INTRODUCTION

Statement of the Problem

Race to the Top (RttT) initiatives have strongly focused on

measuring teacher effectiveness primarily using standardized test

scores. However, there is a large body of research that examines the

value of a teacher’s affective acumen when it comes to a teacher’s

effectiveness as an educator (Brophy, 1974; Baker, 1999; Crosnoe,

Johnson, & Elder, 2004; Grant & Rothenberg, 1986; Hamre, Pianta,

Burchinal, Field, Crouch, Downer, Howes, LaParo, Little, 2012;

Leder, 1987). An approach to accountability that includes a broader

range of measurement of effective classroom instructional practices

should include the relationships the teacher builds with her/his

students. Marzano (2003) studied the practices of effective teachers

and determined that “an effective teacher-student relationship may be

the keystone that allows the other aspects to work well” (p. 91).

The relationships that teachers develop with their students have

an important role in a student’s academic growth. Hallinan (2008)

writes “Learning is a process that involves cognitive and social

psychological dimensions, and both processes should be considered if

academic achievement is to be maximized” (p. 271).

The unbalanced reliance on test scores to determine success

does not provide an accurate accounting of all that goes into creating

an effective learning environment. Rothstein, Jacobsen, & Wilder

(2008) agreed saying, “it is surprising that so many education

policymakers have been seduced into thinking that simple quantitative

measures like test scores can be used to hold schools accountable for

achieving complex educational outcomes” (p. 27).

Meyer & Turner (2002) discussed their findings illustrating the

importance of students’ and teachers’ emotions during instructional

interactions. They determined that “through studying student-teacher

interactions, our conceptualization of what constitutes motivation to

learn increasingly has involved emotions as essential to learning and

teaching” (p.107). Their results provide support for further study of

the inclusion of interpersonal relationships in the instructional setting

and to what degree those relationships affect the students’ learning

environment. The quality of the relationship between a student and the

teacher will result in a greater degree of learning in the classroom

according to Downey (2008).

 CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

This chapter will provide a review of the literature on the

topic of building strong interpersonal relationships with students

and the effect that has on the learning environment. The

perspectives of a variety of disciplines will be discussed from an

historical viewpoint to current thinking on this topic.

Introduction

There is a great deal of literature that provides substantial

evidence that strong relationships between teachers and students are

essential components to the healthy academic development of all

students in schools (Birch & Ladd, 1998; Hamre & Pianta, 2001;

Pianta, 1999; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). This body of literature

involves several genres of research that have been conducted over

the past three decades investigating the interactions between

teachers and their students and what effect those interactions have

on learning. There is credible evidence that the nature and quality

of teachers’ interactions with children has a significant effect on

their learning (Brophy-Herb, Lee, Nievar, & Stollak, 2007; Curby,

LoCasale-Crouch, Konold, Pianta, Howes, Burchinal, …Oscar

2009; Dickinson & Brady, 2006; Guo, Piasta, Justice, &

Kaderavek, 2010; Howes, Burchinal, Pianta, Bryant, Early,

Clifford, & Oscar, 2008; Jackson, Larzelere, St. Clair, Corr,

Fichter, & Egertson , 2006; Mashburn, Pianta, Hamre, Downer,

Barbarin, Bryant, … Howes, 2008; McCartney, Dearing, Taylor, &

Bub, 2007; Pianta, Barnett, Burchinal, & Thornburg, 2009).

Educators, psychologists, social constructivists, and sociologists

 have all contributed to the growing interest in targeting

interventions toward improvements in the quality of teachers’

interactions with children. Hamre, Pianta, Burchinal, Field, Crouch,

Downer, Howes, LaParo, & Little, (2012) posit that “teachers need

to be actively engaged in interactions with children in order for

learning to occur” (p. 98).

However, in 2001 President Bush signed into law the No

Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that began the intense focus on

standardized testing as the measure of, not only student success, but

teacher performance as well. It mandated that every child would

perform at grade level and achieve high academic standards (U.S.

Department of Education, 2007). NCLB was intended as a means

of supervision for public schools in the United States with the

guarantee of success for all students regardless of race, gender, or

ability. High stakes testing is the vehicle through which student

achievement is measured according to NCLB and does not take into

account any other means for measuring student or teacher success.

As a result, the current educational climate emphasizes

school accountability through standardized test scores as the

primary method for determining an effective learning environment.

Federal, state, and local educational policy requires that schools and

classrooms should be held more responsible for the outcomes they

produce (e.g., student achievement). However, the process for

ensuring accountability rests on standardized testing of children,

typically starting in third grade (La Paro, Pianta, & Stuhlman,

2004). The focus on accountability and standardized testing should

not confuse the contribution that the social quality of teacher –

student relationships has on academic development (Hamre &

Pianta, 2006). Hamre & Pianta contend that strong student- teacher
relationships “provide a unique entry point for educators working to

improve the social and learning environments of schools and

classrooms” (p. 49).

I, too, believe there is an important role that the quality of

teacher and student interactions plays regarding student learning.

Hamre et al. (2012) hypothesized that “it was not sufficient for

teachers to be able to gain knowledge about effective teacher-child

interactions; they needed actual skills involving identification of

effective interactions with a high degree of specificity in order to be

most likely to transfer the coursework into changes in their

practice” (p. 98).

While researching the effects teachers have on student

learning, Good, Biddle, & Brophy (1976) determined that teachers do

make a difference. A large contribution to what brought about that

difference was the affective component to teaching that the teachers

used. Good et al. found that students who held a sense of futility

toward school had the worst achievement record. These students

needed teachers who believed in them and were willing to work with

them. Good et al. cite several studies by Aspy (1973) that

demonstrate the importance of teachers’ affective behavior. What

Good et al. found was that teachers who showed an interest in their

students by indicating they were listening to them and understood

students’ need completely and accurately, had students who obtained

higher scores on a standardized test of learning -- “the evidence was

impressive” (p. 371). The following review of the literature will

further reveal impressive evidence of the effect that teacher-student

relationships have on a child’s learning environment.

Constructivist Framework
 Constructivism is a theory of learning. As such, a

constructivist approach to learning sees the learning environment as a

“mini-society, a community of learners engaged in activity, discourse,

interpretation, justification, and reflection” (Fosnot, 2005; p. ix).

While constructivist theory of education indicates that knowledge is

constructed individually by the student, that learning occurs in a social

environment (classroom) with experiences that have been carefully

constructed by the teacher. In biological theorists’ terms, there is “an

active interplay of the surround (environment) to evolution and to

learning” (p. 11). The constructivist teacher encourages a

consideration of others’ points of views and a mutual respect,

allowing the development of independent and creative thinking. From

a constructivist perspective, meaning is understood to be the result of

individuals (in this case, teachers) “setting up relationships, reflecting

on their actions, and modeling and constructing explanations”

(Fosnot, p. 280).

Contemporary theorists and researchers’ beliefs have shifted

from isolated student mastery of concepts to ideas that real learning is

about interaction, growth, and development (Fosnot, 2005). New

information from the realm of cognitive science tells us that students

learn through progressive structuring and restructuring of knowledge

experience, “that deep conceptual learning is about structural shifts in

cognition; without exchange with the environment, entropy would

result” (p. 279). That knowledge is actively constructed is a pervasive

tenet of constructivist thinking. The way a teacher listens and talks to

children helps them become learners who think critically and deeply

about what they read and write (Fosnot, p. 102). By frequently

engaging with the student collaboratively, a teacher increases his/her

understanding of how a particular learner acquires knowledge and

 therefore becomes responsive to the learner’s needs.

Constructivist theorists DeVries & Zan (2005) write “the

preoccupation in most schools with subject matter content has led to a

situation in which affective development is negatively influenced” (p.

132). Ironically, they say this one-sided preoccupation has created a

Historical Context

In 1840, Mann said “the aptness to teach involves the power of

perceiving how far a scholar understands the subject matter to be

learned and what, in the natural order is the next step to take” (p.16).

According to him, the teacher must be intuitive and lead the minds of

his pupils to discover what they need to know and then supply them

with what they require (p.17).

Dewey (1938) said that as an educator, you need to be able to

discern what attitudes are conducive to continued growth and what are

detrimental, and use that relational knowledge to build worthwhile

educational experiences for students. He writes that “teachers are the

agents through which knowledge and skills are communicated and

rules of conduct enforced” (p.18) and, as such, it is the duty of the

teacher to know how to “utilize the surroundings, physical and social,

so as to extract from them all that they have to contribute” to building

up worthwhile educational experiences (p.40). He says that “all

human experience is ultimately social: that it involves contact and

communication” (p. 38).

Dewey believed the goal of educators is to create lifelong

learners. This is accomplished through the knowledge the educator

has of individuals that leads to social organizations providing all

students with the opportunity to contribute to something (p. 56).

Dewey says: “The principle that development of experience comes

about through interaction means that education is essentially a social

process” (p. 58).

Vygotsky (1978) believed that higher mental functionings are

socially formed and culturally transmitted. Cognitive development is

mediated through language dialogues between one who knows

(teacher) and one who is learning (student). Vygotsky posits that the

instructional message gradually moves from teacher-student dialogue

to inner speech where it organizes the student’s thought and becomes

an internal mental function. A skillful teacher could shape a student’s

thinking process through purposeful interaction – Vygotsky’s concept

of mediated development. According to Vygotsky, “learning awakens

a variety of internal development processes that are able to operate

only when a child is interacting with people in his environment and in

cooperation with his peers” (p. 90). Vygotsky viewed tests as an

inadequate measurement of a child’s learning capability; he thought

the progress in concept formation achieved by a child through

interaction with an adult was a much more viable way to determine

the capabilities of learners. His theory of the zone of proximal

development required this type of interaction between child and adult

in order for the child to come to terms with and understand the logic

of adult reasoning in order to learn new concepts. Vygotsky describes

the zone of proximal development as “the distance between the actual

developmental level and the level of potential development as

determined through problem solving under adult guidance” (p. 86).

In his seminal study, Jackson (1968) studied life in classrooms

and determined that “there is a social intimacy in schools that is

unmatched elsewhere in our society” (p. 11). According to Jackson,

the teacher is charged with managing the flow of the classroom

dialogue. In elementary classrooms, he writes, “teachers can engage

 in as many as one thousand interpersonal exchanges a day” (p. 11).

That being the case, the study of those interpersonal exchanges could

yield important information regarding the learning that results from

those interactions.

Perspectives on Teacher-Student Relationships

There is a diverse range of perspectives in the area of

interactions between teachers and students that have been researched

over the past few decades; however, they share several core

principles. What follows in this literature review is a sampling of

those perspectives as they relate to the effect teacher-student

interactions has on the learning environment including findings and

implications, organized by categories of researchers.

Educators Investigate:“What do positive teacher-student

relationships look like in the classroom?”

Downey (2008) conducted a study synthesizing educational

research on factors that affect academic success. The rationale for

the study was to examine classroom practices that made a

difference for all students, but in particular, for students at risk for

academic failure. What was determined was that a teacher’s

personal interaction with his/her students made a significant

difference.

The recommendations from Downey’s analysis were that

“students need teachers to build strong interpersonal relationships

with them, focusing on strengths of the students while maintaining

high and realistic expectations for success” (p. 57). These

interactive relationships should be based on respect, trust, caring,

and cohesiveness. A sense of belonging is another important

byproduct of a strong teacher-student relationship that is critical to

 a student’s success in school. Downey concludes by saying “the

study served as a powerful reminder that everyday teacher-student

interactions in the classroom matter” (p. 63).

Ravitch (2010) writes that “the goal of education is not to

produce higher test scores, but to educate children to become

responsible people with well-developed minds and good character”

(p. 227). She says that “accountability as it is now is not helping

our schools because its measures are too narrow and imprecise, and

its consequences too severe. NCLB assumes that accountability

based solely on test scores will reform American education. This is

a mistake” (p.163). Overemphasis on test scores to the omission of

other important goals of education may actually weaken the love of

learning and the desire to acquire knowledge (Ravitch, 2010). The

significance of the affective domain in determining effective

teachers and teaching practices is a component that the current

teacher evaluation system does not give enough credence to.

Student learning outcomes (measured by test scores) are

considered, overwhelmingly, to be the deciding determinant of a

highly effective teacher and a highly effective school.

Langer (1997) writes “if the source of information is someone

we respect, we are more likely to be influenced and retain the

information than if we view the source as untrustworthy” (p. 86).

Initial gathering of information relies on the source of the information.

“When we have learned information mindfully, we remain open to

ways in which information may differ in various situations” (p. 87).

In effect, by building solid relationships with students, teachers are

creating discriminating, as well as lifelong learners. Although, over

time, the source of the information may be forgotten, the information

received is retained (Langer, 1997).

 Cazden (2001) states that “children’s intellectual functioning, at

school, as at home, is intimately related to the social relationships in

which it becomes embedded. Familiarity facilitates responsiveness

which plays an important part in learning” (p.17). Cazden believes in

the importance of creating a learning environment that incorporates

building an affective interpersonal relationship with students.

Creating a learning environment that all the stakeholders are invested

in will have a positive impact on the learning that will take place. As

Cazden writes, “What counts are relationships between the teacher

and each student, as an individual, both in whole class lessons and in

individual seat work assignments. Now each student becomes a

significant part of the official learning environment” (p. 131).

Marzano (2003) suggests a useful question for anyone wishing

to understand factors that improve student achievement is to ask

“What influence does an individual teacher have on a student apart

from what the school does?” (p. 71). He indicates that all researchers

agree that the impact of decisions made by an individual teacher is far

greater than the impact of decisions made at the school level. Marzano

writes “the core of effective teacher-student relationships is a healthy

balance between dominance and cooperation” (p.49). Showing

interest in students as individuals has a positive impact on their

learning according to Marzano. McCombs & Whisler (1997) posit

that the need for the teacher to show a personal interest in their

students is vital to their learning.

All agree that the interaction between teacher and student has a

significant impact on student learning in the classroom.

Conclusion

The review of the literature shows the diverse disciplines of

researchers who have all investigated the effect that building a strong

teacher-student relationship has on the learning environment. While

the emphasis on test scores to determine effect teaching and learning

has been prevalent in the last decade due to NCLB (2001) and Race to

the Top (RttT) requirements, there is ample evidence from a number

of sources to indicate that building a strong relationship with students

also contributes greatly to a successful learning environment.

It is my belief that more research is needed to establish

practical application strategies that teachers can use to effectively

create a strong and successful relationship with their students. My

study addresses how this participant creates a purposefully designed

learning environment that has a positive effect on her students’

learning. This study participant uses the relationships she deliberately

creates with her students to enhance the learning environment.

Research Questions
The research questions guiding this study are:
1. What specific components to teacher and student interactions
are essential to a learning environment?
2. How do teachers describe their process for building
relationships with their student
3. In what ways do different teaching styles and approaches
influence the dynamics of student-teacher relationships, and how
does this impact student motivation and learning outcomes?
 A CASE STUDY OF STUDENT AND TEACHER
RELATIONSHIPS AND THE EFFECT ON
STUDENT LEARNING

Submitted by:Mike Bano

Submitted to:Sir Nimrod Paloma