Browsing by Subject "Student-teacher relationships"
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Item Racial mistrust, perceptions of discrimination, and academic achievement among African American children(2014-12) Wright, Yamanda Fay; Bigler, Rebecca S.New evidence suggests that African American children’s mistrust of European American teachers plays a role in sustaining racial achievement gaps. However, racial mistrust may also play a protective role for stigmatized children by facilitating perceptions of discrimination in the event that they encounter racially biased feedback. The present study investigated the relations among African American children’s racial mistrust, perceptions of discrimination, and academic achievement. Participants included 67 elementary school-age children (ages 6-11 years) who completed two lab sessions assessing their mistrust of European American teachers, attributions to discrimination during a mock drawing contest designed to appear racially biased, and semester grades. I predicted that racial mistrust (1) is present among many African American children at the beginning of formal education, (2) predicts perceptions of discrimination, and (3) shows a quadratic relationship to African American children’s academic achievement, such that extreme (very high and very low) levels are associated with negative academic outcomes, whereas moderate levels are associated with positive academic outcomes. Contrary to expectations, results showed that African American children expect European American teachers to be biased in favor of African Americans. Specifically, African American children expect European American teachers to show more warmth than punitiveness across their interactions with African American and European American students, but they expect the warm-punitive differential to be even more pronounced with African American students. In addition, young African American children appear highly unlikely to attribute negative feedback from European American teachers to racial discrimination, even when such a bias appears likely. Finally, neither the expectation of racial bias nor perceptions of racial discrimination predicted African American children’s academic outcomes in this study. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed in the concluding chapter.Item Tracking the longitudinal effects of student-teacher trust on mathematics self-efficacy for high school students(2013-08) Harvey, Kristin Emilia; Suizzo, Marie-AnneA current national priority is improving secondary school mathematics performance. National initiatives have attempted to help improve student achievement through curricular changes and stringent testing requirements; yet, these initiatives fail to consider the importance of student-teacher relationships in student motivation and achievement. High school students' trust in their mathematics teachers can lead to better relationships and increased feelings of competence, or mathematics self-efficacy, which is consistently linked to achievement. Student trust is based on perceptions of a teacher's competence, benevolence, openness, reliability, and honesty. The aim of my study is to determine the effect of trust in a teacher on student mathematics self-efficacy over the course of a school year, accounting for differences between individual students. The sample consisted of 230 ninth through twelfth grade students (57% girls) from a large high school in central Texas. Students reported their trust in their math teachers and their math self-efficacy at 4 time points. Growth curve modeling was utilized to model the effect of trust on self-efficacy over time. The results indicate that trust predicted self-efficacy over the course of the school year such that for a one point change in trust there was a corresponding .4 point change in self-efficacy. Gender was also a significant predictor of self-efficacy, with girls reporting lower self-efficacy on average. However, girls did not report lower trust, and the relation between trust and self-efficacy was not moderated by gender. Inasmuch as future studies should seek to expand on these findings, this study is an important first step into investigating the link between trust in teachers and self-efficacy. The results of this study serve to inform teachers, researchers, and policy makers of the importance of recognizing student-teacher relationships as an important factor in building student confidence and motivation.