Promoting Academic Achievement through Positive Relationships

Abstract

Positive relationships encourage students' motivation and engagement in learning. A powerful weapon available to teachers who want to foster a favourable learning climate is a positive relationship with their students. Improving students' relationships with teachers has important, positive and long-lasting implications for students' academic and social development. Teachers who foster positive relationships with their students create more favourable classroom environments for learning and meet students' emotional and academic needs. Positive teacher-student relationships, that is low conflict and a high degree of closeness and support, contribute to their social skills and promote academic performance. Students who experience positive relationships with their teachers are less likely to avoid school, appeared more more cooperative, and more engaged in learning. Students display better academic performance and experience less loneliness if they have a positive relationship with their teachers. Teachers who show sensitivity to individual differences among students, include students in the decision-making and acknowledge students' needs produce greater motivation in their students than those who use fewer such practices. Positive teacher-student relationships can promote improved peer relationships in classrooms through direct and indirect approaches and enhance students' engagement as well as improve student-to-student acceptance.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2013.v4n3p323