How Can We Improve Teacher-Student Relationships?
Summary and review of:
Gottfried, Robinson, Scott. (2019). Taking It to the Next Level: A Field Experiment to Improve
Instructor-Student Relationships in College.
AERA Open
January-March 2019, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 1–15
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2332858419839707
Transcript:
Nearly 50% of all undergraduates in the United States do not graduate. This study suggests the improvement of instructor-student relationships as an effective means of decreasing this percentage. Instructors and students were both surveyed comprehensively on their personal lives, community involvement, and preferences regarding student-teacher interactions. Students and instructors with commonalities were then paired and continuously reminded of their commonalities, asked brief questions about the details behind their answers, and information on how they might use these similarities to foster meaningful interactions throughout the semester.
These interventions did not increase student retention or exam scores, and did not decreased drop-out rates within the group of study. However, the exploratory analyses involved in the study provide evidence that instructors tend to report more positive relationships with high-achieving students, and that a given student is more likely to report a positive ISR (instructor-student relationship) than the instructor involved.
As an aspiring high school educator, maintaining positive instructor-student relationships is paramount to my work. This article encourages me to take care in how I handle and display these interactions, in order that I treat students with equal respect and value, providing each student with the academic challenge and guidance needed for the thriving of each individual student.
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