An Improvement Path to Equitable Developmental Relationships in Three Diverse Middle Schools

• In Event: The Successes and Challenges of Measurement in School and Out-of-School Improvement Research

Abstract

Developmental relationships or close and supportive youth-adult relationships, are impactful in school settings where teacher-student relationships drive both teacher (Li et al., 2022) and student competency and well-being (Roehlkepartain et al., 2017; Scales et al., 2020; Sethi & Scales, 2020), across backgrounds and experiences (e.g., grade, SES, racial and ethnic identity; Korpershoek et al., 2019). Previous research suggests that in middle schools, both teacher-student relationships and perception of school relational culture tend to decline over the school year and are not experienced equitably by all students. Students from diverse social, cultural, or racial-ethnic backgrounds tend to report less positive relationships and supportive relational culture in their schools, especially as the year goes on (Scales et al., 2019). The current project pairs developmental and Improvement Science in a research-school partnership to design, implement, and evaluate school-wide efforts to improve equitable teacher-student relationships and relational culture (Pekel et al., 2018).

The objective of this paper is to describe the project approach and learnings from year one planning of a study that takes place across three mid-sized school districts in the United States, with three partnering and three comparison middle schools (one of each in each district); each with diverse student racial representation and predominantly white female teaching staff (Table 1). We will highlight the development of a logic model that pairs developmental science and education evaluation principles, accounting for local site wisdom, strengths, and needs and the iterative cycles of Improvement Science. We will introduce the mixed methods approach that leverages data points to serve both planning, adaptation, and evaluation.

The study is a multiple baseline and mixed methods research design composed of two primary branches. First, is the process study, which documents the partnership based improvement process across all schools. Process study data collection includes field notes of partnership meetings, meeting and partnership artifacts, and in-depth one-on-one qualitative interviews with school team members. Second, is the evaluation study which is the examination of the primary study indicators in both partnership and comparison schools (see Figure 1 for the project logic model). For the evaluation study, quantitative data is collected across all six schools via student and teacher surveys. Additionally, a subsample of teachers and students from each of the three partnership schools participated in semi-structured one-on-one interviews during the fall of the planning year.

Findings from this study are ongoing. We will focus on year 1 learnings which will include a discussion of the development of the overall project plan and how site specific improvement plans fit within the larger scope and aims of the research project. Additionally, we will share preliminary findings from baseline data collection. This includes a summary of the state of relational culture across schools. This will also include a summary of the qualitative findings from teacher and student interviews, triangulated with the quantitative findings to provide a more in-depth understanding of the unique strengths and barriers that middle schools face in cultivating equitable developmental relationships and relational climate.

Authors

• Katherine M. Ross, Search Institute

• Erica J. Van Steenis, Search Institute