The Impact of Interpersonal Relationships on Students' Academic Achievement in Primary and Secondary Schools

Schools are places of knowledge transfer and crucial settings for students to develop social skills and cultivate interpersonal relationships. Therefore, focusing on students' interpersonal relationships within schools is essential to understand how these interactions impact their academic performance. Teacher-student relationships and peer relationships are most common and significant interpersonal relationships in school. These relationships can profoundly influence students' academic performance, with peer acceptance showing a positive correlation and peer rejection showing a negative correlation with academic achievement among adolescents. In contrast, the teacher-student relationship has a bi-directional effect on academic achievement. In addition to direct effects, interpersonal relationships also impact academic achievement through mediating factors such as motivation, school belonging, and academic engagement. This paper aims to delve into the influence of interpersonal relationships within primary and secondary schools on students' academic achievement and provide insights for schools, teachers, parents, and policymakers on improving the social environment within schools to better support students' learning and development.