What Makes Students Love School? New Research Reveals Surprising Answers

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

This analysis examined survey responses from 1,421 students across multiple Jewish day schools, using Pearson correlation analysis to identify factors most strongly associated with students' reported enjoyment of their school experience. All correlations reported achieved statistical significance at the p ≤ 0.05 level.

When administrators and educators ask themselves how to make students genuinely enjoy coming to school, the answer isn't what many might expect. A comprehensive analysis of survey responses from 1,421 Jewish day school students reveals that the strongest predictors of school enjoyment have less to do with academics and more to do with relationships, environment, and belonging.

The Leadership Factor Takes Center Stage

The single strongest factor correlating with student enjoyment is how well administrators create an environment that helps students learn (correlation coefficient r = 0.530 with student enjoyment). This finding suggests that effective educational leadership—administrators who actively foster supportive learning conditions—accounts for approximately 28% of the variance in how much students enjoy their school experience.

"What we're seeing is that students can sense when leadership is invested in their success," explains a day school administrator. Students who feel their administrators are creating conditions for learning report significantly higher levels of school enjoyment compared to those who don't perceive this administrative support.

Environment Beats Curriculum

The second strongest predictor is students' satisfaction with their school's positive and nurturing environment (r = 0.515), followed closely by their sense of belonging at school (r = 0.509). These environmental and social factors consistently outperformed purely academic measures in predicting student enjoyment.

This pattern challenges traditional assumptions about what drives student satisfaction. While factors like teaching quality and curriculum certainly matter, the research suggests that how students feel at school may be more important than what they learn.

The Belonging Revolution

Perhaps most striking is the prominence of social connection in the findings. Students who feel they belong at their school are dramatically more likely to enjoy the experience. This sense of belonging correlates more strongly with enjoyment than factors like extracurricular activities, academic feedback, or even having trusted adults available.

The research identified several moderate-to-strong predictors of school enjoyment:

• Role models and mentorship (r = 0.465): Students who see staff as excellent role models report higher satisfaction

• Social community strength (r = 0.448): A strong social community among students predicts greater enjoyment

• Classroom engagement (r = 0.444): When lessons are engaging, students enjoy school more

• Teaching style alignment (r = 0.432): Matching teaching approaches to learning needs matters significantly

Academic Quality: Important But Not Primary

Interestingly, while academic factors do correlate with school enjoyment, they don't dominate the list. Classroom engagement ranks sixth overall, and the quality of teacher feedback ranks tenth. This doesn't diminish the importance of academic excellence, but rather suggests that academic quality works best when embedded within a supportive, nurturing environment.

Practical Implications for Schools

The findings point to several actionable strategies for schools seeking to improve student satisfaction:

Invest in administrators and administrative training focused on how to create learning-supportive environments. The data suggests this single factor has the highest potential impact on student enjoyment.

Prioritize culture over curriculum in school improvement efforts. While both matter, the research indicates that environmental factors may offer greater returns on investment in terms of student satisfaction.

Develop belonging initiatives such as mentorship programs, student clubs, and community-building activities. The correlation between belonging and enjoyment is too strong to ignore.

Focus on role modeling by ensuring staff understand their impact as examples for students extends far beyond academic instruction.

Statistical Validation

All correlations reported reached statistical significance (p ≤ 0.05), meaning these relationships are highly unlikely to be due to chance. The strongest factors show correlations above 0.5, which researchers classify as "strong" relationships that explain 25-28% of the variance in student outcomes.

Looking Forward

These findings suggest a fundamental shift in how schools might approach student satisfaction. Rather than focusing primarily on academic programming, the most effective path to student enjoyment appears to run through relationship-building, environmental design, and community creation.

The research offers hope for educators: creating conditions where students love coming to school may be more achievable than previously thought, requiring investment in areas that are largely within schools' direct control—leadership development, culture building, and fostering belonging.

As schools continue to navigate changing educational landscapes, this research provides a data-driven roadmap toward one of education's most important goals: helping students not just learn, but love learning.

Benchmarking for Good Can Help Your School

Through its no cost research grants. Benchmarking for Good can help your school become a place students enjoy being. This will pay off in strong word of mouth advocacy--the best kind of marketing, more enrollment, and happier parents. Contact Dr. Harry Bloom to explore our Fall/Winter 2025 research grants at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org