Teachers’ Positive Perception Of Parents Linked To Student Success, Study Suggests

Parental involvement is known to bring a number of positive effects to students. It is viewed as something that is vital to the student's academic success. And positive perception of teachers on how parents are involved in their child's education is linked to their academic success.

According to Child Trends, students whose parents are involved in school tend to have less behavioral problems, can achieve better academic performance and become more competitive in high school. Now the researchers from the University of Missouri have found that the child's future success can be projected by the teacher's ratings of the parental involvement. They also found that interactions between parents and teachers can be enhanced by having teacher training programs.

Keith Herman, a professor in the MU College of Education and co-director of the Missouri Prevention Center, said that the results of their research how important it is to have teacher-parent connections and that training for teachers are necessary in order to establish better relationships with parents, Science Daily reported.

Herman explained that even based on the years of research, student success is linked to teacher's perception. This is because if a teacher has established good relationship with the parents or if they think that the parents are actively involved in their child's education, the teacher have a higher likelihood of going an extra mile for that student. And on the other hand, if the parent does not seem to be engaged in their child's education, the interaction of the teacher to both the child and parent will be affected.

Herman added that negative perceptions influence negative behaviors and even previous studies have shown that teachers have the tendency to be in less alignment with the parents of children who have social and academic problems, and parents who have low income. The study aims to enhance teacher-parent relationships for better education for children, and to urge parents to become more involved in their children's education process.