Exploring Resilience: Teacher-Student Bonds in Elementary School (2016)

Undergraduate: Kelly Bowling

Faculty Advisor: Patrick Akos
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

---

Previous research shows a key component of student resilience is dependent upon the relationship he or she has with his or her teacher. Studies report that the teacher-student relationship is a strong indication of whether a student will succeed academically, especially in the case of at-risk students. In the face of various risk factors that every student will experience in his or her life and not just in their academic career, teachers can serve as important protective factors that help buffer the effects of his or her adversities. With this knowledge, the current project looks at teacher and administrative strategies for building resilience in elementary school students, how these strategies can be improved, and which strategies work best. The project at hand explores these questions through discussions with teachers and counseling staff at different elementary schools. The hope of building resilience in students at a young age is to see an improvement in the long-term resilience when students are faced with academic struggles and mental health risk factors, but there has yet to be research done on long-term implications. If intervention through teacher-student relationship building occurs earlier on, students may be better equipped to continue the trend with future teachers and have better overall outcomes.