Predicting Early Student-Teacher Relationships

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Predicting Early Student-Teacher Relationships

• Kathleen Cranley Gallagher
• Kirsten Kainz
• Kelley Mayer
• Lynne Vernon-Feagans
• Targeted Reading Intervention Network
• National Research Center for Rural Educational
  Support
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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The Problem

• Student-teacher relationships are important for
  childrens academic success and social competence
  in school (Hamre Pianta, 2001 Peisner-Feinberg
  et al., 2001 Pianta, Steinberg, Rollins,
  1995).
• Less is known about characteristics and processes
  involved in the quality of relationships between
  students and teachers.
• Virtually no research has examined these issues
  with populations of students and teachers living
  in rural communities.
• Furthermore, little is known about the mechanisms
  associated with the development of
  teacher-student relationships over the course of
  the school year.

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Theory suggests

• According to an ecological perspective, daily
  interpersonal interactions (proximal processes)
  drive the childs development and may mediate the
  influence of child and context on outcomes over
  time
• (Bronfenbrenner Morris, 1998).

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Context The Targeted Reading Intervention

• National Research Center for Rural Education
  Support (NRCRES) longitudinal study of children
  and teachers in rural settings
• RCT intervention for teacher professional
  development, targeting children identified as
  struggling readers
• Teachers work with individual struggling readers
  using a diagnostic/prescriptive approach to
  reading instruction
• Present study includes only control schools

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Predicting student-teacher relationships

• Child and teacher characteristics

• Processes

• Gender
• (Birch Ladd, 1997 Hamre Pianta, 2001
  Kesner, 2000 Murray Murray, 2004).
• Ethnicity
• (Hughes et al., 2005 Hughes Kwok, 2007 Saft
  Pianta, 2001 Murray Murray, 2004).
• Teaching experience
• (Mashburn, Hamre, Downer, Pianta, 2006).

• Behavior
• (Howes, Hamilton, Matheson, 1994).
• Reading abilities
• (Foorman Torgesen, 2003).

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Research Questions Predicting closeness and
conflict

• How are child and teacher characteristics
  associated with teachers perspectives of the
  student-teacher relationship over the course of
  the school year, beyond teachers early
  perspective of the relationship?
• Child Gender
• Child Ethnicity
• Teachers years experience in the classroom
• Do child-classroom processes mediate the
  association child and teacher characteristics on
  teachers perspectives of the relationship?
• Student problem behavior
• Student reading abilities

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Participants

• 2 rural school districts
• 20 teachers
• Female
• 2/3 White 1/3 African-American
• 199 kindergarten and 1st grade students
• 48 boys
• 31 White 46 African-American 17 Native
  American 6 Other
• 50 below grade level in reading

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Measures

• Maternal education.
• Child demographics gender and ethnicity
  (minority status).
• Teacher experience.
• Child behavior. The Classroom Behavior Inventory
  (Schaefer, Edgerton, Arson, 1977)
• Child reading abilities. Letter-Word
  Identification(WJTA, III) (Woodcock, Mather,
  Schrank, 2004)
• Student-Teacher Relationship. Student Teacher
  Relationship Scale - Short Form (Pianta, 2001)

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Descriptives
Variable N Mean Std Dev Minimum Maximum
Percent of Students Considered Below Grade Level in their Entering Skills 199 0.47236 0.50049 0 1.00000
Fall Closeness 189 4.32804 0.64753 2.12500 5.00000
Spring Closeness 182 4.47655 0.58193 2.37500 5.00000
Fall Conflict 189 4.25208 0.87125 1.00000 5.00000
Spring Conflict 182 4.25798 0.87946 1.42857 5.00000
Teacher Years Experience 193 15.23057 11.80164 0.50000 33.00000
Percent of Male Students 199 0.47739 0.50075 0 1.00000
Percent of Students from an Ethnic or Racial Minority Group 199 0.61307 0.48828 0 1.00000
Fall CBI Mean Score 189 3.55531 0.74974 1.33333 5.00000
Letter Word ID Grade Standardized Score 195 112.23590 10.14410 85.00000 146.00000
Mothers Years of Education 187 12.95187 1.98186 8.00000 18.00000
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Analytic Procedures

• Series of mixed models (SAS PROC MIXED)
• Model 1 estimated the quality of the
  student-teacher relationship at the end of the
  school year as a function of the quality at the
  beginning of the school year.
• Model 2 addressed whether student gender and
  minority status, and years of teacher experience
  accounted for change in the student-teacher
  relationships over the year, controlling for
  maternal education.
• Model 3 examined whether child behavioral and
  literacy competence
• 1) accounted for change in student-teacher
  relationships, and
• 2) mediated the relation between student and
  teacher characteristics and change in the
  student-teacher relationship.

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Predicting closeness

• Teachers reports of close relationships with
  their students in spring were predicted only by
  Model 1, relationship closeness in fall.
• No child or teacher characteristics in Models 2
  or 3 were associated with change in
  student-teacher closeness across the academic
  year, beyond initial reports of closeness.

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PredictingStudent Teacher Closeness
Model 1 Model 1 Model 1 Model 2 Model 2 Model 2 Model 3 Model 3 Model 3
Effect Coefficient Standard Error P Value Coefficient Standard Error P Value Coefficient Standard Error P Value
Fall Closeness 0.5116 0.05929 lt.0001 0.5261 0.06767 lt.0001 0.4934 0.07136 lt.0001
Mother Education 0.009587 0.01773 0.5895 0.007212 0.01795 0.6885
Male -0.00653 0.06982 0.9256 0.02136 0.07232 0.7681
Child Minority 0.04238 0.07399 0.5677 0.04596 0.07481 0.5400
Teacher Years Experience 0.001962 0.005251 0.7093 0.002566 0.005258 0.6263
Behavior 0.05691 0.06136 0.3553
Reading skills 0.002488 0.004276 0.5617
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Predicting Conflict

• Teachers reported more conflict with boys and
  students from racial and ethnic minorities at the
  end of the year, even after controlling for
  initial conflict levels with these students.
• With the addition of childrens behavior and
  reading skills in the model, gender was no longer
  was significant

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Student-Teacher Conflict
Model 1 Model 1 Model 1 Model 2 Model 2 Model 2 Model 3 Model 3 Model 3
Effect Coefficient Standard Error P Value Coefficient Standard Error P Value Coefficient Standard Error P Value
Fall Conflict 0.7091 0.05812 lt.0001 0.6662 0.06296 lt.0001 0.4542 0.07229 lt.0001
Mother Education 0.01290 0.02414 0.5939 0.01826 0.02275 0.4236
Male -0.2246 0.09519 0.0197 -0.1221 0.09136 0.1837
Child Minority -0.3305 0.1008 0.0013 -0.3047 0.09408 0.0015
Teacher Years Experience 0.006094 0.006383 0.3415 0.008704 0.006236 0.1651
Behavior 0.4443 0.09078 lt.0001
Reading skills -0.00897 0.005538 0.1077
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Formal test of mediation (Pituch, Stapleton,
Kang, 2006)
Student-teacher relationship
Gender
c

• ab ? 0
• (-.16 95 C.I. .30, -.04)

b
Student problem behaviors
a
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Discussion

• Relational conflict may be more operant (than
  closeness) in the childs experiences and
  competence in school.
• Boys may have a relationship disadvantage in
  early education, in that teachers perceived more
  conflict in their relationships with boys than
  with girls. However, we expanded on previous
  studies, accounting for mediating processes
  implicated in boys disadvantage.
• Children of Color may have a relationship
  disadvantage in early education the mechanisms
  for which remain unclear.

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Implications Gender

• Boys may be particularly susceptible to the
  influence of their relationships with teachers.
• Girls demonstrated more relatedness to teachers
  than boys. However, the association between
  relatedness to teachers and academic engagement
  was stronger for boys, such that boys benefitted
  more from good relationships with teachers
  (Furrer Skinner, 2003).
• We need to learn more about being ready for
  boys in our classrooms how can we improve
  relationships and engagement?

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Implications Ethnicity

• Since ethnic minority students may reap more
  academic benefits than White students from
  positive relationships with teachers (Burchinal,
  Peisner-Feinberg, Pianta, Howes, 2002)
• We need to investigate mechanisms that account
  for teachers perceptions of relationship
  conflict with ethnic minority students.
• It is no stretch to imagine that the
  sociocultural mismatch between White teachers and
  children of Color leads to relationship
  challenges that teachers are ill-prepared to
  address (Ladson-Billings, 1994).
• We need to examine teachers beliefs about the
  cultures and families of the children they teach,
  and how teachers beliefs may impact their
  perceptions of and relationships with racial and
  ethnic minority children.

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Future directions

• Teacher-student match
• Broader understanding of relationship quality
• Student perceptions
• Observed interactions

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Special thanks

• TRI Research Team
• Teachers and students of the TRI study