With a little pushing in the right direction from Dr. McCoy's comments, I am now leaning toward examining whether there is a significant correlation between student-teacher relationships and students' performance/achievement in math classes. I would like to focus more on low SES students, specifically perhaps trying to draw data from students with harder family lives, because my line of thought would be that teachers would be able to have more of an impact on these students (this may or may not be true).

Qualitative? You want us to write about that? You must be joking! No, I'm only kidding. I think the best research study would incorporate both quantitative and qualitative data. Particularly with this topic I am considering, it would be best to be able to sit down and interview students one on one or perhaps even do a group interview to find out more about their relationships with their teachers. Do they consider their teachers friendly, loving, and understanding? Do they believe that their teachers genuinely care about them or are able to relate to them?

In my teaching experience last summer, our boss most emphasized building relationships with the students, but this was relatively easy when we ate with them at lunch and played with them at recess. In reality, teachers only have about an hour or an hour and a half at most. I guess another thing to consider could be how do teachers go about building effective relationships with their students, but perhaps that would be a study for another time. First things first- determining just how much of a difference those relationships can make!