A positive relationship with a teacher at an early age may help children feel more engaged in school, but not necessarily in the long term, new research shows.
The finding comes from a University of Cambridge study of more than 3,600 young people in Australia, using data collected at various points between the ages of eight and 15. Students’ levels of school engagement, that is, their interest in school and their willingness to learn. — fluctuated during this period, especially during the crucial transition from primary to secondary education.
While representations of teaching in popular culture sometimes imply that a teacher can transform a student’s school career, the study’s results suggest that patterns of student engagement are more nuanced and likely require sustained effort. and collective to build positive relationships between both teachers and students and students and their peers.
The study found that any long-term effects of students having a strong relationship with their teacher at the beginning of elementary school were slight at best. Rather, the finding implies that every teacher can potentially make a positive difference in a student’s engagement and sense of well-being in school, regardless of how disengaged they may have felt in the past, because that engagement is constantly prone to change. .
The study was led by Ioannis Katsantonis, a doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education.
“Even if a teacher works incredibly hard to help a child in elementary school, that doesn’t necessarily mean that five or 10 years later they will find a student who is settled, happy, and engaged in learning,” he said. “Some aspects of student engagement remain stable, but there is also a lot of fluctuation. This is particularly true during the transition from elementary to middle school.”
Relatively few studies have explored how student engagement develops during early adolescence. However, some who have done so suggest that in the early years of high school, student engagement levels often decline.
The Cambridge study sought to understand more about how these participation patterns change. It also examined the extent to which they are linked both to students’ previous interactions with teachers in elementary school and to their sense of “belonging” in secondary school: the extent to which they feel accepted, included, and respected by both teachers and by classmates.
The study data comes from a sample of 3,643 participants in the “Growing up in Australia” study, a long-term project that follows the development of thousands of people born in Australia between March 1999 and February 2000.
This includes survey-based information on participants’ school engagement levels, collected when they were 10/11 years old, at the end of primary school; and when they were 12/13, at the beginning of high school. It also contains measures of school belonging at ages 12/13, and information from teacher surveys, which measure the strength of their relationships with the same students at an earlier stage, when they were eight or nine years old.
Additionally, the researchers examined whether engagement affects later academic performance, using scores on the Australian National Assessment Programme: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests, taken when the students were 14/15 years old.
Overall, the researcher found that between the ages of 10/11 years and 12/13 years, the students could be grouped into three fairly clear groups: those who were “mostly disengaged”, those who seemed “moderately engaged”, and those who They were “very committed.” A substantial proportion, 15%, were mostly disengaged by age 10/11, and this figure increased slightly to 18% when they started secondary school. Boys were more likely to be in this group than girls.
However, what is most surprising is that many students moved to different groups between the two moments. About 43% of students who were mostly disengaged at age 10/11 changed groups when they were 12/13; 34% of the moderately engaged group and 49% of the highly engaged students also changed categories. This shows that participation fluctuates considerably between primary and secondary school.
There was no evidence that any significant positive effect on engagement resulting from students having a strong bond with their teacher at age eight or nine persisted as they grew older. In fact, the study found that this had no impact on student engagement at ages 10/11, and only a very weak effect on preventing disengagement at ages 12/13.
However, a general sense of belonging within the school community at age 12 or 13 was strongly linked to greater engagement at the same age. In other words, when students feel respected and valued not only by their teachers, but also by their peers, they are more likely to show greater positivity and engagement.
The study also provides evidence that students who feel more engaged at the beginning of high school experience long-term academic benefits. Those who fell into the moderate or high engagement categories at ages 12 or 13 generally performed better on standardized arithmetic, writing, and spelling tests two years later.
This relationship between engagement and academic outcomes points to the need to ensure that the relational “school climate”—an umbrella term that refers to the respect, values, and relationships that define students’ experiences at school—is consistently positive and inclusive, Katsantonis said. .
“One of the most important things to understand about young people’s school commitment is that continuity is not guaranteed,” he added. “Teachers are very important to children, but they are important at every stage. Continuous and consistent attention to the school environment is vital.”