According to scientific research, relationships with teachers affect the behavior and even educational results of elementary school students. Is there such a connection in the case of teenagers? After all, due to their age, warm, trusting relationships with teachers may no longer be important to them. Does it still affect their learning engagement and academic success? Let’s find out this in the article!
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How relationships between teachers and students change in high school
As children move from primary to secondary school, their learning context changes significantly. A team of researchers from China looked at the relationship between students and teachers, feelings of well-being, and academic performance in fourth and eighth graders and identified several important differences between these groups.
First, younger students develop a relationship with one teacher, while older students interact with multiple teachers throughout the day. Therefore, relationships between teachers and secondary school students tend to be less close than with children. Secondly, learning in primary school is focused on support and development under the guidance of a teacher, while in secondary school, learning becomes more intense, demands for results increase, and academic pressure increases. Thirdly, younger students are more susceptible to external influence and are easier to motivate and guide. Adolescents form their own ideas and attitudes, which are more difficult to influence from the outside. Rebellion against adults often plays a role – the desire to act contrary and test the boundaries of what is permissible. Does this mean that elementary school students and adolescents are affected differently by relationships with teachers?
The study found that fourth graders generally have better relationships with teachers than eighth graders. Younger students were more likely to report that they felt kindness and care from their teachers and were less likely to report conflict. However, among eighth-graders, trusting relationships with teachers develop mainly among those who study well.
Scientists also came to the conclusion that a good relationship with the teacher has a positive effect on student performance. And they found that this happens not only directly: good relationships increase the student’s sense of well-being. And this, in turn, improves their academic results. That is, a student who is satisfied with life, in general, is more willing to take the initiative, get involved in classes, and interact more productively with peers, and this helps them cope better with their studies. True, among fourth-graders, the feeling of well-being influences academic performance more than among eighth-graders.
How relationships affect engagement
Researcher Daniel Queen from the Australian Catholic University reviewed research to find out how relationships with teachers influence adolescents’ academic engagement.
For a long time, student engagement was measured solely by behavioral indicators—attendance and academic performance, disruptive behavior, and school dropout rates. Now, engagement is considered a multidimensional phenomenon, which also includes psychological indicators: emotional (how the student feels about school and education in general) and cognitive (whether they know learning strategies, whether they set educational goals, and so on).
The author of the review mentions studies that have proven that emotionally and cognitively involved students are less likely to truant and drop out of school, are less likely to use psychoactive substances and achieve greater success in their studies and future careers. At the same time, the indicators of adolescent engagement are influenced by many factors – not only school ones but also individual, family, and social ones, which interact in a complex system.
After analyzing the results of scientific works, Daniel Queen came to the conclusion that good relationships between teachers and students are indeed associated with increased psychological involvement and academic performance and reduced risk of destructive behavior and truancy. However, the researcher is in no hurry to call this relationship cause-and-effect and argue that by improving relationships with students, the teacher will increase their performance. According to Daniel Queen, it is wiser to consider that relationships contribute to student engagement, among other conditions of student development.
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Do relationship dynamics and engagement change as you get older?
It seems logical that as children get older and their social and emotional lives change and become more complex, their relationships with teachers become less and less meaningful. But is it true?
Researchers from the University of Amsterdam conducted a meta-analysis that confirmed the links between relationships with teachers, academic engagement, and academic performance. Good relationships improve academic performance both directly and indirectly through increased engagement. Conflicts or indifference also reduce academic performance. Interestingly, the overall sample of scientific papers showed that negative relationships have a weaker effect on engagement than positive ones. At the same time, longitudinal (lasting for several years) studies have demonstrated different dynamics. According to scientists, this can be explained by a cumulative effect – at first, conflicts with the teacher do not significantly reduce student engagement, but over time, if the relationship does not improve, the impact increases.
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