphy, Delli, and Edwards 2004), ‘teaching excellence’ (Gunn 2018; Halpern 1987), ‘ideal teaching’ (Arnon and Reichel 2007; Pozo-Munoz, Rebolloso-Pacheco, and Fernandez-Ramirez 2000), and ‘effective teaching’ (Gurney 2007). To avoid this confusion of terms, we framed our research using the concepts of ‘good teaching’ and ‘ideal teacher’. The term ‘good teaching’ is widely accepted in educational research as ‘for over a century, educational philosophers such as William James and John Dewey have attempted to expound on the art and science of good teaching’ (Murphy, Delli, and Edwards 2004, 70). Images of the ‘ideal teacher’ have also been shaped by different educational philosophers including Socrates, Locke, Foucault and many others (Palmer, Cooper, and Bresler 2001).

In his influential book, Moore (2004) analyses three dominant discourses of good teaching. Two dominant discourses are that of the teacher as a reflective practitioner and as a competent craftsperson. The first discourse is supported by teacher educators while the second one is favoured by the government. Within the reflective practitioner narrative teachers are constructed as knowledgeable and trustworthy professionals actively involved in self-directed, career-long development (Schön 2017). In contrast, the craftsmanship narrative goes hand-in-hand with the argument that teachers need to be constantly subjected to external observations and judgement (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2023). There is also a third popular discourse that views the teacher as ‘charismatic subjects’ which is less about education and training and more about inherent or intrinsic qualities of the teacher’s personality. Moore (2004) argues that the three discourses, though often presented in opposition to one another, have common roots in the psychological concept of the ‘ideal self’.

The characteristics defining the ideal teacher can be broadly categorised into two main components referred to differently across various sources as: (1) appropriate personality and professional knowledge (Arnon and Reichel 2007); (2) the personality and ability view (Beishuizen et al. 2001); or (3) the teacher quality and teaching quality (Darling-Hammond 2014). Generally speaking, the first component relates to teachers’ personal traits such as behavioural patterns, moral qualities, and manners. The second component encompasses teachers’ professional expertise, including both subject matter knowledge and pedagogical skills. Another important component of the ideal teacher, described by Cook-Sather (2002b) as ‘a human teacher’ falls somewhere between the main two components and relates to the teacher’s ability to engage in a meaningful dialogue with students.

Reflective of this theoretical duality, Russian teachers are educated to both teach a specific subject and instil moral qualities in their students. Russian teacher education programmes place great emphasis on preparing teachers to be moral mentors educating teachers on how to impart to students such character traits as kindness, amiability, politeness, self-command, and other virtues society desires to propagate (Ostrogorsky 2015). At the same time, after a series of top-down standards reforms, Russian teachers admit to a certain level of performativity in their work, indicating a tendency to prioritise educational outcomes that are objectively measurable over those that are desirable but cannot be quantified (Khanolainen 2019).

Moreover, the teaching profession is widely perceived in Russia as a calling or a mission rather than a way to earn a livelihood. Most Russian teachers are not highly paid which hardly makes teaching an attractive career choice. For this reason, those who do choose to become teachers are expected to have a truly innate passion for it. This passion is expected to be contagious for students, igniting their enthusiasm for learning. Thus, teachers are expected to have certain intrinsic qualities that are to be enhanced through teacher education. Overall, the current educational discourse in Russia aligns with both the craftsperson discourse and the charismatic subject discourse (Moore 2004). No research, however, has examined how the ideal teacher in Russia is perceived in real-life classroom environments.

Evaluating good teaching

Since designing new teacher education programs and teacher quality assessments can represent a significant challenge, it has been argued that evaluations need to be enhanced through the use of multiple assessment measures that cross-validate one another. Kane and Staiger (2012), for instance, reported that the validity of their teacher evaluation system was significantly improved when they combined classroom observations, student feedback, and value-added student achievement gains. Notably they stress the importance of student feedback as it provides a unique insight into teacher performance. Although an individual student’s grasp of effective teaching might not be as sophisticated as that of a trained observer, student feedback offers two advantages that enhance reliability. First, students see the teacher throughout the whole academic year which reduces the impact of lesson-by-lesson variations. Second, evaluations stem from more than twenty and up to about seventy-five students, unlike the perspective of just one or two observers.

Indeed, it transpires that the likelihood of correctly identifying good teachers does not depend on any measurable competence or professional experience of the observer/evaluator but it does depend on the duration of time spent around the observed teacher. Strong, Gargani, and Hacifazlioğlu (2011) reported that after short lesson observations, education professors and teacher mentors were no better at recognising good teachers than people with no prior connection to education. Hill, Charalambous and Kraft (2012) further added that even four lesson observations might not be sufficient to make reliable conclusions to inform high-stakes decisions. In addition, irrespective of their qualifications and experience, school inspectors are viewed by teachers as outsiders who only gain very limited evidence during their lesson observations (Davis, Winch, and Lum 2015).

Meanwhile, research shows that students can actively contribute towards teacher development and school improvement and teachers who listen to their students facilitate student learning more effectively (Flutter and Rudduck 2004). Research also indicates that the ability to distinguish good teaching quality is already manifested in teenage years. For example, Corbett and Wilson (2002) found that adolescents could clearly distinguish between teachers’ personal and professional qualities. Students differentiate between ‘mean’ good teachers and ‘mean’ bad teachers, ‘boring’ good teachers and ‘boring’ bad teachers. Thus, teenage students can recognise the difference between liking a teacher as a person and appreciating them as a professional (Aleamoni 1999; Corbett and Wilson 2002; Peterson, Wahlquist, and Bone 2000).

Importantly, addressing the question of the purpose of good teaching is crucial for understanding whose perspectives should be considered in defining this elusive concept (Biesta 2009). In today’s world, dominated by neoliberal ideology, economic growth is often seen as the ultimate purpose of education (Krueger and Lindahl 2001). From this standpoint, integrating students’ and teachers’ perspectives into the discourse on good teaching might not yield immediately quantifiable improvements. Nonetheless, their involvement in shaping the educational process leads to various valuable benefits unrelated to the economy, ranging from enhanced self-esteem and self-efficacy to better reasoning skills and critical reflection (Griebler, Nowak, and Simovska 2012; Keddie 2015; Kirby et al. 2003; Quinn and Owen 2016).

Furthermore, listening to the perspectives of students and teachers may reveal aspects missing from the current education system, even if those aspects defy measurement. Given the prevalence of teacher performativity (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2023) and widespread student school disengagement (Skinner and Pitzer 2012; Symonds, Schoon, and Salmela‐Aro 2016), it becomes crucial to understand what teachers and students themselves value within the school context to help them feel more connected. A broader inclusion of diverse perspectives will play a pivotal role in shaping future educational systems (Purdy et al. 2023).

Materials and methods

Participants

Two state-funded comprehensive schools in one Russian region (Republic of Tatarstan) were selected for the study according to two basic principles: overall academic performance and geographic location. School 1 was an average-performing rural school and School 2 a high-performing urban school. A systematic sampling approach was employed to recruit 53 high school students to share their image of an ideal teacher and to assess their teachers according to their criteria of idealness. At the next stage, 16 teachers who worked with the selected sample of students were invited to express their views on the same topic and assess their own teaching.

Students from the rural school (RS group) were 12 males and 14 females with the mean age of 16.4 years. Students from the urban school (US group) were 10 males and 17 females with the mean age of 16.3 years. This age group was selected because students at this age already have extensive experience of schooling and can produce information about their teachers that differs qualitatively from that provided by younger pupils (Kutnick and Jules 1993).

Teachers from the rural school (RT group) and teachers from the urban school (UT group) consisted of 16 teachers, 8 female teachers in each group. There were no male teachers in the sample, which is a common situation in Russian schools because the teaching force in Russia mainly consists of female teachers. The mean age of RT group participants was 46 years. Their professional experience ranged from 5 to 36 years (M = 25). The subjects taught by this group were Mathematics, Russian Language and Russian Literature, English, Chemistry, Tatar Language, and Physics. The mean age of UT group participants was 48 years (one teacher withheld that information). The urban teachers professional experience averaged 26 years, ranging from 3 to 44 years. The subjects taught by UT group teachers were Biology, Physical Education, Russian Language and Russian Literature, English Language, History and Sociology, and IT.

Research instruments and analysis

A mixed-method research approach with both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools was employed. The semantic differential technique (Pozo-Munoz, Rebolloso-Pacheco, and Fernandez-Ramirez 2000) provided the basis for the chosen research tool used to measure students’ and their teachers’ beliefs about the ideal teacher. All participants were asked to list:

1. three adjectives that characterise their ideal teacher, and

2. three adjectives that would never characterise their ideal teacher.

Participants were then instructed to write a short summative essay with no less than five sentences answering the question ‘How would you describe your ideal teacher?’. Students were also asked to estimate, on a 10-point Likert scale, how close to the ideal their teachers were (where 0 meant ‘I think that most of my teachers are very far from my idea of the ideal teacher’ and 10 stood for ‘I think that most of my teachers are very close to my idea of the ideal teacher’). School teachers were also asked to indicate on the 10-point Likert scale whether and to what extent they considered themselves close to their own idea of the ideal teacher.

The tools were designed to provide an insight into students’ and teachers’ (urban and rural) understanding of the ideal teacher’s profile. We intentionally did not instruct the participants to focus only on either professional or personal qualities of the teacher. Rather, the participants were asked to rely on their overall everyday school experience as a student or a teacher.

The methodological instruments included items that can be grouped into four main categories: a) urban students’ perception of the ideal teacher; b) rural students’ perception of the ideal teacher; c) urban teachers’ perceptions of the ideal teacher and their self-assessment against that ideal; d) rural teachers’ perceptions of the ideal teacher and their self-assessment against that ideal. The first two open-ended questions enabled comparisons across the four groups in our sample. All questions were supplemented with extra space to allow respondents to add remarks and explanations if they found it necessary. The follow-up essays and the teacher assessment scale were employed to obtain more in-depth evidence with specific examples of how students and teachers perceive the ideal teacher and how their perceptions differ. The use of various ‘complementary research methods’ (Murphy, Delli, and Edwards 2004) is encouraged in the study of beliefs. Besides, when faced with a relatively sensitive research topic such as ours, respondents are more likely to give socially desirable answers in quantitative studies in contrast to qualitative studies. For this reason, to examine students’ and teachers’ beliefs about the ideal teacher we opted for qualitative descriptive methodology (Hsieh and Shannon 2005) with the use of direct content analysis (Graneheim and Lundman 2004). Positive and negative characteristics of teachers listed by the participants were grouped, and the frequency of each was calculated. Further, the characteristics were categorised as either related to professional expertise or teachers’ personality (Arnon and Reichel 2007; Darling-Hammond 2014). The replies to the essay question were analysed qualitatively using an open coding technique (Strauss and Corbin 1990) which enabled us to group desirable and undesirable teacher characteristics and qualities under thematic umbrellas. The use of the two research tools ensured cross-validation of the results.

Results and discussion

Ideal teacher ranking

First, we examined how students rated their teachers on the scale of their closeness to the ideal. Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations of rankings on the scale from 0 to 10 across the two student groups. An independent t-test showed that there was no significant difference between rural and urban students on their teacher rankings: t(51) = −.688, p = .495, with 74.1% of urban and 73.1% of rural students respectively reporting that their teachers were rather close to the ideal (6–10 points on the scale). Overall, RS and US groups generated very similar results which indicated that the type of school did not influence the way students evaluated their teachers.

Table 1. Students and teachers’ rankings on teachers’ closeness to the ideal on a 10-point Likert scale.

Participants	N	M (SD)
RS group	26	6.78 (2.06)
US group	27	6.38 (2.09)
RT group	8	8.38 (0.92)
UT group	8	7.00 (2.07)

0 = I think that most of my teachers are very far from my idea of the ideal teacher/I think that I am very far from my idea of the ideal teacher; 10 = I think that most of my teachers are very close to my idea of the ideal teacher/I think that I am very close to my idea of the ideal teacher.

At the same time, another independent t-test showed that there was a significant difference between boys (M = 7.27, SD = 1.8) and girls (M = 6.10, SD = 2.13) with boys being more likely to provide a more positive evaluation of their teachers: t(51) = 2.104, p = .040. Previous research does not offer hypotheses that would help us explain the observed gender difference but it is important to note that girls were overrepresented in our sample, and the overall sample size was not large enough to draw robust conclusions. Hence, future studies should further investigate the relationship between gender and the perceptions of teachers utilising larger and more balanced samples.

Using the same scale teachers indicated whether they considered themselves as close to their understanding of the ideal teacher. The results suggest that urban teachers were more critical of themselves while teachers in the rural region saw themselves closer to the ideal (Table 1).

Teacher and teaching qualities

At the next stage of our analysis, we considered the characteristics of the ideal teacher listed by students and teachers (Table 2). Overall, students identified 40 positive and 44 negative characteristics of teachers. Most students attributed characteristics such as understanding, kindness, professionalism, patience, responsiveness, smartness, having a sense of humour, strictness, being educated, and responsibility to their ideal teachers. Rural students believed that the ideal teacher should, first and foremost, be professional, kind, and understanding. Urban students saw their ideal teachers as understanding, kind, and smart. The two characteristics (kindness and understanding) were the most common for both student groups. As for the teachers’ negative characteristics, there was again a high degree of similarity across the two groups. Specifically, non-ideal teachers were described as angry, rude, indifferent, unprofessional, cruel, irresponsible, aggressive, and inattentive. Angry and rude were the two most common characteristics cited by both groups.

Table 2. Percentage of reported teacher qualities (personal characteristics) and teaching qualities (professional characteristics), %.

Participants	Directionality of characteristics	Personal characteristics	Professional characteristics
Rural students	Positive characteristics	64%	36%
	Negative characteristics	82%	18%
Urban students	Positive characteristics	78%	22%
	Negative characteristics	92%	8%
Rural teachers	Positive characteristics	55%	45%
	Negative characteristics	85%	15%
Urban teachers	Positive characteristics	54%	46%
	Negative characteristics	58%	42%

Teachers indicated 21 positive and 23 negative characteristics; less than half the number mentioned by the students. This might be explained by the smaller number of participating teachers (N = 16). Both groups of teachers believed ideal teachers should be strict, educated, professional, humane and should never be arrogant, unjust, angry, and uneducated.

All the qualities indicated were further grouped into two categories. The first category described qualities related to professional expertise (teaching qualities), the second category encompassed qualities relating to the teacher’s personality (teacher qualities). All groups of participants named more qualities from the first category than the second. Furthermore, rural students enumerated more teaching qualities (36%) than urban students (18%).

Rural and urban teachers were almost identical in their beliefs about positive teacher qualities and teaching qualities. However, their beliefs differed drastically about negative characteristics – urban teachers mentioned three times as many negative professional characteristics (42%) than rural teachers (15%). Interestingly, the most recurring essay theme among urban teachers was professionalism, while rural teachers referred mostly to the theme of calling.

The results obtained are consistent with previous research. Murphy et al. (2004) surveyed three different groups of participants (school children, student teachers, and in-service teachers) and demonstrated that the three groups selected ‘caring’, ‘patient’, ‘not boring’, and ‘polite’ as the main characteristics of good teachers. Other studies also found that teachers and students have similar views in regard to personal characteristics of teachers. Students describe good teachers as understanding and willing to help (Corbett and Wilson 2002), and teachers attribute value to being empathic and attentive (Arnon and Reichel 2007). Furthermore, the results are also in line with findings reporting that, as distinct from teachers, young people specifically emphasise the importance of fairness and respectfulness in their teachers (Bempechat et al. 2013; Rudduck 2007), a sense of humour (Thompson et al. 2008), and an ability to establish connection and build positive relationship with students (Wubbels 1997). Children especially disapprove of teachers showing preference for some students over others (Bempechat et al. 2013; Rudduck 2007).

Analysis of student and teacher essays

Students and teachers were asked to compose a brief essay depicting their perceptions of the ideal teacher. The following themes emerged: empathy, equal treatment, professionalism, understanding the concept of idealness, stress resistance, respect for students’ privacy, good manners, age and gender, calling, society and economy. Table 3 demonstrates the frequency of themes mentioned by each group.

Table 3. Essay theme frequencies, by group.

Characteristic	Rural students	Urban students	Rural teachers	Urban teachers
	N (%)	N (%)	N (%)	N (%)
Empathy	20 (17.2%)	14 (12.1%)	2 (5.3%)	3 (7.9%)
Equal treatment	9 (7.8%)	7 (6.3%)	-	-
Professionalism	21 (18.1%)	24 (20.7%)	3 (7.9%)	7 (18.4%)
Idealness	4 (3.4%)	4 (3.4%)	1 (2.6%)	1 (2.6%)
Moral qualities	-	7 (6.3%)	2 (5.3%)	6 (15.8%)
Calling	-	-	6 (15.8%)	4 (10.5%)
Society, economy	-	-	1 (2.6%)	2 (5.3%)
Respect for students’ privacy	-	1 (0.9%)	-	-
Stress resistance	4 (3.4%)	-	-	-
Age, gender	-	1 (0.9%)	-	-

The categories presented in Table 3 were similar across the four groups except for some specific themes that were mentioned only by students or teachers. For example, while students highlighted the issues of equal treatment, respect for students’ privacy, stress resistance, age and gender, teachers placed considerable emphasis on the themes of calling and their socio-economic status as they related to their professional life. To facilitate comparisons, we combined some emergent sub-themes under thematic umbrellas. For example, when reflecting on professionalism, participants brought up the issues of comprehensive expertise, individual approaches to every child, creative and innovative teaching practices, competencies, qualifications and profound knowledge. Under moral qualities and manners, the participants named being well rounded, the ability to abstain from gossiping and insulting students, having a sense of humour. The respondents mentioned empathy in connection with the ability to understand, support, forgive, and create a positive climate in the classroom.

Rural and urban students’ perceptions of the ideal teacher

When comparing rural and urban educational perspectives we tried to test for a difference in views which reflected a variety of educational needs. Contrary to our expectations, students from rural and urban schools appeared to hold very similar perceptions of the ideal teacher. Our findings indicate that the majority of students from both student groups attributed to their ideal teachers such characteristics as kindness and understanding. The third most important quality differed: ‘being professional’ for the majority of rural students and ‘smart’ for urban students. These two characteristics, however, might be viewed as complementary. Our findings align with the view expressed by Murphy et al. (2004) that there is a widespread consensus among different educational communities regarding the qualities and attributes that define effective teaching.

Results from both the survey and essay were generally consistent. The students from both school settings reflected on the three most frequently mentioned themes in their essays, that is teacher professionalism, empathy, and equal treatment. However, in their essays, students referred to professionalism more often than in surveys. Also, in the essays, students elaborated extensively on the importance of equal treatment, emphasising its significance. For example, an urban student (US_10) stated that ‘[Ideal teachers] should treat everyone equally which is not the case for us – some of us are treated with disregard while others with a great deal of affection’. A rural student (RS_43) also mentioned that ‘Nowadays, there’s this differentiation in treatment between well off children and those not so much, and this is not right’. Students valued teachers offering equal and inclusive treatment to everyone regardless of students’ socio-economic background, cognitive and physical abilities. This finding supports the argument for teacher education models moving beyond competency-framed standards towards a model that is centred around such values as equity, inclusion and social justice (Purdy et al. 2023). Although in Russia, a shift towards more inclusion has only recently been initiated, inclusive practices in education have already gained significant support from government, parental agencies, and practitioners (Kosikova 2009; Maksimova 2018).

Being kind and understanding was ranked as the most important teacher characteristic by both student groups in the first part of the survey. These attributes can be regarded as constituents of ‘empathy’ which was the second most frequent essay theme. For example, an urban student (US_03) mentioned that ‘The ideal teacher should be a therapist who loves children. Should be able to listen to and help find a way out in various situations’. A rural student (RS_36) also stated that ‘[An ideal teacher] should meet their students halfway, be sociable and be able to support’. Empathy as an element of communication competence in school teachers (Rubin and Feezel 1986) alongside this, teachers’ attentive attitude to students was viewed as important and unique in the students’ perception of the teaching profession (Arnon and Reichel 2007). As empathetic teacher-student interaction has been shown to boost students’ engagement in learning (Cooper 2004), there appears to be a clear rationale for advancing the development of the concept of teachers’ empathy.

The attributes ‘smart’ and ‘professional’, ranked third in frequency in surveys and aligned with the most common theme in the essays, which was professionalism. For example, an urban student (US_03) described the ideal teacher as someone who ‘should find a creative approach to every child, should be able to motivate and help children fall in love with their subject, keep track of educational innovations and apply them in work’. A rural student (RS_40) points to the teacher’s professionalism-related traits saying that ‘the ideal teacher should not only help when needed but also maintain discipline when necessary. He/she should be genuinely interested in the work. The educational process should be creative and informative’.

Overall, the results suggest that students from both rural and urban areas did not see the ideal teacher as a reflective practitioner, a competent craftsperson, or a charismatic subject. In fact, their ideal teacher was constructed as a combination of these three discourses with an emphasis placed on the teachers’ moral qualities. The results support a rapidly evolving educational trend in post-modern societies that regards the teaching profession from a new angle. A traditional concept of the ‘teacher who knows’ is gradually being substituted by the model of the ‘teacher who cares’ (Arnon and Reichel 2007) placing the personality-related characteristics above professional competences. Although the idea of the caring teacher has been advanced since 1990s (Bosworth 1995), it acquires a new understanding now when the ‘Google generation’ challenges the concept of classroom education (Rowlands et al. 2008) and the traditional image of the ‘teacher who knows’ (Arnon and Reichel 2007). Student essay responses point at the significance of the top mentioned qualities which portrayed ‘the caring teacher’ (understanding, kind, non-indifferent, not angry, not rude, expressing empathy): ‘The ideal teacher should meet their students halfway, be sociable and be able to support’ (RS_36), and ‘The ideal teacher should be a real friend to children’ (US_11). This shifts the teacher’s role from primarily imparting knowledge to being a mentor guiding students through the learning process. This aligns with Moore’s (2004) argument that teachers need to be taught to enhance their professional expertise while engaging in reflective practices concerning their actions and foregrounding their enthusiasm.

Rural and urban teachers’ perception of the ideal teacher

In-depth data analysis showed rather unexpected results regarding rural and urban teachers’ self-evaluation and self-reflection. We did not expect any significant variations in the two groups of teachers and their self-perception as they had undergone the same standardised teacher training programs at universities. However, rural teachers perceived themselves as closer to the image of an ideal teacher than their urban colleagues. Besides, rural teachers, unlike urban teachers, listed three times fewer negative characteristics related to professional expertise while the number of positive characteristics was the same across the two groups. Rural teachers turned out to be more confident in their professional skills. The reasons behind this are open to debate, however, one possible explanation might be that rural teachers are less critical of themselves. This could be explained by the teacher shortage in rural areas. In Russia, rural areas are traditionally considered to be unattractive in terms of employment and related socio-economic development of the areas (Ziyatdinova 2010). School authorities often set the priority to attract and retain teaching staff, thus imposing fewer professional demands compared to the situation in high-performing urban schools (Valeeva and Kalimullin 2019).

Interestingly, teachers in our survey, for the most part, indicated attributes related to professional expertise. Their focus on professionalism provided evidence in support of our second assumption that there is a discrepancy in teachers and their students’ beliefs about the ideal teacher. The overall trend indicated that both students and teachers regard professional qualities as having more importance than personality-related qualities. At the same time, teachers referred more to the qualities that define them as a professional rather than simply a caring person. This underlines the central place of knowledge in traditional teacher preparation programs at universities educating teachers. For example, an urban teacher (UT_32) stated that ‘The ideal teacher is an educated specialist able to impart knowledge’. A rural teacher (RT_63) also mentioned that ‘The ideal teacher is a person of great service, highly qualified, well aware of teaching techniques’. Indeed, in Soviet Russia, the image of a teacher has traditionally been associated with a highly educated person with a remarkable breadth of knowledge (Kalimullin and Valeeva 2021). Admittedly, not all teachers in our sample obtained their teaching degrees during the Soviet times. However, it would still be fair to suggest that the image of a teacher who has extensive understanding about the world and sets the example to students regarding the morals is passed down to new pre-service teachers during their professional education.

At the same time, it is important to highlight that existing studies on teachers’ attitudes (Garmon 2004; Reddy et al. 2018) suggest that teachers’ personal attitudes influence their professional work even more than professional knowledge. When teachers’ personal views clash with professional knowledge, personal beliefs tend to outweigh pedagogical and subject content knowledge. Although Perkins (2012) suggests that teachers’ attitudes should be influenced by professional knowledge acquired by pre-service teachers already at university, our results suggest that the primary place seems to be accorded to teachers’ personal characteristics rather than the knowledge component as indicated by the students in our study. An apparent downward shift towards devaluation of the knowledge component among the modern teacher competences suggests placing additional emphasis on the personal component during teacher education programmes. This, however, by no means denies the importance of deep subject knowledge.

Limitations and future directions

One limitation of the study concerns the small number of teachers participating in the research compared to the number of students so, although they might be representative of one school, they cannot characterise a whole region or the country. Such a difference in the numbers of participating students and teachers stems from the study design. We invited only those teachers who worked with participating students on a regular basis. Another limitation is that all participating teachers were female. Such a gender imbalance occurred because the teaching force in Russia primarily consists of women. Also, male teachers in the participating schools declined the invitation to participate. One more limitation concerns participating teachers’ professional experience; this ranged from five to 36 years and from three to 44 years for rural and urban teachers respectively. While work experience must have influenced teachers’ self-perception, other studies delving more into the issue are necessary as in our study, we could not disentangle the impact of such factors as teacher burnout, changes in career track and others. Moreover, why different teacher and teaching qualities were selected by different groups is also an important issue that needs to be further explored.

Conclusion

The study did not set out to examine specific facets of teaching such as instructional performance, nor did it aim to focus only on either teachers’ personality or professional characteristics. Rather, we decided not to define the borders of students’ voices and let them freely express themselves sharing with us their comprehensive perceptions of the ideal teacher. This way, in this study we discovered that students across all characteristics reported similar views: the ideal teacher for them demonstrated professionalism and empathy. Students also indicated that they wanted their teachers to recognise that they were all different but equal. At the same time, teachers attributed the most value to professionalism and morality while additionally highlighting that teaching should be thought of as a calling or a mission in life.

Importantly, our goal was not to create a set of new indicators of quality that might inform a list of new prescriptive standards. These efforts would only lead to more performativity and seeming improvements along arbitrary indicators of teaching quality (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2023; Khanolainen 2019). Our aim was rather to enrich the current government-shaped vision of good education with students’ and teachers’ perspectives. Seeing that the students rather than teachers underscored the importance of teachers’ fairness, equal treatment and empathy points to important implications for teacher education. Indeed, considering that higher levels of perceived teacher and school fairness have been previously found to predict higher levels of students’ willingness to disclose instances of bullying (Eliot et al. 2010), as well as lower levels of student involvement in violence and a decreased probability of students carrying weapons to school (James, Bunch, and Clay-Warner 2015), we recommend bringing the issues of inclusion, equity and social justice to the foreground of the current teacher education system. This shift will ensure that teachers are equipped to effectively navigate the complexities of diverse classrooms and contribute to building a more just and equitable society through education (Purdy et al. 2023).

Ultimately, teachers’ fairness, equal treatment and empathy cannot be gauged easily by external observers nor mandated by educational standards. However, teachers need to be made aware of how important these issues are, and that their discussions with students and other teachers over what these concepts mean to different people and what aspects they include can foster more positive school relations and students’ school connectedness. Overall, our study has shown that students are rather perceptive and capable of providing valuable feedback. Moving forward, the education system must support teachers in deriving benefit from such feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).