research title about teacher and student relationship

Teacher-Student Relationships Matter

• Posted March 17, 2021
• By Gianna Cacciatore
• Counseling and Mental Health
• Disruption and Crises
• Teachers and Teaching

Effective teachers form authentic, caring relationships with their students. In the best of times, forming these relationships can be a challenge; in a post-pandemic world, where many teachers are engaging with students remotely, building relationships can feel impossible. Fortunately, says trained counselor and educator Megan Marcus , educators can learn the skills necessary to build strong relationships, both in person and online.

Marcus is the founder of FuelEd , a Houston-based nonprofit committed to teaching these skills to educators around the country. By providing teachers with access to one-on-one counseling, group workshops, and educator training, FuelEd hopes to close what it perceives to be a gap in educator preparation: the space between what an educator is expected to do — build strong, secure relationships with students, families, and coworkers — and the level of social and emotional support educators actually receive. Inspired by Marcus’ background in human psychology, Fuel Ed leads with the belief that teachers cannot effectively care for their students unless they care for themselves first.   

“Just one relationship with a caregiver throughout a lifespan can actually change the brain’s development, heal trauma, and promote learning. Educators have the potential to utilize this power. Many do organically, through naturally forming secure relationships. But we could do so much more if educators were equipped with the skills and self-awareness to systematically do this work,” explains Marcus.

Here, Marcus offers four steps educators can take to promote emotional intelligence and build relationship-driven schools, both in-person and online.

1. Learn the science behind strong relationships.

Research shows that the way a person relates to caregivers early in life can impact that person’s relationships later on. For example, explains Marcus, “if you had insecure relationships in your childhood, you’re more likely to build relationships with others that aren’t secure.” The good news? Once identified, a person’s relationship patterns can change. That means educators can learn the skills behind secure relationship-building — and they can teach them. This gives educators the opportunity to, within their daily interactions, strengthen the ways their students relate to others throughout life.

2. Embrace the power of empathic listening.

Empathic listening means listening to what a student has to say — a student’s “strong emotions and painful experiences,” says Marcus — and not responding. No reassuring, no offering advice. Just listening. While deceptively simple, this type of listening can help a student build self-regulation skills. That’s because it kicks off a powerful interpersonal cycle. “Someone comes to you, they share their feelings, and instead of jumping in to problem solve, you listen. That’s very trust-building. Now, not only is this person calmer and better able to solve their own problems, but they want to come back to you again, share more. And the more you can learn about them and their needs, the more you, as the administrator and the teacher, can be respond to their needs,” explains Marcus.

“Just one relationship with a caregiver throughout a lifespan can actually change the brain’s development, heal trauma, and promote learning. ... We could do so much more if educators were equipped with the skills and self-awareness to systematically do this work.”

Empathic listening, she adds, can also help school leaders build stronger, more positive relationships with staff.

To make space for empathic listening, educators can prioritize opportunities for one-on-one connections in scheduled check-ins or drop-in office hours. Since this type of listening can take place in person, on Zoom, or over the phone, this is a skill that all educators, no matter their learning modality, can use to form more secure relationships.

3. Practice genuine vulnerability.

Often, educators feel restrained by the need to exert authority in a space, so they refrain from sharing their genuine frustrations or emotions. This hinders the development of secure attachments, says Marcus, and limits the social-emotional culture of a school. Instead, she suggests, educators should share their experiences directly. Once one person shows vulnerability, another person will open up. Only then can secure relationships blossom.

This practice fuels student-teacher relationships, but it is also key to creating an over-arching culture of safety in a school. “The more that principals can model empathy and self-awareness, the more they can share their journey with teachers and be vulnerable, the more it’s going to encourage educators to engage in the work,” says Marcus.

If you are educating in person, you can practice sharing personal details in informal exchanges with both students and colleagues. If you are educating online, Marcus says, you can use virtual opportunities, like introductory videos, pet cameos, or Zoom dance parties, to introduce your personality to your school community.   

4. Provide educators with opportunities to do their own healing.

Teaching is, at its core, interpersonal work. It requires high levels of emotional intelligence. When educators approach the work unprepared for its social-emotional load, says Marcus, relationships suffer. Her advice? Give educators access to spaces and resources where they can do their own introspection and healing. When teachers are invited to engage in the therapeutic process of unpacking their personal stories and triggers, it can lead to social-emotional growth. The more that educators are able to improve their own social-emotional intelligence, the more students will be able to learn and feel safe.

Additional Resources:

• FuelEd's professional development workshops for educators.
• From Making Caring Common: How to Build Empathy and Strengthen your School Community
• Teaching Social and Emotional Skills All Day
• Safeguarding the Mental Health of Teachers
• Trauma Informed video series

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Editorial article, editorial: student-teacher relationship quality research: past, present and future.

• 1 Department of Psychology, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
• 2 Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Editorial on the Research Topic Student-teacher relationship quality research: Past, present and future

More than 20 years have passed since the publication of Pianta (2001) on the quality of the teacher-student relationship. Since then, several attempts have been made to elaborate theoretically the concept of teacher-student relationship quality and to provide empirical evidence of the impact that good teacher-student relationship quality might have on academic achievement, student psychological adjustment, and classroom climate. The teacher has been recognized as a “psychological parent” and defined as a secure base and safe heaven, following attachment theory ( Verschueren and Koomen, 2012 , 2021 ; Prino et al., 2022 ; Spilt et al., 2022 ). Several studies have shown that a relationship with the teacher characterized by affection, closeness, and respect predicts more favorable developmental outcomes and better adjustment to the classroom context in any school setting ( Roorda et al., 2011 , 2017 ; Longobardi et al., 2019 , 2021 ; Lin et al., 2022 ). However, after 20 years, we saw the need to synthesize the current literature on the topic of teacher-learner relationship quality and to promote a collection of studies that provide new insights, ideas, and reflections to advance the research field and overcome current limitations.

In this Research Topic, 16 publications were collected from different parts of the world. The Research Topic includes two literature reviews, several empirical works, some of which aim to develop and validate instruments to measure the quality of the teacher-student relationship, and others to promote new knowledge about the effects and mechanisms of action of the quality of the teacher-learner relationship on the psychological development and adjustment processes of children and adolescents. In addition, the Research Topic includes a contribution on possible intervention strategies on the quality of teacher-student relationship.

Literature review

Spilt and Koomen present a chronological review of the literature that shows how the research field of teacher-student relationship quality has evolved over the past three decades. The authors highlight five major themes that have emerged in the literature and identify current research limitations, offering important suggestions for the development of new research. In addition, Shayo et al. proposed a review of the conceptualization and measurement of trust in the home-school context.

Measurement instrument development and validation

Borremans and Spilt addressed a topic that seems important to us. The authors devoted themselves to the validation of a questionnaire for measuring attitudes, knowledge, and self-efficacy in building dyadic relationships with students: Competence Measure of Individual Teacher-Student relationships (COMMIT). In this work, the authors developed the questionnaire and examined each dimension in a sample of pre-service teachers. Whitehead et al. developed and validated a new self-report instrument to measure adolescents' perceived teacher quality: Caring Student Teacher Relinquishment Scale. The instrument was validated on a sample of Canadian youth and has two dimensions: Teacher Support and Attitude and Caring Teacher Qualities. Yadav et al. propose the development and validation of a measurement scale for the Indian context, while Bai et al. present the development and validation of a version of the Student Teacher Relationships Scale for the private college context. Indeed, the latter point out that the current measurement scales are not applicable to the private school context due to characteristics different from those of public schools. Thus, in their article, propose the validation of the Private-College Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (PCSTRS). The authors also found a positive correlation between the PCSTRS and measures of wellbeing, involvement in extracurricular activities, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and academic achievement. In addition, the authors compared students from public and private schools and found differences in PCSTRS dimensions and correlation between the constructs studied. This paper paves the way for further research.

New horizons

The paper by Vagos and Carvalhais sought to find answers to the unknowns that the COVID-19 pandemic has raised with regard to teacher relations and the quality of the teacher-student relationship. In their longitudinal study, 47 teachers and 56 students assessed the quality of the teacher-student relationship at two different time points: after 3 months of online instruction and after 3 months of face-to-face instruction. According to the authors, online instruction is perceived by students as an impersonal experience, and online instruction is associated with less conflict in the teacher-student relationship due to the absence of social cues. Despite the importance of distance learning in the dramatic moments of the pandemic, it is considered useful to encourage teachers to connect with their students and prioritize social presence. This can help in the psychological adjustment of the students.

Conflict management in the classroom is addressed in the paper by Alvarez et al. The authors point out the importance of considering teachers' emotional regulation when managing conflict in the classroom. In addition, the authors suggest that virtual reality may be a good tool for training teachers in developing appropriate strategies for managing classroom climate.

One of the issues that requires greater investigation, particularly in collectivist cultures, is the degree of agreement between students and teachers regarding their mutual relationship. In this direction is the contribution of Gregoriadis et al. , who used a dyadic analysis approach to determine the degree of agreement between teachers' and students' perceptions of their relationship with each other. The study was conducted in Greece and found that students and teachers perceive their dyadic relationship from different perspectives.

A number of papers have been presented on the effects of the quality of the teacher-student relationship on students' and teachers' psychological adjustment and the possible mechanisms involved. Among them are two studies from Italy. Longobardi et al. provided new evidence on the possible mediating role of a positive teacher-student relationship in the relationship between daytime sleepiness and prosocial behavior in kindergarten children. Relatively less is known about how TSR influence teachers' functioning. In this direction, Pedditzi et al. found that satisfaction in the teacher-student relationship may be a protective factor for bournout in elementary and secondary school teachers.

Some studies have come from cultural contexts in which the quality of the teacher-student relationship has been little studied. Duby et al. proposed qualitative work conducted in South Africa. Based on teacher connectedness theory, the authors provided evidence of the potential impact of a good teacher-student relationship on promoting wellbeing, particularly sexual and reproductive wellbeing, among a group of female adolescents and young adults. In China, Luo et al. shed light on the possible moderating role of the teacher-student relationship in the relationship between parental punishment and adolescent loneliness. Among other findings, the authors report that Chinese adolescents' loneliness is less influenced by parental punishment when they have a more positive relationship with their teachers.

Finally, another contribution from the Chinese cultural context by Bo and Chinemerem Onwubuya . The authors offer a contribution from the Chinese cultural context. They illustrate the complexity of implementing the School Discipline Law as a universal national policy. Their contribution seems innovative, and the authors' reflections can serve as a guide for future research in other cultural contexts.

Interventions

The Research Topic also addressed intervention strategies designed to promote better quality teacher-student relationships in educational contexts. Koenen et al. tested Student Teacher Interaction Coaching (STIC) with six teachers working with children with special needs. Working with children with special needs can be very complex, especially for teachers who are early in their careers. The pilot study proposed by the authors seems to suggest that STIC could be a useful intervention to improve the quality of the teacher-student relationship and increase positive emotions in the relationship.

Author contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Lin, S., Fabris, M. A., and Longobardi, C. (2022). Closeness in student–teacher relationships and students' psychological well-being: the mediating role of hope. J. Emot. Behav. Diso. 30, 44–53. doi: 10.1177/10634266211013756

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Longobardi, C., Settanni, M., Lin, S., and Fabris, M. A. (2021). Student–teacher relationship quality and prosocial behaviour: The mediating role of academic achievement and a positive attitude towards school. Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 91, 547–562. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12378

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Longobardi, C., Settanni, M., Prino, L. E., Fabris, M. A., and Marengo, D. (2019). Students' psychological adjustment in normative school transitions from kindergarten to high school: Investigating the role of teacher-student relationship quality. Front. Psychol. 10, 1238. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01238

Pianta, R. C. (2001). STRS: Student-teacher Relationship Scale: Professional Manual . Lutz, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

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Prino, L. E., Longobardi, C., Fabris, M. A., and Settanni, M. (2022). Attachment behaviors toward teachers and social preference in preschool children. Early Educ. Develop. 1–17. doi: 10.1080/10409289.2022.2085980

Roorda, D. L., Jak, S, Zee, M., Oort, F. J., and Koomen, H. M. Y. (2017). Affective teacher-student relationships and students' engagement and achievement: A meta-analytic update and test of the mediating role of engagement. School Psychol. Rev. 46, 1–23. doi: 10.17105/SPR-2017-0035.V46-3

Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., Spilt, J. L., and Oort, F. J. (2011). The influence of affective teacher–student relationships on students' school engagement and achievement: a meta-analytic approach. Rev. Educ. Res . 81, 493–529. doi: 10.3102/0034654311421793

Spilt, J. L., Verschueren, K., Van Minderhout, M. B., and Koomen, H. M. (2022). Practitioner Review: Dyadic teacher–child relationships: comparing theories, empirical evidence and implications for practice. J. Child Psychol. Psychiat . 63, 724–733. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13573

Verschueren, K., and Koomen, H. (2021). Dependency in teacher–child relationships: Deepening our understanding of the construct. Attach. Hum. Develop. 23, 481–489. doi: 10.1080/14616734.2020.1751986

Verschueren, K., and Koomen, H. M. (2012). Teacher–child relationships from an attachment perspective. Attach. Hum. Develop. 14, 205–211. doi: 10.1080/14616734.2012.672260

Keywords: student-teacher relationships, editorial, psychological adjustment, school-environment relations, academic achievement

Citation: Fabris MA, Roorda D and Longobardi C (2022) Editorial: Student-teacher relationship quality research: Past, present and future. Front. Educ. 7:1049115. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2022.1049115

Received: 21 September 2022; Accepted: 03 October 2022; Published: 19 October 2022.

Edited and reviewed by: Ting-Chia Hsu , National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan

Copyright © 2022 Fabris, Roorda and Longobardi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Claudio Longobardi, claudio.longobardi@unito.it

This article is part of the Research Topic

Student-Teacher Relationship Quality Research: Past, Present and Future

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Teacher-Student Relationships

Introduction, research about teacher-student relationships.

• Positive Relationships as a Basis for Equality and Freedom
• Links between Teacher-Student Relationships and Students’ Sense of Belonging
• Links between Teacher-Student Relationships and Pedagogy
• Teacher-Student Relationships from Listening to Students
• Teacher-Student Relationships as the Basis for “Critical” and Liberatory Actions
• Culture and Color Influencing Teacher-Student relationships
• Teacher-Student Relationships from a Māori Worldview Perspective
• Relationships across Schools, Families, and Communities Supporting Learners
• Teacher-Student Relationships for Students Most at Risk

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

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• Academic Achievement
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• Understanding the Psycho-Social Dimensions of Schools and Classrooms

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Teacher-Student Relationships by Mere Berryman LAST REVIEWED: 15 January 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 15 January 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0232

This review responds to a number of questions, including: What is known about teacher-student relationships? What about teacher-student relationships makes them effective and successful? How do effective relationships ensure that teachers and students can face the daily challenges in todays’ education systems and also in wider society? How might these relationships contribute to future proofing our societies against the global crises that have become our collective reality? Discourses related to relationships are often used as though there are collective understandings. However, much of the praxis—the policies, pedagogies, and testing regimes—found in learning institutions still protect and privilege some students over others, and the gaps in education and society continue to widen. This bibliography will show that teacher-student relationships continue to be widely researched; that early philosophical understandings grounded in relationships of equality and freedom have intergenerational interest and traction; and that relationships can take many forms, with some forms of teacher-student relationships resulting in more productive outcomes than others, and some forms actually doing harm. The scholars included in this entry are engaging in the types of relationships where “critical” questions increasingly sit at the forefront of learning and schooling. They are interested in contexts for learning where all learners are respected and able to bring their own experiences, their solutions, and their potential to the table, and from which collective growth and benefit can ensue. Among this common thread there is a diversity of worldviews, with knowledge that may yet be untried or untested. These citations provide insights into the kinds of teacher-student relationships that can help us learn more deeply about the profession by beginning with the self.

Although teacher-student relationships are considered to be central to the experiences of teaching and learning, there are still a lot of questions about these relationships that are unanswered or poorly understood. Much of the research being undertaken about the influence of the teacher-student relationships are along the lines of Hattie 2009 ; Hattie 2012 ; and Roorda, et al. 2011 —all of which utilize meta-analyses to compare large numbers of research studies and synthesize their significance across a range of factors. Other research has explored aspects of student-teacher relationships, such as Pogue and Ahyun 2006 , which looks at teacher and student behaviors in order to understand the impact of positive immediacy behaviors by teachers on students’ perceptions of their teachers’ credibility. Gehlbach, et al. 2012 examines how teacher-student relationships changed over the course of a year, and what the implications of these changes were on students’ engagement and learning. Building on her earlier work, Christine Rubie-Davies became interested in teachers’ perceptions of students and the links such perceptions had on students’ learning outcomes. Rubie-Davies and Peterson 2016 found that teacher perceptions were influential to differential learner outcomes between children from majority and minority cultural groups. Similarly, Li 2018 studies student-teacher relationships in relation to Latino and non-Latino students. Sointu, et al. 2017 explores the association between students’ behavioral and emotional strengths, their relationships with teachers, and their academic achievement. Bainbridge and Houser 2000 , meanwhile, demonstrates how interpersonal teacher-student relationships remain important at a tertiary level. Finally, to understand the ways in which teacher-student relationships influence teachers’ feelings of professional and personal self-esteem and well-being, Spilt, et al. 2011 provides a review of related literature.

Bainbridge F. A., and M. Houser. 2000. The teacher‐student relationship as an interpersonal relationship. Communication Education 49.3: 207–219.

This research article explores the importance of interpersonal teacher-student relationships at a tertiary level. While content expertise and delivery methods have traditionally been viewed as of primary importance at a tertiary level, this study shows that to facilitate successful learning, teachers need to balance both the content and relational dimensions in their teaching.

Gehlbach, H., M. E. Brinkworth, and A. D. Harris. 2012. Changes in teacher-student relationships. British Journal of Educational Psychology 82:690–704.

This study investigated how the relationships between teachers and students changed from the beginning to the end of the year, and whether any such changes influenced students’ motivation or academic outcomes. Findings revealed that relationships could and did change, and that changes were important for both motivation and academic outcomes. Further research was advocated to improve relationships.

Hattie, J. 2009. Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement . London and New York: Routledge.

Hattie investigated the influences on students’ achievement and concluded that teachers who were able to make the learning visible for their learners, who saw learning through the eyes of the learners and promoted situations where students could see themselves as their own teachers, were essential. Signposts for teaching excellence included teachers who were directive, caring, and actively and passionately engaged in teaching and learning as the most powerful influence.

Hattie, J. 2012. Visible learning for teachers: Maximizing impact on learning . London and New York: Routledge.

Hattie introduces additional meta-analyses to reinforce his previous work about what makes the most effective and successful teacher-student relationships and interactions, and he provides concise guidelines for teacher and student implementation. Guidance and practical supports are also provided for school leaders wanting to facilitate “visible learning” in their schools.

Li, Y. 2018. Teacher-student relationships, student engagement, and academic achievement for non-Latino and Latino youth. Adolescent Research Review 3.4: 375–424.

This meta-analysis compares the results of twenty-six studies on the association of teacher-student relationships with the engagement and achievement of non-Latino and Latino youth. The findings show strong associations between positive teacher-student relationships with student engagement and academic achievement for both groups.

Pogue, L., and K. Ahyun. 2006. The effect of teacher nonverbal immediacy and credibility on student motivation and affective learning. Communication Education 55.3: 331–344.

This study, involving 586 students, explores the impact of the interaction between positive immediacy behaviors, such as teacher smiles, head nods, and eye contact, with students’ perceptions of teacher credibility. The findings demonstrated that personal communication between teachers and students, as well as teacher expertise, helped to define what students understood as effective to teaching and their subsequent learning.

Roorda, D. L., H. M. Y. Koomen, J. L. Spilt, and F. J. Oort. 2011. The influence of affective teacher-student relationships on students’ school engagement and achievement: A meta-analytic approach. Review of Educational Research 81.4: 493–529.

This meta-analysis draws from 99 studies and a total of 129,423 students, across primary to secondary levels. It explores the influence of teacher-student’ relationships on engagement and achievement. Results show the importance of positive teacher-student relationships, especially for students who are academically at risk, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with learning difficulties.

Rubie-Davies, C., and E. R. Peterson. 2016. Relations between teachers’ achievement, over- and underestimation, and students’ beliefs for Māori and Pākehā students. Contemporary Educational Psychology 47:72–83.

This New Zealand study explored indigenous Māori students’ beliefs about their teachers and their teachers’ expectations of them, looking to understand any influences on the achievement gap between these students and their non-Māori peers. It concluded there were connections, and that the inclusion of culturally based interventions to improve student-teacher relationships by using culturally appropriate teaching methods may help to increase achievement.

Sointu, E. T., H. Savolainen, K. Lappalainen, and M. C. Lambert. 2017. Longitudinal associations of student-teacher relationships and behavioural and emotional strengths on academic achievement. Educational Psychology 37.4: 457–467.

This longitudinal study, across forty-six schools in Finland, explored the association between students’ behavioral and emotional strengths, their relationships with teachers, and their academic achievement. The study showed that academic achievement was predicted by students’ behavioral and emotional strength and the student-teacher relationship.

Spilt, J. L., M. Y. Helma, and J. T. Thijs. 2011. Teacher wellbeing: The importance of teacher-student relationships. Educational Psychology Review 23:457–477.

This review of the literature sought to study the importance of teacher-student relationships in relation to their influence on teachers’ feelings of professional and personal self-esteem and well-being. It argues that teacher stress from student misbehavior may be better understood from a relational perspective. While it found few studies testing these considerations, it offers suggestions for future research in this area.

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A Review of the Literature on Teacher Effectiveness and Student Outcomes

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• First Online: 24 May 2019

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• Nathan Burroughs 25 ,
• Jacqueline Gardner 26 ,
• Youngjun Lee 27 ,
• Siwen Guo 28 ,
• Israel Touitou 29 ,
• Kimberly Jansen 30 &
• William Schmidt 31  

Part of the book series: IEA Research for Education ((IEAR,volume 6))

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Researchers agree that teachers are one of the most important school-based resources in determining students’ future academic success and lifetime outcomes, yet have simultaneously had difficulties in defining what teacher characteristics make for an effective teacher. This chapter reviews the large body of literature on measures of teacher effectiveness, underscoring the diversity of methods by which the general construct of “teacher quality” has been explored, including experience, professional knowledge, and opportunity to learn. Each of these concepts comprises a number of different dimensions and methods of operationalizing. Single-country research (and particularly research from the United States) is distinguished from genuinely comparative work. Despite a voluminous research literature on the question of teacher quality, evidence for the impact of teacher characteristics (experience and professional knowledge) on student outcomes remains quite limited. There is a smaller, but more robust set of findings for the effect of teacher support on opportunity to learn. Five measures may be associated with higher student achievement: teacher experience (measured by years of teaching), teacher professional knowledge (measured by education and self-reported preparation to teach mathematics), and teacher provision of opportunity to learn (measured by time on mathematics and content coverage). These factors provide the basis for a comparative cross-country model.

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• Opportunity to learn
• Teacher education
• Teacher experience
• Teacher quality
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)

2.1 Defining Teacher Effectiveness

Researchers agree that teachers are one of the most important school-based resources in determining students’ future academic success and lifetime outcomes (Chetty et al. 2014 ; Rivkin et al. 2005 ; Rockoff 2004 ). As a consequence, there has been a strong emphasis on improving teacher effectiveness as a means to enhancing student learning. Goe ( 2007 ), among others, defined teacher effectiveness in terms of growth in student learning, typically measured by student standardized assessment results. Chetty et al. ( 2014 ) found that students taught by highly effective teachers, as defined by the student growth percentile (SGPs) and value-added measures (VAMs), were more likely to attend college, earn more, live in higher-income neighborhoods, save more money for retirement, and were less likely to have children during their teenage years. This potential of a highly effective teacher to significantly enhance the lives of their students makes it essential that researchers and policymakers properly understand the factors that contribute to a teacher’s effectiveness. However, as we will discuss in more detail later in this report, studies have found mixed results regarding the relationships between specific teacher characteristics and student achievement (Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). In this chapter, we explore these findings, focusing on the three main categories of teacher effectiveness identified and examined in the research literature: namely, teacher experience, teacher knowledge, and teacher behavior. Here we emphasize that much of the existing body of research is based on studies from the United States, and so the applicability of such national research to other contexts remains open to discussion.

2.2 Teacher Experience

Teacher experience refers to the number of years that a teacher has worked as a classroom teacher. Many studies show a positive relationship between teacher experiences and student achievement (Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). For example, using data from 4000 teachers in North Carolina, researchers found that teacher experience was positively related to student achievement in both reading and mathematics (Clotfelter et al. 2006 ). Rice ( 2003 ) found that the relationship between teacher experience and student achievement was most pronounced for students at the secondary level. Additional work in schools in the United States by Wiswall ( 2013 ), Papay and Kraft ( 2015 ), and Ladd and Sorenson ( 2017 ), and a Dutch twin study by Gerritsen et al. ( 2014 ), also indicated that teacher experience had a cumulative effect on student outcomes.

Meanwhile, other studies have failed to identify consistent and statistically significant associations between student achievement and teacher experience (Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Gustaffsson and Nilson 2016 ; Hanushek and Luque 2003 ; Luschei and Chudgar 2011 ; Wilson and Floden 2003 ). Some research from the United States has indicated that experience matters very much early on in a teacher’s career, but that, in later years, there were little to no additional gains (Boyd et al. 2006 ; Rivkin et al. 2005 ; Staiger and Rockoff 2010 ). In the first few years of a teacher’s career, accruing more years of experience seems to be more strongly related to student achievement (Rice 2003 ). Rockoff ( 2004 ) found that, when comparing teacher effectiveness (understood as value-added) to student test scores in reading and mathematics, teacher experience was positively related to student mathematics achievement; however, such positive relationships leveled off after teachers had gained two years of teaching experience. Drawing on data collected from teachers of grades four to eight between 2000 and 2008 within a large urban school district in the United States, Papay and Kraft ( 2015 ) confirmed previous research on the benefits experience can add to a novice teacher’s career. They found that student outcomes increased most rapidly during their teachers’ first few years of employment. They also found some further student gains due to additional years of teaching experience beyond the first five years. The research of Pil and Leana ( 2009 ) adds additional nuance; they found that acquiring teacher experience at the same grade level over a number of years, not just teacher experience in general (i.e. at multiple grades), was positively related to student achievement.

2.3 Teacher Professional Knowledge

A teacher’s professional knowledge refers to their subject-matter knowledge, curricular knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge (Collinson 1999 ). This professional knowledge is influenced by the undergraduate degrees earned by a teacher, the college attended, graduate studies undertaken, and opportunities to engage with on-the job training, commonly referred to as professional development (Collinson 1999 ; Rice 2003 ; Wayne and Youngs 2003 ). After undertaking in-depth quantitative analyses of the United States’ 1993–1994 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data sets, Darling-Hammond ( 2000 ) argued that measures of teacher preparation and certification were by far the strongest correlates of student achievement in reading and mathematics, after controlling for student poverty levels and language status.

As with experience, research on the impact of teacher advanced degrees, subject specializations, and certification has been inconclusive, with several studies (Aaronson et al. 2007 ; Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Hanushek and Luque 2003 ; Harris and Sass 2011 ; Luschei and Chudgar 2011 ) suggesting weak, inconsistent, or non-significant relationships with student achievement. However, several international studies comparing country means found that teacher degrees (Akiba et al. 2007 ; Gustaffsson and Nilson 2016 ; Montt 2011 ) were related to student outcomes, as did Woessman’s ( 2003 ) student-level study of multiple countries.

2.3.1 Undergraduate Education

In their meta-analysis of teacher effectiveness, Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found three studies that showed some relationship between the quality of the undergraduate institution that a teacher attended and their future students’ success in standardized tests. In a thorough review of the research on teacher effectiveness attributes, Rice ( 2003 ) found that the selectivity of undergraduate institution and the teacher preparation program may be related to student achievement for students at the high school level and for high-poverty students.

In terms of teacher preparation programs, Boyd et al. ( 2009 ) found that overall these programs varied in their effectiveness. In their study of 31 teacher preparation programs designed to prepare teachers for the New York City School District, Boyd et al. ( 2009 ) drew from data based on document analyses, interviews, surveys of teacher preparation instructors, surveys of participants and graduates, and student value-added scores. They found that if a program was effective in preparing teachers to teach one subject, it tended to also have success in preparing teachers to teach other subjects as well. They also found that teacher preparation programs that focused on the practice of teaching and the classroom, and provided opportunities for teachers to study classroom practices, tended to prepare more effective teachers. Finally, they found that programs that included some sort of final project element (such as a personal research paper, or portfolio presentation) tended to prepare more effective teachers.

Beyond the institution a teacher attends, the coursework they choose to take within that program may also be related to their future students’ achievement. These associations vary by subject matter. A study by Rice ( 2003 ) indicated that, for teachers teaching at the secondary level, subject-specific coursework had a greater impact on their future students’ achievement. Similarly Goe ( 2007 ) found that, for mathematics, an increase in the amount of coursework undertaken by a trainee teacher was positively related to their future students’ achievement. By contrast, the meta-analysis completed by Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found that, for history and English teachers, there was no evidence of a relationship between a teacher’s undergraduate coursework and their future students’ achievement in those subjects.

2.3.2 Graduate Education

In a review of 14 studies, Wilson and Floden ( 2003 ) were unable to identify consistent relationships between a teacher’s level of education and their students’ achievement. Similarly, in their review of data from 4000 teachers in North Carolina, Clotfelter et al. ( 2006 ) found that teachers who held a master’s degree were associated with lower student achievement. However, specifically in terms of mathematics instruction, teachers with higher degrees and who undertook more coursework during their education seem to be positively related to their students’ mathematics achievement (Goe 2007 ). Likewise, Harris and Sass ( 2011 ) found that there was a positive relationship between teachers who had obtained an advanced degree during their teaching career and their students’ achievement in middle school mathematics. They did not find any significant relationships between advanced degrees and student achievement in any other subject area. Further, using data from the United States’ Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), Phillips ( 2010 ) found that subject-specific graduate degrees in elementary or early-childhood education were positively related to students’ reading achievement gains.

2.3.3 Certification Status

Another possible indicator of teacher effectiveness could be whether or not a teacher holds a teaching certificate. Much of this research has focused on the United States, which uses a variety of certification approaches, with lower grades usually having multi-subject general certifications and higher grades requiring certification in specific subjects. Wayne and Youngs ( 2003 ) found no clear relationship between US teachers’ certification status and their students’ achievement, with the exception of the subject area of mathematics, where students tended have higher test scores when their teachers had a standard mathematics certification. Rice ( 2003 ) also found that US teacher certification was related to high school mathematics achievement, and also found that there was some evidence of a relationship between certification status and student achievement in lower grades. Meanwhile, in their study of grade one students, Palardy and Rumberger ( 2008 ) also found evidence that students made greater gains in reading ability when taught by fully certified teachers.

In a longitudinal study using data from teachers teaching grades four and five and their students in the Houston School District in Texas, Darling-Hammond et al. ( 2005 ) found that those teachers who had completed training that resulted in a recognized teaching certificate were more effective that those who had no dedicated teaching qualifications. The study results suggested that teachers without recognized US certification or with non-standard certifications generally had negative effects on student achievement after controlling for student characteristics and prior achievement, as well as the teacher’s experience and degrees. The effects of teacher certification on student achievement were generally much stronger than the effects for teacher experience. Conversely, analyzing data from the ECLS-K, Phillips ( 2010 ) found that grade one students tended to have lower mathematics achievement gains when they had teachers with standard certification. In sum, the literature the influence of teacher certification remains deeply ambiguous.

2.3.4 Professional Development

Although work by Desimone et al. ( 2002 , 2013 ) suggested that professional development may influence the quality of instruction, most researchers found that teachers’ professional development experiences showed only limited associations with their effectiveness, although middle- and high-school mathematics teachers who undertook more content-focused training may be the exception (Blomeke et al. 2016 ; Harris and Sass 2011 ). In their meta-analysis of the effects of professional development on student achievement, Blank and De Las Alas ( 2009 ) found that 16 studies reported significant and positive relationships between professional development and student achievement. For mathematics, the average effect size of studies using a pre-post assessment design was 0.21 standard deviations.

Analyzing the data from six data sets, two from the Beginning Teacher Preparation Survey conducted in Connecticut and Tennessee, and four from the United States National Center for Education Statistics’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Wallace ( 2009 ) used structural equation modeling to find that professional development had a very small, but occasionally statistically significant effect on student achievement. She found, for example, that for NAEP mathematics data from the year 2000, 1.2 additional hours of professional development per year were related to an increase in average student scores of 0.62 points, and for reading, an additional 1.1 h of professional development were related to an average increase in student scores of 0.24 points. Overall, Wallace ( 2009 ) identified professional development had moderate effects on teacher practice and some small effects on student achievement when mediated by teacher practice.

2.3.5 Teacher Content Knowledge

Of course, characteristics like experience and education may be imperfect proxies for teacher content knowledge; unfortunately, content knowledge is difficult to assess directly. However, there is a growing body of work suggesting that teacher content knowledge may associated with student learning. It should be noted that there is an important distinction between general content knowledge about a subject (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) specifically related to teaching that subject, each of which may be independently related to student outcomes (Baumert et al. 2010 ).

Studies from the United States (see for example, Chingos and Peterson 2011 ; Clotfelter et al. 2006 ; Constantine et al. 2009 ; Hill et al. 2005 ; Shuls and Trivitt 2015 ) have found some evidence that higher teacher cognitive skills in mathematics are associated with higher student scores. Positive associations between teacher content knowledge and student outcomes were also found in studies based in Germany (Baumert et al. 2010 ) and Peru (Metzler and Woessman 2012 ), and in a comparative study using Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data undertaken by Hanushek et al. ( 2018 ). These findings are not universal, however, other studies from the United States (Blazar 2015 ; Garet et al. 2016 ; Rockoff et al. 2011 ) failed to find a statistically significant association between teacher content knowledge and student learning.

The studies we have discussed all used some direct measure of teacher content knowledge. An alternative method of assessing mathematics teacher content knowledge is self-reported teacher preparation to teach mathematics topics. Both TIMSS and IEA’s Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M, conducted in 2007–2008) have included many questions, asking teachers to report on their preparedness to teach particular topics. Although Luschei and Chudgar ( 2011 ) and Gustafsson and Nilson ( 2016 ) found that these items had a weak direct relationship to student achievement across countries, other studies have suggested that readiness is related to instructional quality (Blomeke et al. 2016 ), as well as content knowledge and content preparation (Schmidt et al. 2017 ), suggesting that instructional quality may have an indirect effect on student learning.

2.4 Teacher Behaviors and Opportunity to Learn

Although the impact of teacher characteristics (experience, education, and preparedness to teach) on student outcomes remains an open question, there is much a much more consistent relationship between student achievement and teacher behaviors (instructional time and instructional content), especially behaviors related instructional content. Analyzing TIMSS, Schmidt et al. ( 2001 ) found an association between classroom opportunity to learn (OTL), interpreted narrowly as student exposure to instructional content, and student achievement. In a later study using student-level PISA data, Schmidt et al. ( 2015 ) identified a robust relationship between OTL and mathematics literacy across 62 different educational systems. The importance of instructional content has been recognized by national policymakers, and has helped motivate standards-based reform in an effort to improve student achievement, such as the Common Core in the United States (Common Core Standards Initiative 2018 ). However, we found that there was little research on whether teacher instructional content that aligned with national standards had improved student learning; the only study that we were able to identify found that such alignment had only very weak associations with student mathematics scores (Polikoff and Porter 2014 ). Student-reported data indicates that instructional time (understood as classroom time on a particular subject) does seem to be related to mathematics achievement (Cattaneo et al. 2016 ; Jerrim et al. 2017 ; Lavy 2015 ; Rivkin and Schiman 2015 ; Woessman 2003 ).

2.5 Conclusion

This review of the literature simply brushes the surface of the exceptional body of work on the relationship between student achievement and teacher characteristics and behaviors. Whether analyzing US-based, international, or the (limited) number of comparative studies, the associations between easily measurable teacher characteristics, like experience and education, and student outcomes in mathematics, remains debatable. In contrast, there is more evidence to support the impact of teacher behaviors, such as instructional content and time on task, on student achievement. Our goal was to incorporate all these factors into a comparative model across countries, with the aim of determining what an international cross-national study like TIMSS could reveal about the influence of teachers on student outcomes in mathematics. The analysis that follows draws on the existing body of literature on teacher effectiveness, which identified key teacher factors that may be associated with higher student achievement: teacher experience, teacher professional knowledge (measured by education and self-reported preparation to teach mathematics), and teacher provision of opportunity to learn (time on mathematics and content coverage).

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Burroughs, N. et al. (2019). A Review of the Literature on Teacher Effectiveness and Student Outcomes. In: Teaching for Excellence and Equity. IEA Research for Education, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16151-4_2

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