Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)


Blue Prefunction (Omni Shoreham)

Teacher Support, Student “at Risk” Status and Academic Performance

Kate L. Phillippo, MSW, Stanford University.

Background and Purpose: A growing body of research suggests that strong student-teacher relationships—characterized by caring and high expectations for student success—may be both promotive (conferring universal benefits, such as academic achievement and progress, regardless of student risk) and protective (buffering against risk in affected subgroups of students). This investigation focuses on the extent to which teacher support can moderate psychosocial factors linked to a wide variety of poor educational outcomes among adolescents. These outcomes include academic and behavioral trouble in school, low family support of education, low family social and emotional support of the student, stressful life events, and the experience of living in disorderly neighborhoods. This study tested the hypothesis that teacher support would both (a) serve as a promotive factor and (b) buffer the effect of other psychosocial risk on student grades. Following prior research, it explored these relationships within racial-ethnic subgroups.

Methods: This study utilized the School Success Profile (SSP) database in order to investigate the relationship between teacher support and student grades and the extent to which teacher support would moderate the negative influence of psychosocial risk factors. The key dependent variable of the study was a dichotomous variable indicating whether respondents received two or more D's or F's on their last report card. Key independent variables included student-reported teacher support and indicators of psychosocial risk (stressful life events, living in a strained community, experiencing academic and behavioral trouble in school, low family support of education, and low family social and emotional support of the student). The study also included interaction terms between teacher support and psychosocial risk indicators, as well as controls for low-income status, student ethnicity and school level (middle or high school).

The study used logistic multiple regression techniques to model whether students reported two or more Ds or Fs as a function of teacher support, psychosocial risk, and interactions between support and risk factors, controlling for student cohort, grade, and socio-demographic background. All models were adjusted for the clustering of students within schools.

Results: Overall, higher levels of teacher support decrease the odds that a student reports receiving two or more D's or F's on his/her last report card, even after controlling for students' psycho-social risk, cohort, grade, and socio-demographic background. Findings did not support the hypothesis that teacher support would moderate student psychosocial risk. Of note, the interaction of teacher support and school performance was positive, indicating that students with higher levels of school troubles and teacher support were more likely to receive two or more D's or F's. Subgroup analyses indicated that the positive effect of teacher support was evident only for white students.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings suggest that teacher support is associated with improved student academic performance for White students. However, teacher support did not appear to buffer students against the effects of psychosocial risk. Dynamics of teacher support may be different for very low achieving adolescents and psychosocially at-risk teens, which merits further investigation.


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