Investigating teacher-student relationships from the classroom to outdoor learning spaces: exploring engagement and learning by listening to the voices of the young people

Abstract

Education should play a key role in supporting young people through transition between childhood and adulthood. Yet many young people often question ‘What is the point of school?’, becoming disengaged from both school and learning. For Ross (2009) negative relationships with teachers lead to disengagement and a negative view of school. However, establishing positive teacher-student relationships is not straightforward and studies investigating this often give little detail of how teacherstudent relationships form or why. Yet improvements in teacher-student relationships due to outdoor experiences have been seen in research such as Camp (2008); and Jung-Sook Lee (2014) suggests that enriching learning environments might prevent disengagement as when students feel a sense of belonging to school and their learning is valued as an activity, they are more likely to put sustained effort into engaging and learning. Teacher-student relationships may be more multifaceted and complex than earlier research showed. Rather than being based on teacher characteristics, the research suggests students view the teacher-relationships by teacher attitude and student behaviour. The learning environment is also of importance, with most students feeling they would not only learn more if they were outside the classroom but would also get to know their teachers better. Therefore, focusing on Year 7’s in secondary schools, by examining teacher-student relationships from the perspective of the students, the research addresses the statement: “fostering positive relationships between teachers and young people draws them into the processes of learning by promoting emotional well-being and resilience, thus creating enriching learning environments”