How a "magic" ratio might just be not so "magic" after all

I’m a “fixer.” When I see something that could be better, I want to help make it better. In some respects, this was a good trait to have as a high school English teacher. When my students’ essays were out of shape, I just saw potential. I was quick with my PaperMate Flair pen (every English teacher has their favorite marking tool) and used it liberally.

Of course, my students didn’t always appreciate all that ink. In fact, sometimes they took it personally. That wasn’t my intention, and yet, it happened. Why?

This is how I began a blog post about something called “the 5-to-1” ratio back in January of 2023. If you didn’t read the blog post, you may still have heard of the ratio idea - it’s pretty popular, and sometimes referred to as a “magic ratio.” Basically, it boils down to this:

In the blog post, I gave this definition and went on to reflect on the merits of the “5-to-1” ratio and how it could have helped me solve my problem with written feedback and improve my classroom dynamics more generally. 

People seemed to like this idea. I went on to design two courses for Michigan Virtual that referenced the 5:1 ratio. 

The blog post also became very popular on Michigan Virtual’s site.

Recently, I was asked to put some new touches on that post for a re-publish. In the process of working on some commentary and edits, I realized something pretty surprising:

The 5-to-1 ratio is, well, not exactly legitimate. At least not in the way that I applied it in my blog.

One thing from that blog post does still hold true, though: I’m a “fixer.” So I’m going to “fix” this to the best of my ability.

How did this happen?

I originally came across the concept of the “5-to-1 ratio” in an educational text that I think is excellent. That author mentioned the ratio in passing, and cited a blog post by another author in education. And that’s as far as I looked before writing my first blog post.

After searching the internet for information to include in my revised blog post, I realized I should have looked deeper.

It turns out that author referenced Dr. John Gottman, an American psychologist whose research focuses on divorce prediction and marital stability through relationship analyses. 

That gave me pause. Was the origin of this magic ratio that I was applying to teaching actually research on marriage and divorce?

The short answer is: yep. 

And it turns out teaching is not the only field that this “magic ratio” from marriages has been applied to. If you do a quick search of the 5:1 ratio on your favorite search engine, you’ll find applications in parenting, business, life coaching, and beyond. 

There are two issues here: 

1. Dr. Gottman is an important figure in his own field, and his work has had significant influence. Even so, the specifics of Gottman’s ratio have been met with some criticism.

2. His institute, the Gottman Institute, does provide guidance outside of couples relationships - it also works on parenting and family issues. I can’t find any evidence, though, that Gottman or his institute have applied the 5:1 “magic” ratio beyond its original context. And they certainly haven’t applied the ratio to teaching. (This makes sense, and it’s clear that they seem to be using the findings judiciously.)

Basically, even if we put aside the specifics of the research behind the ratio, there’s still the fact that it was simply never based in the classroom to begin with. And the person who discovered the ratio hasn’t made that application, either. 

As for how that jump to teaching (and a ton of other fields) happened - well, that’s less clear. 

If I were to wager a guess, I’d say it’s because the 5:1 ratio seems:

• Easy to understand

• Simple to implement

• Based in positivity

• To just make intuitive sense

Add that to the fact that it’s loosely “based on research,” and it’s the perfect concept to go viral in educational spaces (and plenty of other spaces, too).

Is it really that deep?

I know what you might be thinking, because in the course of writing this, the thought has popped into my head many times: Is it really that deep? It’s true that all of the things I could get wrong, this feels like a pretty innocuous one. What’s the problem with teachers having more positive interactions, after all? 

I have to admit that I probably make worse mistakes on a weekly basis. But I don’t publish them on the internet and attach my professional ethos to them. And I usually get to correct them in one way or another.

It really is that deep to me because I care about being accurate, and that blog post wasn’t. I care about exploring nuance, and that blog post didn’t. 

I also have a suspicion that this story so far is how most “sticky,” but not-quite-accurate ideas get passed around in the world of education and the world in general:

• I took something that seemed simple, intuitive, and cited by other educators. 

• I turned it into easily-digestible content. 

• It got popular, so I ran with it and didn’t look back.

Unfortunately, as Mark Twain probably did not say, “A lie (not-quite-right idea) can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.” I’ve spent way more time researching and writing this update than I did on the original post, and most of the folks who read that first blog post will never get to read this.

If you’re still with me, I promise I’m almost finished lacing up.

What does the research say?

Unsurprisingly, other folks in the field of education have already questioned the 5:1 ratio and have arrived at some answers. In fact, they did so before I ever published that first post - I just wasn’t looking in the right place, or hard enough.

Kobayashi of Miyazaki International College in Japan provides a great overview of the literature in a conceptual article called “Recommendable Positive-To-Negative Interaction Ratio for Teachers.” 

Here are the highlights:

• Empirical studies have tracked the effects of the positive-to-negative interaction ratio between teachers and students (PN ratio). A higher PN ratio means a higher number of positive to negative interactions, while a lower PN ratio means a lower number of positive to negative interactions.

• Higher PN ratios are generally associated with better emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes for both students and teachers. 

• Though this seems intuitive, it’s important to note that to implement a higher PN, a teacher has to work through negativity bias: humans’ tendency to focus on negative affects and experiences. Teachers often focus on students’ inappropriate or undesirable behaviors, and students are disproportionately affected by teachers’ negative interactions with them. 

• Over the years, different scholars have suggested specific, optimal ratios like the 5:1 or 4:1 ratios. However, as Sabey et. al wrote in 2019, in “The “Magic” Positive-to-Negative Interaction Ratio: Benefits, Applications, Cautions, and Recommendations,” there is no empirical research to support any specific optimal ratio. In fact, a 1:1 ratio “has been shown to be effective under certain circumstances, casting doubt on the belief that there is an optimal PN ratio.”

• More recently, Caldarella and colleagues did research with large data sets and a variety of students (Elementary, 2020; Middle School, 2021) to determine if there’s an optimal PN ratio. They found a linear relationship between PN ratio and a number of positive student outcomes, but no optimal ratio for any target outcome. 

So what now?

Kobayashi offers some conclusions at the end of his piece that I agree with:

• There probably is no singular PN ratio that will work for every teacher in every scenario.

• Teachers should create more positive than negative interactions with students.

• “The critical PN ratio in order to create optimal teaching and learning in a particular class can be found by the teacher who instructs that class, not by someone else.”

A “magic” ratio of 5-to-1 sounds nice and neat. It makes it seem like any classroom issue can be solved mathematically and precisely. And yes, it makes for an easy, engaging blog post. 

But most teachers will correctly tell you that it doesn’t work like that. Creating an effective learning community isn’t about ensuring that you hit a specific number of interactions on any given day. It’s about responding with empathy and understanding to the specific individuals in front of you. 

At its best, a specific ratio is an oversimplification that glosses over the nuance and challenge of creating community and making learning happen. At its worst, a specific ratio can be manipulated to assert control and divert autonomy away from teachers (As an example, consider that specific ratios have been incorporated into teacher evaluations).

Ultimately, I believe in accuracy and nuance. Maybe most importantly, though, I believe that teachers have the skills and knowledge to determine, with their students, what’s best for their classrooms.

Thinking back to my own classroom issue that inspired the post:

• I didn’t need a specific ratio to know that I had an issue in my classroom, and that it had to do with how much positive vs. critical feedback I was giving.

• Simply adjusting the amount of positive feedback I was giving would probably have worked to some extent. After all, research has generally found that more positive interactions are helpful. Hitting a 5:1 ratio, though, wouldn’t have magically solved everything.

• The most important thing for me to do would have been observing the impacts of my changed approach on students and communicating with them to make it right. Because ultimately, it was, and still is, all about our relationships.

It’s not magic. It’s not a simple mathematical expression. It probably won’t go viral. But it’s honest and grounded in what research has found so far.

As for my future blog posts, I’m going to trust myself more as I write: If something sounds too tidy to be perfectly accurate, well, it probably isn’t perfectly accurate. And maybe my natural inclination to do a deep dive on a simple claim really is valuable (even if it does take way longer than I expected).

Despite my efforts, this won’t be the last time I’m wrong - probably not even this week. And when it happens, I can at least lean on my identity as a “fixer” to try to make things a little more right.