Environmental Supports

• Working Alliance
  Projects in this area stemmed from an understanding of the importance of the instructor-student relationship for students with academic difficulties. Individuals with LD suffer from a host of negative outcomes related to their academic failure. The field of LD has recently begun to focus on resiliency factors in students with LD and it has been observed that ability to persist and apply learning strategies in the area of difficulty is an important factor contributing to positive outcomes. As principal investigator in an early project on working alliance, Dr. Heath led an international team of colleagues to investigate the effect of the relationship between tutor and student on the students’ ability to perform. Colleagues on the team include colleagues from McGill (Dr. Marilyn Fitzpatrick), the Taylor Adolescent Program (Drs. Renee Stevens & Len Shenker) in Montreal and their partner program in Mexico (Rosa del Carmen Flores Macías and Silvia Macotela).

  The “working alliance,” a construct that has been used to measure relationship between counsellor and client in psychotherapy, has been found to be one of the best predictors of success in therapy. Drs. Heath and Fitzpatrick adapted the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI; Horvath & Greenberg, 1986; 1989) and piloted it in tutorial sessions with adolescents with LD. The Tutorial Working Alliance Inventory (TWAI) (© 2005; Heath & Fitzpatrick) is a solid measure of the tutor-student relationship and has consistently been found to relate to a variety of positive outcomes including student and tutor ratings of performance, focus during tutorial session, motivation, and behaviour (Heath, Fitzpatrick, Flores, & Macotela, 2004; Toste, Heath, Fitzpatrick, Flores, & Macotela, 2007). The short version of the WAI has also been adapted for use as a classroom-based teacher inventory. Our work using the Classroom Working Alliance Inventory (CWAI) (© 2007; Heath, Toste, Dallaire, & Fitzpatrick) has documented the critical role that relationship plays in the student’s school satisfaction, behaviour, and academic self-perceptions (Toste & Heath, 2008; Toste, Heath, & Dallaire, 2008; Toste, Popliger, Roberts, & Heath, 2007). The ability to measure the working relationship between instructors and students in a meaningful way is a substantial breakthrough in this field. Previously, it was recognized that poor “relationships” with the student resulted in non-compliance and attrition in tutorial programs, however, the TWAI and CWAI serve to operationalize the construct of relationship for the first time.

  
  

 

 

Dr. Nancy Heath - Research Team - McGill University
Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology
3700 McTavish Street
Montréal, Québec
Canada H3A 1Y2
Tel. (514) 398-1232 - Fax (514) 398-6968
e-mail: heathreasearchteam@hotmail.com

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