A fourth study touched on a variable examined the classroom characteristics related to eighth grade students' academic self-efficacy, their sense that they can succeed in academics. Ryan and Patrick (2001) examined the relationship between teachers' levels of support for their student-teacher relationships, the extent to which they promote social interaction between students, the extent to which thy promote mutual respect between classmates, and the extent to which they emphasize performance goals in a sample of over 200 students from three ethnically diverse middle schools in the Midwest. Their study suggested that 8th grade students whose teachers place more emphasis on mutual respect between classmates tend to feel more efficacious in their schoolwork than those whose teachers place less emphasis on mutual respect. This relationship held even with controls for the students' levels of motivation and academic achievement in 7th grade.