Sharing My Plan and Progress

Action Research Project
Teacher-Student Relationships: The Effect on Student Learning and Discipline Occurrences
Background Information Throughout my career, I have witnessed the effectiveness of a positive teacher-student relationship wherein it resulted in fewer office referrals and, more importantly, higher student achievement. It seems that many times the hardest working teacher on the campus is actually less effective than some of the other teachers who seem to be working almost effortlessly. The hardest working teacher spends many more hours working on grading and planning, but still has a higher failure rate and highest number of referrals. The other teacher who seems to be working without much extra time spent after school and far fewer office referrals has a higher success rate in student achievement. What is the correlation?

Design of the Inquiry I will analyze the office referrals from the last school year to see if there is any pattern or trend that corresponds with teacher-student relationships. I will also conduct a survey with all students regarding their perception of the faculty and their relationships with them. As the year progresses, all students referred to the office will complete a survey for my analysis and comparison to those collected last year. Classroom walk-throughs will be conducted to measure levels of respect in the classroom environments. Finally, at the close of the year, I will compare the data from this school year’s referrals to that of last year’s referrals to see if there has been a decline in the number of referrals, and has it had an impact on student achievement in those classes.
Outcomes from the Research I will create charts that will demonstrate the data on number of referrals from the 09/10 school year when compared to the 10/11 school year. I will also create a chart to show the failure rates from the two years to compare any progress that has been made. I will also include narratives from my field notes that will demonstrate issues that have been witnessed and hopefully how they are being resolved in a more respectful manner as the year progressed.
Conclusions As I look toward the completion of my research, I hope that the data will support my supposition that the teacher-student relationship is critical in increasing student achievement. As we value our students as individuals more, they should reciprocate that respect in such a way that the classroom is a much more productive environment for everyone with fewer instances of conflict to serve as distractions.