The current paper explores how students’ relationships with their teachers, parents, and friends might differentially impact their academic experience and success, by presenting and integrating the results of two related studies. In the first study, survey methods and structural equation modeling are used to describe the similar and different effects that developmental relationships with teachers, parents, and friends seem to have on middle- and high-school students’ academic motivation, GPA, and perceptions of school climate. Relationships with teachers directly predicted all three outcomes at the middle school level, and motivation and school climate at the high school level. Relationships indirectly predicted high school GPA, through motivation. Student-teacher relationships, and parent-teacher relationships, also indirectly predicted middle school GPA, through motivation. Relationships with parents directly predicted only motivation in middle school. Relationships with friends directly predicted school climate at both levels. The results from Study 1 showed the central importance of teacher-student relationships on student motivation and led the research team to qualitatively look in study #2 at how teachers build relationships that motivate students and how students experience those relationships. Study 2 used student focus groups and a grounded theory, open coding approach to analysis to identify commonly occurring themes describing what practices teachers used successfully, in students’ eyes, to build strong relationships with students and boost their academic motivation. These practices focused on how teachers expressed care, provided support, challenged students to grow, shared power with them, and expanded their sense of possibilities. The mixed methods produce an overall study that uniquely captures both a global and more granular, practice-oriented view of the ways in which differing developmental relationships in young people’s lives affect their connection to and success in school.

本论文通过介绍和整合两项相关研究的结果，探讨了学生与老师，父母和朋友的关系如何对他们的学习经历和成功产生不同的影响。在第一项研究中，调查方法和结构方程模型用于描述与教师，父母和朋友的发展关系似乎对中高中学生的学习动机，GPA和对认知的影响的相似和不同的影响。学校气氛。与教师的关系直接预测了中学阶段的所有三个结果，以及中学阶段的动机和学校氛围。人际关系通过动机间接预测高中GPA。学生与老师之间的关系，以及家长与老师之间的关系，也通过动机间接预测了中学GPA。与父母的关系直接预测了中学的唯一动机。与朋友的关系直接预测了两个层面的学校氛围。研究1的结果显示了师生关系对学生动机的重要性，并导致研究小组定性研究了研究2中的老师如何建立激励学生的关系，以及学生如何体验这些关系。研究2使用学生焦点小组和扎实的理论，开放式编码方法进行分析，以找出常见的主题，这些主题描述了在学生眼中教师成功地使用了哪些实践来与学生建立牢固的关系并提高他们的学习动机。这些做法集中于教师如何表达关怀，提供支持，挑战学生的成长，与他们分享权力以及扩大他们的可能性意识。混合的方法产生了一个整体研究，该研究独特地捕捉了全球和更细化，以实践为导向的观点，这些观点反映了年轻人生活中不同的发展关系影响他们与学校的联系和成功的方式。