Alireza Zareian Jahromi, a fourth-year PhD student in Fordham’s Applied Developmental Psychology program, has received a national award from the American Psychological Association and honor society Psi Chi for the best empirical research paper published in 2025.
His paper, titled “Associations Between Student-Teacher Developmental Relationships, Students’ Social and Emotional Competencies, and Academic Motivation,” examines the impact of the relationships between students and teachers on students’ academic performance. The award, which includes $1,200 and plaques presented to Zareian Jahromi and Fordham’s Department of Psychology, is given to just one graduate student each year across all areas of psychology.
Although he has received numerous awards in the past, including from APA and Psi Chi, Zareian Jahromi said he never expected the paper to win such a competitive honor.
“When I saw the email, frankly, I did not believe that I was selected as a recipient of this award, but I’m very happy and I’m very grateful,” he said. Zareian Jahromi went on to express gratitude to his co-authors: his PhD adviser Professor Joshua Brown, PhD, Associate Professor Lindsay Till Hoyt, PhD, Professor Heining Cham, PhD, Associate Professor Elissa Aminoff, PhD, and Katherine Ross, PhD, of the Search Institute, a nonprofit that studies youth development.
Examining the Teacher-Student Relationship
For the study, Zareian Jahromi and his co-authors analyzed Search Institute data from about 1,500 students at three middle schools in the Midwest. The data measured students’ relationships with their teachers, their social and emotional competencies—including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making—and their academic motivation over the course of a school year.
The longitudinal data allowed the researchers to look at changes over time rather than at a single point in students’ development.
His analysis found that as the quality of student-teacher relationships improved, students’ academic motivation and social and emotional competencies increased as well. Those associations did not differ across grade levels, Zareian Jahromi said, highlighting the importance of supportive teacher relationships throughout middle school.
Zareian Jahromi said the paper addresses an important gap in the research.
“I believe that over the past few years, we’ve seen so much data on students’ academic outcomes and how they’ve declined,” he said. “Unfortunately, there is not much literature on how the quality of student-teacher relationships longitudinally affects students’ academic outcomes like academic motivation.”
Building a Career in School-Based Research
At Fordham, Zareian Jahromi has found the Applied Developmental Psychology program to be a rewarding place to pursue his research. His broader research interests include school-based social and emotional interventions, teacher wellbeing, and students’ and teachers’ social-emotional competencies. After he completes the program, he hopes to continue that work through a postdoctoral fellowship and eventually as a tenure-track faculty member.
Zareian Jahromi hopes his research can make an important contribution to the field of psychology while helping students and teachers.
“We have seen so much data on teacher burnout, and so much data on students with higher levels of stress and lower levels of motivation. I believe more research and more school-based interventions are needed to address these challenges,” Zareian Jahromi said.
In the meantime, he’s honored that his work is receiving recognition, and that he’s found such a supportive environment at Fordham.
“This was a dream come true for me,” he said. “I do not consider it to be an individual award. This was the result of huge teamwork.”
