Key takeaways
- Teacher-student relationships have medium-to-large links to engagement, stronger in secondary school (Roorda et al., 2011, 2017).
- Check-In/Check-Out shows medium-to-large effects, larger in elementary than middle school (Wolfe et al., 2020; Drevon et al., 2019).
- Self-monitoring produced moderate gains across 36 studies, most with older students (International Journal of Educational Research, 2022).
- Cite burnout and paperwork figures to RAND, Gallup, and GAO with the year; secondary sources drift.
- Use neuroscience as framing, never as the headline claim; the cortisol studies are correlational.
The practices behind a daily behavior chart, a morning check-in, a student self-monitoring rubric, and a kept progress record have peer-reviewed evidence behind them, and some of the claims made about them in training decks do not. This page lists what the research supports, with the source, the sample, the effect size, and the caveat for each finding, so a teacher, a team, or a leader can quote it accurately. It is the reference behind our writing on these topics; the individual posts read more easily, this page is for checking.
How to use this page
Take a row, quote the finding with its source and year, and keep the caveat. Where a finding rests on one small study, say so. Where the evidence is correlational, say so. A rationale that includes its own limits survives a skeptical reader; one that does not gets discarded along with the practice it was defending.
1. Relationships and daily check-ins
| Finding | Source | Sample and effect | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positive teacher-student relationships are linked to engagement (medium to large) and achievement (small to medium) | Roorda, Koomen, Spilt and Oort, 2011, Review of Educational Research 81(4) | 99 studies; the positive relationship and engagement strand alone covered 61 studies and 88,417 students | Correlational syntheses; effects stronger in higher grades for positive relationships |
| Engagement mediates the path from relationship to achievement; positive relationships are more strongly tied to engagement in secondary school | Roorda et al., 2017, School Psychology Review | 189 studies, about 249,000 students | Same design limits as above |
| Teacher-student relationships rank well above average among influences on achievement | Hattie, Visible Learning database | d about 0.72 | Hattie's rankings pool syntheses of varying quality; use as direction, not precision |
| Check-In/Check-Out improves student outcomes across behavior, social skills, and academics | Wolfe et al., 2020, Education and Treatment of Children | 6 group-design studies, 146 students; g = 0.42 overall; elementary g = 0.70, middle school g = 0.27 | Few group trials; effects shrink with age |
| Check-In/Check-Out improves outcomes by over one standard deviation when single-case studies are included | Drevon et al., 2019, Psychology in the Schools 56(3) | 32 studies, 59 outcomes; g = 1.22 (95% CI 1.00 to 1.44) | Single-case designs inflate effect sizes relative to group trials; best for behavior maintained by adult attention |
| Supportive classrooms and balanced teacher relationships go with healthier daily cortisol profiles in young children | Ahnert et al., 2012, Attachment and Human Development | 105 German first-graders, salivary cortisol across the school week | Correlational; classroom climate, not single check-ins |
| Higher classroom teacher burnout predicts higher student morning cortisol | Oberle and Schonert-Reichl, 2016, Social Science and Medicine | 406 students | Correlational "stress contagion"; no intervention tested |
The practical guides built on these findings are the daily check-in chart starter and the CICO guide. The full argument is in why checking in matters more in high school.
2. Self-monitoring and student agency
| Finding | Source | Sample and effect | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-monitoring improves strategy use and academic performance | International Journal of Educational Research, 2022, meta-analysis | 36 experimental studies, 2,617 students; g = 0.38 (strategy use), g = 0.47 (academic performance); 60 percent of studies in higher education | Stronger when embedded in multi-component interventions |
| Students predicting and tracking their own performance is among the largest influences on achievement | Hattie, Visible Learning, "self-reported grades / student expectations" | d = 1.44 | Do not translate to "three years of growth"; Hattie acknowledged the common-language effect size figures in the original book were miscalculated |
| Self-monitoring improves academic performance and/or reduces problem behavior for students with behavior challenges | Bruhn, McDaniel and Kreigh, 2015, Behavioral Disorders | Review of 41 studies; over half added reinforcement for accurate recording | Mostly single-case designs |
| Goal setting plus reinforcement plus feedback, and shorter monitoring intervals, produce the strongest effects on engagement | Bruhn et al., 2022 | Component analysis of self-monitoring interventions | Guides design, not a stand-alone effect size |
| Goal setting versus self-monitoring for high school students with EBD showed only moderate, non-functional effects | Estrapala, Bruhn and Rila, 2022, Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders | 3 students; high social validity | A null-leaning result; quote it when you quote the positive ones |
| High school Check-In/Check-Out adaptation raised academic engagement | Kittelman et al., 2023, Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions | Single-case; d = 1.05; fidelity 71 to 87 percent | Small and single-case |
| High school CICO adaptation with student self-rating and a mobile app showed small-to-moderate gains in attendance and teacher ratings | Flannery et al., 2024, Behavioral Disorders | Randomized trial, 14 ninth graders | Underpowered; treat as pilot evidence |
| Students with disabilities who were more self-determined at high school exit fared better in employment, benefits, financial independence, and independent living at 1 and 3 years | Wehmeyer and Palmer, 2003, Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities | 94 students | Follow-up study; self-determination measured broadly, not self-monitoring alone |
| Self-determined students were employed at higher rates and earned more per hour after school | Wehmeyer and Schwartz, 1997, Exceptional Children | Follow-up study | Same limit as above |
| Self-determination at exit predicts employment and community access one year later | Shogren et al., 2015 | Follow-up analysis | Same limit as above |
| Progress in meaningful work is the strongest driver of a good inner work life; progress appeared on 76 percent of best-mood days | Amabile and Kramer, 2011, The Progress Principle | About 12,000 diary entries, 238 employees, 7 companies | Workplace research; apply to classrooms by analogy and say so |
The tool built on these findings is the self-monitoring rubric for grades 6 to 12.
3. Documentation load and teacher burnout
| Finding | Source | Sample and figure | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 percent of K-12 teachers reported burnout in 2024; 53 percent in 2025; women 63 percent in 2024 (up from 56 percent in 2021), men about 49 percent | RAND, State of the American Teacher, 2024 and 2025 | About 1,500 K-12 teachers, January 2024; repeated 2025 | Self-report; quote the year with the figure |
| K-12 workers have the highest burnout of any industry; teachers within K-12 highest at 52 percent | Gallup Panel Workforce Study, February 2022 | 12,319 U.S. full-time workers, including 1,263 K-12 workers | 2022 figure; do not present as current |
| Paperwork can take up to half of a special education teacher's time, about 7 weeks a year | Frontline Education, citing a GAO survey of special educators and administrators in 37 states | Upper-range estimate | Secondary source citing a government survey; present as "up to" |
| IEP paperwork alone takes more than 10 percent of working time | Purwanti et al., narrative review | Review | Narrative, not systematic |
| Only perceived control over barriers predicted whether special educators collected data; attitude and norms predicted intention only | Ruble, McGrew, Wong and Missall, 2018, Journal of Early Intervention | Early childhood special educators; theory of planned behavior | One study, early childhood setting |
| Teacher exhaustion was among the variables that predicted whether children with autism met their IEP goals | Ruble and McGrew, 2013, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders | Teacher and child predictors of goal attainment | Correlational |
| Teacher self-efficacy, belief in one's capacity to affect student outcomes, is measurable and protective | Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001; Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale | Scale development and validation | Construct, not an intervention |
| Fragmented, scattered information taxes working memory during instruction | Sweller, cognitive load theory | Theory with a large experimental base in instruction | Applied to teacher documentation by reasoning, not by a study of tally sheets |
The argument built on these findings is in special education paperwork and burnout.
4. The discipline shift and the family trust gap
| Finding | Source | Detail | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| California ended willful defiance suspensions from school for grades K through 12 | SB 274, signed October 8, 2023, effective July 1, 2024 | Builds on the 2013 K-3 ban and SB 419 (2019, through grade 8); referrals for in-school support must be documented within five business days; high school provision sunsets 2029 | California only; class suspension by the teacher remains |
| Willful defiance accounted for roughly a third of California out-of-school suspensions | UCLA Civil Rights Project estimates | Share varies by grade band and student group | Use a range, not a single figure |
| Black students nearly four times as likely to be suspended as white students; students with disabilities more than twice as likely as students without | U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2013-14 Civil Rights Data Collection | Covered nearly all public schools and over 50 million students; students with disabilities about 12 percent of enrollment and roughly a quarter of suspensions | 2013-14 collection; GAO (2018) found the same pattern in later data |
| PBIS implemented with fidelity is associated with fewer office referrals and suspensions and better academic outcomes | Multiple studies, including a nine-year evaluation in Educational Research and Evaluation, 2016; PBIS in 25,000+ schools | Fidelity-linked | A meta-analysis using What Works Clearinghouse procedures found no significant overall effect on office referrals across the few rigorous randomized trials |
| Restorative practices did not reduce suspensions after one year | Augustine et al., cluster randomized trial | District-level RCT | Mixed evidence base; present as promising, not proven |
| Effective family engagement is relational, linked to learning, and asset-based | Mapp and Kuttner, 2013; Mapp and Bergman, 2019 (Dual Capacity-Building Framework, version 2) | Framework adopted widely by districts | A framework, not an effect size |
| Schools must communicate essential information to limited-English-proficient parents in a language they can understand | Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (1964); Equal Educational Opportunities Act (1974); U.S. Departments of Education and Justice guidance, January 2015 | Reinforced by ESSA notice requirements and IDEA native-language notice | Covers essential information and communications sent to English-proficient parents, not every note |
| About one in five people age 5 and older speaks a language other than English at home | American Community Survey, 2018-2022 five-year estimates | 21.7 percent | People, not households |
The guide for leaders on the legal side is documentation requirements: IDEA, Section 504, FERPA, and Title VI.
Claims to avoid
- "Check-ins lower cortisol." The cortisol studies are correlational and about classroom climate over time. Say: research links supportive relationships to healthier stress patterns.
- "Self-reported grades equal three years of growth." A misused translation of Hattie's d = 1.44. Say: large and consistently positive.
- "PBIS is proven by randomized trials to cut suspensions." Fidelity-linked evidence is strong; the randomized-trial base is still small and mixed.
- "The progress principle shows students are motivated by small wins." Amabile and Kramer studied knowledge workers. Say: applied by analogy.
- "Regulate, relate, reason is neuroscience-proven." The Neurosequential Model has few controlled studies; polyvagal theory is contested. Use as framing, cite the behavioral evidence.
- Any single burnout or paperwork figure without a year and a primary source. The numbers drift across secondary sources.
- "CICO works for high school students." Effects shrink with age and the high school studies are small. Say: promising, with self-monitoring the better fit.
Two paragraphs you can quote
Teacher-student relationships have medium-to-large associations with student engagement, and the effect is stronger in the higher grades than the lower ones (Roorda et al., 2011, 99 studies; 2017, 189 studies). The structured version of a daily check-in, Check-In/Check-Out, shows effects from medium (g = 0.42 across group-design studies; Wolfe et al., 2020) to large (g = 1.22 including single-case studies; Drevon et al., 2019), with larger effects in elementary than middle school and the best fit for students whose behavior is maintained by adult attention. We propose a two-minute check-in with a consistent adult, one to three observable goals, and a kept record so we can review whether it is working at six weeks.
Sixty percent of K-12 teachers reported burnout in RAND's January 2024 State of the American Teacher survey (53 percent in 2025), and Gallup's February 2022 workforce study found teachers the most burned-out occupation it measured, at 52 percent. Frontline Education, citing a Government Accountability Office survey of special educators in 37 states, reports that paperwork can take up to half of a special education teacher's time. Research on what predicts whether teachers collect student data found that perceived control over barriers, not attitude or expectations, was the only factor tied to data collected in practice (Ruble et al., 2018). Reducing the time and friction of documentation is therefore both a retention measure and a data-quality measure.
Reference list
- Ahnert, L., et al. (2012). Student-teacher relationships and classroom climate in first grade: how do they relate to students' stress regulation? Attachment and Human Development.
- Amabile, T., and Kramer, S. (2011). The Progress Principle. Harvard Business Review Press.
- Augustine, C. H., et al. Cluster randomized trial of restorative practices (RAND).
- Bruhn, A., McDaniel, S., and Kreigh, C. (2015). Self-monitoring interventions for students with behavior problems: a systematic review. Behavioral Disorders.
- Bruhn, A., et al. (2022). Component analysis of self-monitoring interventions.
- Drevon, D. D., Hixson, M. D., Wyse, R. D., and Rigney, A. M. (2019). A meta-analytic review of the evidence for check-in check-out. Psychology in the Schools, 56(3), 393-412.
- Estrapala, S., Bruhn, A., and Rila, A. (2022). Goal setting versus self-monitoring for high school students with EBD. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.
- Flannery, K. B., et al. (2024). High school Check-In/Check-Out adaptation. Behavioral Disorders.
- Gallup (2022). K-12 Workers Have Highest Burnout Rate in U.S. Gallup Panel Workforce Study, February 3-14, 2022.
- Hattie, J. Visible Learning and the Visible Learning MetaX database.
- Kittelman, A., et al. (2023). CICO in high school. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions.
- Mapp, K. L., and Kuttner, P. J. (2013). Partners in Education: A Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships. Mapp, K. L., and Bergman, E. (2019). Version 2.
- Oberle, E., and Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (2016). Stress contagion in the classroom? Social Science and Medicine.
- Perry, B. D., Pollard, R. A., Blakley, T. L., Baker, W. L., and Vigilante, D. (1995). Childhood trauma, the neurobiology of adaptation, and "use-dependent" development of the brain. Infant Mental Health Journal.
- RAND Corporation. State of the American Teacher survey, 2024 and 2025 reports.
- Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., Spilt, J. L., and Oort, F. J. (2011). The influence of affective teacher-student relationships on students' school engagement and achievement: a meta-analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81(4), 493-529.
- Roorda, D. L., et al. (2017). Affective teacher-student relationships and students' engagement and achievement: a meta-analytic update and test of the mediating role of engagement. School Psychology Review.
- Ruble, L. A., and McGrew, J. H. (2013). Teacher and child predictors of achieving IEP goals of children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
- Ruble, L. A., McGrew, J. H., Wong, W. H., and Missall, K. N. (2018). Special education teachers' perceptions and intentions toward data collection. Journal of Early Intervention.
- Shogren, K. A., et al. (2015). Self-determination and post-school outcomes.
- Sweller, J. Cognitive load theory.
- Tschannen-Moran, M., and Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2001). Teacher efficacy: capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education.
- U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. 2013-14 Civil Rights Data Collection: A First Look. U.S. Government Accountability Office (2018). GAO-18-258, Discipline Disparities.
- U.S. Departments of Education and Justice (2015). Dear Colleague Letter: English Learner Students and Limited English Proficient Parents.
- Wehmeyer, M. L., and Palmer, S. B. (2003). Adult outcomes for students with cognitive disabilities three years after high school. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities.
- Wehmeyer, M. L., and Schwartz, M. (1997). Self-determination and positive adult outcomes. Exceptional Children.
- Wolfe, K., et al. (2020). Check-in/check-out implementation in schools: a meta-analysis of group design studies. Education and Treatment of Children.
Common questions
What is the strongest evidence for daily check-ins with students?
Two meta-analyses on teacher-student relationships (Roorda et al., 2011, 99 studies; 2017, 189 studies) found medium-to-large associations with engagement, stronger in the higher grades. For the structured version, Check-In/Check-Out, meta-analyses report effects from g = 0.42 in group-design studies (Wolfe et al., 2020) to g = 1.22 when single-case studies are included (Drevon et al., 2019).
Is there research showing behavior tracking works for high school students?
Yes for self-monitoring: a 2022 meta-analysis of 36 studies found moderate gains in strategy use and academic performance, with 60 percent of studies in higher education. Specific high school Check-In/Check-Out studies are small and mixed, so describe those as promising rather than established.
What are the current teacher burnout statistics?
RAND's State of the American Teacher survey found 60 percent of K-12 teachers reported burnout in January 2024 and 53 percent in 2025. Gallup's February 2022 workforce study found 52 percent of K-12 teachers felt burned out very often or always, the highest of any occupation measured.
Do check-ins lower students' cortisol?
That claim is not supported. Studies linking supportive relationships to healthier cortisol patterns (Ahnert et al., 2012; Oberle and Schonert-Reichl, 2016) are correlational and about classroom climate over time, not single check-ins. Say that supportive relationships are associated with healthier stress patterns.
Can I quote these figures in a grant application or board memo?
Yes, with the source and year attached to each figure and the caveats kept in. The tables on this page give the citation, the sample, the effect, and the limit for each finding so you can quote them accurately.