Teacher Support for a Classroom Setting that Promotes Thinking Skills: An Analysis on the Level of Academic Achievement of Middle School Students

In this study, teacher support for classroom setting that promotes thinking skills was comprised of two basic components based on student perception. The first one is teacher-student relationship (TSR) consisting of the dimensions of teacher subject matter knowledge, affective support and closeness, while the other is the teacher's effort to create thinking friendly classes (TFC). Both components were examined separately in two subjects in which students viewed themselves successful and unsuccessful in accordance with their GPAs. The study group consisted of 206 5th graders. Regarding the students' grade point averages, their best subject was Turkish while their worst course was Mathematics. The results revealed that the classroom setting of the subjects in which the students were more successful were more thinking friendly than of the subjects in which they were not successful. Additionally, TSR mean scores were higher in the subjects in which the students were successful. However, thinking-friendly classroom predicted academic achievement significantly either in their best or worst subjects, but teacher-student relationship was not a significant predictor for academic achievement. Another finding was that TSR level rose as TFC environment scores increased.