Running Head: TSRS IN A CLASSROOM

The Role of Teacher-Student Relationships in a Classroom

Michael Faust

Butler University
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INTRODUCTION

Every student in a classroom has a relationship with his or her teacher. Each relationship,

however, is entirely different from the next, as one student may converse frequently with his or

her teacher, while another may not see the care and concern that teachers so often give to their

students. No matter the depth of the relationship, they are relevant to students lives on several

levels: social functions, behavioral problems in the classroom, successful engagement with them,

and even their overall academic achievements (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011). In this

paper, the role that teacher-student relationships (which Roorda et al. label TSRs, for short) play

in the lives of students and the environment of classrooms is explicitly investigated. The

hypothesis about these TSRs, which the following literature reviews will demonstrate and

support, is that teachers who build positive TSRs will see an increase in classroom engagement,

better and more individualized assessment feedback given to students, and general trend of more

motivation [and therefore academic performance] from students.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In an article written by Lee and Schallert, of Texas University at Austin, the role of

feedback in building relationships in an ENL classroom was discussed. Their study showed that

TSRs flourished on both teacher and student sides when the teachers gave positive feedback. If

teachers showed care and concern, they argued, and they possessed a genuine desire to help, the

students would grow closer to teachers, and the students would reciprocate the same care and

concern for their teachers. The two professors explain it in the words of Noddings, saying:

In a caring encounter, the one-caring meets the cared-for with full attention,

engrossment, and receptivity and gives primary attention to the wants, goals, and needs of
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the cared-for, even if only momentarily. The cared-for, consciously or unconsciously,

perceives the one-caring as good, which becomes a motivation for the cared-for to

continue to strive to accomplish a worthy goal (as cited in Lee & Schallert, 2008).

But, as they came to the conclusions of their study, they realized that if one party does not

reciprocate that care, the TSR suffers, and therefore so does motivation. Lee & Schallert explain,

in a few cases there was reason for either a student or the teacher not to trust the other and

the relationship between teacher and student seemed consequently to suffer (Lee & Schallert,

2008). Thus, their conclusions supported the hypothesis of this paper, as they discussed directly

how TSRs could affect both motivation in and engagement with the students. One issue with

their study, however, is that it only took into account one classroom. Thus, the sampling size was

small, and may have different results if the study was to be replicated.

Next, in Klem and Connells (2004) article, they discussed the benefits that a caring

environment has on a school system, from the perspective of heightened engagement levels to

raised test scores. Drawing upon over forty other researchers conclusions, they introduced ideas

as to what is needed for students motivation and engagement to rise, citing specific feelings of

belongingness, positive attitudes, and a general relevance of material to daily life as ways

students will fit in best (Klem & Connell, 2004). Their study further peered into how teacher

support and engagement, signs of positive TSRs, affected the educational gains students were to

attain. The conclusion that Klem and Connell came to was that students who perceive teachers

as creating a caring, well-structured learning environment in which expectations are high, clear,

and fair are more likely to report engagement in school, which in turn predicts higher

attendance and test scores, and, therefore, academic achievement and success (Klem et al.,
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2004). Their longitudinal study was well done; results, however, would be hard to replicate

quickly as they take an immense amount of time to collect.

Third, an article by Brookhart and Durkin (2003) continued the discussion of motivation.

They sought to better understand the relationship between assessment and motivation of

students, discussing first the purpose of the assessments being used. Then, after their main

discussion, they came to the conclusion that when assessment was done in an appropriate and

purposeful way, the reactions of students tended to be more positive towards the approach tried

by the teacher. The authors also discussed classroom assessment events, or the expectations

that teachers, intentionally or not, that are put on students when the students understand that their

knowledge will be assessed. These events, they argued, could change how students became

motivated within the classroom for basic knowledge. Different types of assessments, ranging

from multiple-choice tests to general check-ups, would either positively or negatively affect

the students learning strategies and motivation/desire to learn. Realizing the correlation between

these specific types of assessments and motivation, they offered suggestions to teachers such as

[allowing] students to easily feel ownership of the task, designing assessment tasks that are

clearly important and worth working for, and designing assessment tasks that students clearly see

they can accomplish with reasonable effort (Brookhart & Durkin, 2003), which in turn may

improve the overall atmosphere of the classroom, especially since teachers would then know

what would work best for students. The results that Brookhart and Durkin came up with support

the presented hypothesis in this paper, but in a symbiotic relationship between

assessment/feedback and TSRs. Knowing what works well for students when it comes to

feedback, as Brookhart and Durkin alluded to, helps build better relationships as teachers can

cater to each students wants and needs. Likewise, when teachers have positive relationships
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with students, similar to situations described in Lee and Schallert (2008), and they know what

each student needs, they are able to give assessment events in which the students are set up for

success, causing the TSR to flourish.

The fourth piece of literature reviewed in the research process of this paper was an article

by Petersen (of University of Wisconsin- Madison), Marx (Simon Fraser University), and Clark

(Michigan State), in which the three looked into how teacher preparation affected student

achievement. Unlike most other studies done in this literature review, they took random people

on the campus of Stanford University, asked them to be students, and then observed how certain

teachers would prepare to give the random populations lessons. Then, they were able to observe

tangible outcomes from the experiment, as each student took exit exams on each of the three

days in the experiment. A conclusion Petersen et al. came to revolved around the idea that

inadequate teacher preparation would affect student engagement, and therefore achievement, as

they explained, Teacher planning statements should be highly related to classroom

behaviorduring a lesson (Petersen, Mark, & Clark, 1978). Thus, if teachers were not

adequately prepared, taking into consideration all aspects of the classroom, students, subject

matter, etc., then the students would become disengaged, and the TSRs would suffer as a result.

But, in research done by a group of professors from University of the Sunshine Coast, in

Slippy Downs, Australia, a new idea for types of feedback benefiting TSRs emerged. The

strategy, known as written, reflective, and dialogic feedback, or WRDF, directly confronts the

problems that feedback of other forms can present, such as how in general feedback should be

influenced by student expectations and their resulting engagement (Crimmins, Nash, Oprescu,

Liebergreen, Turley, Bond, & Dayton, 2014); or, how feedback should include reasoning for

point reduction, and evidence that there is support for students in their future endeavors of that
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specific course, other courses, and even careers. The process, Crimmins et al. argue, makes

feedback a dialogue, which in turn encourages a personal student-teacher interaction that could

change relationships in a classroom. Their study was done in regards to post-secondary education

feedback, but still is applicable to high school, if not the middle school and elementary levels.

One way they could make their arguments stronger in the future would be to replicate the same

exact research at elementary, middle, and secondary levels, ensuring the type of feedback would

produce similar student-based results.

Next, in a non-scholarly, experience-based article on the teacher-development website

Edutopia, Taylor Meredith (2015) introduced another important feedback strategy, similar to

WRDF, using dialogue as a tool in feedback, a possibility resulting from positive TSRs. The

strategy, called student feedback loops, pushes learning further through specifically targeted

feedback, then a discussion of the primary feedback, a revision period, and finally a reflection

period (Meredith 2015). Another strategy called The Heart and the Brain, used within the

feedback loop process, allows students to write something that they enjoy and connect to- i.e. the

heart, and something they think may need revision- i.e. the brain (Meredith 2015). In turn, this

gives the teacher feedback about what students are thinking, believing, and working on

throughout the process, and offers the educator a window into the caring and concern-filled

environments that build positive TSRs (fitting in with Lee et al.). While this is not scholarly-

based, Meredith suggests she has conducted her own research by using the methods successfully

in her own classroom.

The seventh article, by Martin and Dowson, discussed the various implications that

educational theories have on student success, engagement, and motivation. Furthermore, they

looked at how the relationships affected students personal lives, overall, how important they are
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to students, and what they mean developmentally for student. In these relationships, Martin et al.

explained, students experience higher motivation, as well as generally positive yields in their

academic work. Their final conclusion stated that TSRs are cornerstones of young peoples

capacity to function effectively in social, affective, and academic domains (Martin & Dowson,

2009), encompassing all aspects of a students life. This supports this papers hypothesis through

showing the general outcomes of positive TSRs: positive engagement, motivation, achievement,

which all, therefore, carry over to other, broader aspects of the students lives.

The final article by a group of Amsterdam-based researchers was the original source of

the acronym TSRs. The team led by Roorda discussed the various moving parts that

contribute to positive TSRs, and what the outcomes of these beneficial relationships are. One of

the most interesting conclusions, however, was in discussing to whom TSRs matter the most,

saying TSRs were more important for children who were academically at risk, in particular for

children from disadvantaged economic backgrounds and children with learning difficulties

(Roorda et al., 2011). For these students, in particular, the relationships were so crucial because

they provided new ways of engagement, student motivation, and therefore success, which the

students may not have experienced before in the same way. Engagement (in the way Klem et al.

discussed it) and the preparation by the teacher (similar to Petersen et al.s discussion) both play

into TSRs as large factors for success, which the conclusions by Roorda et al. explicitly support,

and therefore support the hypothesis of this paper.

DATA COLLECTION

The procedures used in the data collection were interviews, e-mail surveys, and

observations taken from classrooms over a six-week period at Central High School. One

interview was conducted with Ms. Gates, a veteran Humanities teacher, asking questions (below)
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specified toward TSRs and feedback. These same questions were asked in an e-mail survey,

which garnered one response from Mr. Johnson, a teacher with nearly five years experience.

Included in Mr. Johnsons response was a section of scholar responses, in which he gathered

answers from students to research their viewpoints on the same questions asked of him. The six

questions used were:

1. How many years of experience do you have?

2. In your view as a teacher, what are the most crucial parts to building positive

relationships with students?

3. How does building positive relationships with students affect performance and

motivation in the classroom?

4. What kind of feedback helps motivate student learning and interest?

5. In assessment, does it help to give feedback that is specified to individual students

wants, personality, and interests (such as specified comments on papers and tests)?

6. What correlation, if any, do you see between feedback in assessment and teacher-student

relationships?

The entirety of the data was collected from and at Central High School, which incorporates an IB

curriculum for the majority of its students. Both the school and its teachers included in the study

have been protected by use of pseudonyms, in order to best maintain their anonymity.

FINDINGS

TSRs Affect Engagement

The first assertion that can be made from the findings is that TSRs positively affect

engagement in a classroom setting. For example, a basketball player for the school, who believed
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that he was heading to the NBA at some point in his career, was sitting in Ms. Gatess classroom.

Most days, as I observed multiple times, he had his head down, not paying attention, tuning out

the entire classroom and the lessons contained within it. Ms. Gates mentioned to me that upon

multiple occasions, he walked in late to class, did not turn in homework, and did not care about

anything. When I asked her how she dealt with this, she told me it all goes back to the

relationship. She said that when she confronts a student about missing homework or tardiness,

she has to tap into their personal lives and their own stories. She asked the student when you

play basketball, do you show up three minutes late to the game? Perplexed, the student asked

for clarification regarding the question. Ms. Gates answered him, you showed up three minutes

late to my class, and this is the game. Your coach would not let you hop into the game if youre

late, will he? The student understood and heeded the warning. If it was not for the relationship

Ms. Gates built over the course of three semesters with the students, the basketball player might

not have respected what his teacher had to say. With mutual interest in relationships comes

mutual respect, and in that understanding students see that teachers have their best interests in

mind, rather than interest in only punishment.

When asking for more effort from students in classroom discussion, Mr. Johnson noted

that it is nearly impossible without first building relationships. He wrote that many of my

scholars come in with a lot of baggage I have found that if you do not develop some sort of

positive relationship, they will not be willing to make the sacrifice to do more. Additionally,

honesty in the TSR plays a crucial role in engagement, as students need to know their teachers

are human and have human tendencies, such as making mistakes, Mr. Johnson said. He

mentioned how students do not appreciate being talked down to, as that respect, honesty, and

openness from the TSRs mean everything to the students, specifically when it comes to staying
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engaged and interested in the classroom. While the majority of students feel this way, one

scholar mentioned how there was nothing a teacher can say or do that will affect her behavior,

showing how evidence supports TSRs for the majority of students, but not all.

TSRs Affect Assessment and Feedback

A second assertion that can be made from the data collected is that TSRs positively

affect the assessment and feedback given to students in a classroom. When these TSRs are

present in a classroom, assessment becomes more personalized to students, and therefore the

feedback given does the same. Having a clear rubric for assignments, Mr. Johnson said, can

allow students to be set up for success. When they do not succeed, though, Ms. Gates explained

how she could be prepared to assist the students in creating better work the next time. Both

teachers pointed to how constructive feedback works best; specifically, according to Ms.

Gates, where a student can improve matters and helps more than what a student did wrong.

A simple statement starting with heres the part you were doing really well, and I can see how

you did that, but can go a long way in allowing the student to improve him or herself. Gates

argued that this is strictly a result of positive TSRs, saying if there is no relationship, the

feedback is not going to help them with anything or go through. Additionally, feedback helps

even more when a teacher can show students what they need to work on individually for

application in their daily lives. Ms. Gates gave an example, suggesting that saying something

such as this is where I see you now, and this is where you could be can change a students

mindset from negative to a more proactive and positive one.

Both Ms. Gates and Mr. Johnson suggested that there are many things teachers can do in

assessment and feedback that will benefit the TSRs, too. Ms. Gates pointed out that getting

[assignments] back fast to students helps with gaining respect from the students, showing that
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the hard work given by the students was met with hard work by the teacher. Thus, when the

students are treated evenly and fairly, their respect for the teacher rose, and they became eager to

receive feedback from the teacher about what more they could do. Mr. Johnson suggested that

reflecting upon [ones] methodological approach would help grow TSRs, also, as it [ensures

that the teachers] techniques meet the needs of the scholars, which therefore allows respect for

the teacher by the students to grow further in the classroom. When the techniques and feedback

are helpful, as some students suggested, it sets those students up for success in the future, and

when they see that, they feel that the TSRs positively grow even more.

TSRs Affect Motivation and Performance

The final assertion that can be made from the collected data is that TSRs affect the

general motivation and performance of students, both within and outside of the classroom. While

teachers have their reasons to believe this to be true, what students have to say may matter more.

One student discussed how his or her work ethic changed in classes where positive TSRs are

present: when I have a positive relationship with a teacher, I try harder on [his or her] work than

the teachers [with whom] I have a negative relationship. Another student said having a teacher

care more is a motivation. They will help me try to understand the content more than teachers

[with whom] I have a negative relationship. Thus, when the students feel a personal connection

to their learning, they begin to work harder in those classes.

Ms. Gates, however, offered insight into just why TSRs matter more at a school such as

Central. She spoke about her experience at a school with minimal poverty, saying a positive

relationship doesnt change students motivation because they already have that intrinsic value

for education. Central High School, however, is different because Some parents dont see

the value in education because they had a bad experience. Ms. Gates explained that many
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parents have a hard time buying into the school system, especially when they themselves often

failed to attain a college, or even a full high school, level of education. But, the goal in the

classroom, she explained, should revolve around building the family up by creating positive

relationships with the students, who then can look to their teachers as role models, bringing that

sense of leadership back to their family circles. When the students see this aspect of their

education, their motivation increases within the walls of the school building, allowing an overall

positive learning environment to be created.

CONCLUSION & FUTURE STUDY

In order to fully grasp the effect of teacher-student relationships in the classroom, this

study should be expanded out from one school and two teachers. While the school and teachers

gave good and credible data, many exceptions to the above assertions lie present in the study,

and they should be sought out and clarified in future studies. Furthermore, limitations to the

study arose from time constraints, lack of responses to the given survey, and failure to attain

multiple student perspectives, none of which should take away from the presented data. Despite

these limitations and possible errors within the research, the effects of TSRs showed to be only

positive within the classroom. Students must feel accepted and cared for within a classroom,

because without those feelings, what is being taught may become irrelevant.
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References:

Brookhart, S. M., & Durkin, D. T. (2003). Classroom Assessment, Student Motivation, and

Achievement in High School Social Studies Classes. Applied Measurement in

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Crimmins, G., Nash, G., Oprescu, F., Liebergreen, M., Turley, J., Bond, R., & Dayton, J. (2014).

A Written, Reflective and Dialogic Strategy for Assessment Feedback that can Enhance

Student/Teacher Relationships. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(1),

141-153. doi:10.1080/02602938.2014.986644.

Klem, A. M., & Connell, J. P. (2004). Relationships Matter: Linking Teacher Support to Student

Engagement and Achievement. Journal of School Health, 74(7), 262-273.

doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2004.tb08283.x.

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http://www.jstor.org/stable/40071168.
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Meredith, T. (2015, May 15). Starting Student Feedback Loops. Edutopia. Retrieved from

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Peterson, P. L., Marx, R. W., & Clark, C. M.,\ (1978). Teacher Planning, Teacher Behavior, and

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Teacher-Student Relationships on Students' School Engagement and Achievement: A

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