It is well known that scholastic performance dictates the way school-aged children view themselves, and their ability to succeed in the present and future. When students begin to make social comparisons against peers who yield greater performance success, he or she may begin to associate poor performance with lack of ability. In these situations, it is imperative that students are able to gain the motivation to work harder to succeed and disassociate low performance with a lack of aptitude. The academic self-concept has been found to affect motivation and performance in a school setting and is constantly being influenced by the student’s beliefs and attitudes on their performance in comparison to others (Schneider et al., 2012). When students gain a sense of competency, they may begin to set higher academic goals and achieve higher academic success. Therefore, it is essential that teachers are able to facilitate a classroom environment that boosts positive beliefs about academic skill amongst student’s alongside constructive feedback on performance to help him or her improve (Schneider et al., 2012).
Much of the time, the “system” of education as a whole is criticized. However, reform on a macro scale may take more time to achieve than focusing on micro components, like teachers, for improvement within education. Teacher effectiveness and teacher-student relationships have direct and immediate effects on student performance. Hence, why it is important to discuss how teaching style may influence student learning to achieve optimal performance and ability for all students in a given classroom.
The cornerstone of the learning environment is profoundly determined by the student-teacher relationship. The formation of personal and supportive student-teacher relationships often requires much emotional involvement from teachers. For students, the quality of the student-teacher relationship is a determinant for their school engagement, wellbeing, and academic success. It has been found that positive teacher-student relationships also benefit teachers and the classroom, as, it heightens an educators personal commitment to the student’s success (Spilt et al., 2011). It is also true that not all teachers feel responsible for improving their relationships with students, nor do they understand the positive effects relationships have on student motivation and outcomes (Spilt et al., 2011). According to the Academic-Risk Hypothesis, children at-risk include those with low socioeconomic status, or SES, ethnic minority status, and those with learning difficulties will be more significantly influenced by teacher-student relationships than normative students. A study by Roorda and collogues (2011) found support for this theory, specifically, that negative or conflictual relationships further deteriorated engagement and achievement for these disadvantaged groups with emphasis on those with learning difficulties. Sadly, this research coincides with the social psychological findings that teacher’s perceptions and expectations predict academic success more strongly for low achievers than high achievers (Schneider et al., 2012).
In addition, success in schools also depends largely on student’s abilities to engage in classroom learning tasks. There is a known association between the perceived classroom environment and student-engagement and motivation. Those perceptions students make directly affect their beliefs on their ability to complete school work which that influence his or her ability to engage in academic tasks. The classroom social environment has a large potential to change an adolescent’s personal beliefs about themselves and their potential, and therefore requires close consideration (Patrick et al., 2007). For instance, when students feel supported emotionally by their teacher, they are likely to engage more fully in their academic work and put forth more effort and are likely to have higher achievement. When student’s feel cared for by the teacher, it encourages them to invest in their material and to have a desire to comply with the teacher in a way that minimizes concerns that thwart learning (Patrick et al., 2007). This way, perceived teacher support may support intrinsic motivation and emphasize mastery goals. In addition, feelings of care, support, and encouragement from peers are important to facilitate participation in academic tasks by increasing confidence and improving distracting anxieties (Patrick et al., 2007).
Altogether, it is important that classrooms become less focused on the individual success of each specific student, and more concerned on improving the classroom relationship as a whole. A study by Patrick, Ryan, and Kaplan (2007) discovered that when students received emotional support from teachers and academic support from peers; personal motivation, mastery goals, and academic and social efficacy were heightened. This research emphasizes the influential power of the classroom environment. Therefore, it is plausible to conclude that student-teacher and student-student relationships should be collaborative, cooperative, adaptive, and supportive so the entire class may be able to thrive together. Unfortunately, if a classroom fails to achieve an optimal and equal level of support for all students, there is a great possibility or even certainty, that disadvantaged groups of at-risk students will suffer poorer academic achievement outcomes.
References
Patrick, H., Ryan, A. M., & Kaplan, A. (2007). Early adolescents’ perceptions of the classroom social environment, motivational beliefs, and engagement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(1), 83-98. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1037/0022-0663.99.1.83
Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., Spilt, J. L., & Oort, F. J. (2011). The influence of affective teacher-student relationships on students’ school engagement and achievement: A meta-analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81(4), 493-529. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.3102/0034654311421793
Schneider, F., Gruman, J., & Coutts, L. (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Spilt, J. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., & Thijs, J. T. (2011). Teacher wellbeing: The importance of teacher-student relationships. Educational Psychology Review, 23(4), 457-477. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1007/s10648-011-9170-y
The correlation between “Successful teachers, makes successful students” is quite interesting. Teacher are role models to most students in classrooms so one would assume that if the teacher is successful, the students would be too. What ways could a more successful teacher influence student success? More happy students will be more receptive to learning new things.
This was a really great post. Thinking back through my own academic career, especially in high school, I remember that I tended to do better in classes where the teacher was warmer, more involved, and actually tried to foster relationships with the students. While I was never a poor student, I got less enjoyment out of classes where the teacher was cold and aloof and all business. I also had much less motivation to do my work in those classes, even though I did still get it all done.
It reminds me of the “bloomers” experiment that our textbook talked about. I can’t remember exactly where it was in the book, but the gist of it was that teachers were given information about some randomly selected students and told that these kids had a lot of potential, and would really “bloom”. The teachers then lavished attention on these students and they ended up performing better than their peers on certain tests, all because the teacher believed they were more gifted and paid more attention to them. All we need is teachers to give all students this kind of connectedness and attention, and I bet we’d really see many more students being able to “bloom”.
Awesome post!
I read your title and a thought immediately popped up in my head: self-fulfilling prophecy. Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts (2012) actually discussed how self-fulfilling prophecies can influence the classroom in Chapter 9 of our textbook.
-The teacher may expect success from John, but poor performance from me.
-As a result, the teacher gives John more attention and support in the classroom than me.
-As a result, John gets better grades than me and the teacher’s preconceptions of John and I are reinforced.
This being said, I was happy to read that you believe the classroom should be motivated on the entire classroom’s success rather than just the individual because this could prevent any self-fulfilling prophecies. However, the question remains, how does one teacher motivate their entire classroom for success? I would imagine it is hard for a single teacher to focus on all 25+ students at once? One solution I can think of is multi-teacher classrooms or teacher+teaching assistant classrooms.
Michaelyn
Reference:
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2012). Applied Social Psychology. Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.