Teachers’ closeness of professional relationship and its role in learning perception after reciprocal peer observation

Extant literature on reciprocal peer observation has reported teachers’ perception of positive effects on interpersonal relationships. However, pretest-posttest evidence is missing (first aim), and its role in teacher learning has not been examined (second aim). 364 teachers participated in this study. First, it provides pretest-posttest evidence of increased closeness of professional relationship, as well as exploratory teacher interpretations via group interviews. Educational stage might affect this increase. Second, it shows that, rather than initial closeness as a prerequisite, it is final closeness which significantly affects teacher learning perception. Statistical analyses also show the relevance of school time arrangement.