In a study published in
PLOS One, researchers Alex Desatnik, Maxim Yakubovskiy, Sergei Tarasov, and Peter Fonagy dive into the role of trust in the classroom. They introduce the Epistemic Trust Towards Teacher (ETT) questionnaire, a new tool for measuring how much students trust their teachers—and how that trust shapes learning. Drawing on psychology, pedagogy, and even evolutionary theory, the study makes a strong case: trust isn’t just a nice extra in education, it’s a foundation for meaningful relationships and better outcomes.
