Children spend a significant amount of their time in school. Their experiences of teachers have implications for their well-being and school functioning. A growing body of literature shows that supportive relationships with teachers foster students’ engagement in learning activities (see Roorda et al.
2011 for a meta-analysis), feelings of school belonging (Wang and Eccles
2012), and academic skills (Maldonado-Carreno and Votruba-Drzal
2011). Such positive relationships also protect children from developing emotional and behavioral problems (see Lei et al.
2016 for a meta-analysis). Despite an increasing interest in the role of student-teacher relationships in children’s adjustment, the current literature has two major limitations.
First, a majority of the studies have focused on early childhood or the childhood period (for a few exceptions, see, for example, Longobardi et al.
2016; Reddy et al.
2003), and do not provide insight into how the quality of the student-teacher relationship is related to young people’s adjustment during the upper-secondary school years (ages 13–15). During this developmental period, adolescents experience pubertal changes, and often undergo shifts in their sense of self. At the same time, they are situated in a school context where there is a growing emphasis on standardized testing, and relatedly, a greater demand for academic performance. These changes and challenges may put young people at risk of experiencing academic and social adjustment problems. Teachers might be particularly important during this developmental period as they can provide a safe context for youth by providing support and guidance, by transmitting perspectives, and by helping them negotiate their way through the challenges.
Second, most studies (except for a few, e.g., Bosman et al.
2018; O’Connor and McCartney
2007; Spilt et al.
2012) have examined the student-teacher relationship at a single point in time, and predicted its effect on subsequent developmental outcomes. This approach assumes that the student-teacher relationship is static, and does not consider how relationship quality changes over time. As highlighted in the interpersonal-relationship literature, sustained or increasing exposure to interpersonal stressors may have a greater and longer lasting impact on adolescents’ development than experiences of temporary difficulties at a certain moment in time (e.g., Lester et al.
2013). In a similar way, the continuous experience of a supportive relationship may be more favorable for adolescents. To address these important gaps in the literature, the present study examined whether adolescents who follow different trajectories in their relationship with teachers differ from each other in their school adjustment.
Supportive and Fair Relationships with Teachers: Theoretical Framework
Different theoretical arguments have been used to explain why student-teacher relationships may play a role in the development and adjustment of children. The first prevailing theoretical argument is based on the attachment theory (Bowlby
1969). This theoretical perspective is mostly adopted in studies focusing on the preschool and elementary school years, and highlights the view that close relationships with teachers may create a secure base for children, and in turn, foster children’s positive sense of self, willingness to explore, and internal motivation to learn new things. By contrast, poor relationships with teachers, largely defined in terms of high conflict and low closeness, may lead children to feel insecure and distressed in the school environment, and thus hamper their adjustment and functioning in school (see Verschueren and Koomen
2012; Wentzel
2016 for an overview).
The second theoretical argument is built on the premises of social-motivation theories (such as Self Determination Theory, Deci and Ryan
2000), and emphasizes that young people’s basic psychological needs, including a sense of belonging or relatedness, need to be satisfied within the school context in order for them to engage positively in social and academic tasks in the classroom. A supportive teacher-child relationship may convey to children that they are valued at school, and foster the children’s sense of belonging. In turn, the feelings engendered by the relationship may boost their positive feelings and thoughts about school and help them acquire better academic skills (see Roorda et al.
2011 for an overview; Roeser et al.
1996).
The final theoretical argument has a social support perspective, and postulates that support from teachers is a personal resource that can act as a buffer against the challenges students may face (see Wentzel
2016 for an overview). This perspective considers multiple dimensions of support, including
informational (i.e., the extent to which students perceive that they are given clear guidance on what is expected and valued in the classroom),
instrumental (i.e., the extent to which students get necessary help and advice from teachers), and
emotional support (i.e., the extent to which students regard their relationships with teachers as nurturing and emotionally supportive) (Wentzel
2004). It indicates that when students receive necessary teacher support, they tend to be better at dealing with challenges, and in turn, have better social and academic adjustment (Wentzel et al.
2010; see Wentzel
2016 for an overview). Together, despite differences in focus, these three theoretical perspectives complement each other and highlight the importance of secure, close, and supportive relationships with teachers for the adjustment of children and adolescents in a school setting.
In addition to these three prevailing theoretical arguments, a growing body of research emphasizes the importance of a sense of justice and fairness in student-teacher relationships (e.g., Chen and Cui
2019; Gini et al.
2018). These studies use equity theory (Adams
1965) as a conceptual base, and argue that young people become sensitive to social comparisons during adolescence, and may be attentive to how fairly they are treated by their teachers compared to their peers. When students perceive their teachers as fair, the experience may enhance their sense of identity and self-worth (Tyler and Smith
1999), and also their sense of school belonging and connection (Molinari et al.
2013). By contrast, a perception of injustice or a sense of unfairness may put adolescents at risk of psychosomatic symptoms (Lenzi et al.
2013), dissatisfaction and distress (e.g., Gini et al.
2018), and in turn, school adjustment difficulties (Chen and Cui
2019; Ripski and Gregory
2009). Specifically, a recent large-scale study (Chen and Cui
2019) showed that perceived teacher unfairness was negatively associated with achievement in science, with a modest effect size across 52 different countries. Together, these studies indicate that a sense of justice and fairness is one of the fundamental needs of adolescents, which needs to be satisfied in order for adolescents to function well in school. The present study focused on both fairness and support aspects of the perceived teacher relationship, and examined how adolescents’ perceptions change during middle school years, and how such change is linked to their school satisfaction, achievement values, and failure anticipation.
The Longitudinal Association between Student-Teacher Relationships and Children’s Adjustment
Studies examining the long-term effects of student-teacher relationship quality largely focus on children’s experiences of teachers during preschool, and examine how these early experiences impact the academic, emotional, and behavioral adjustment of children by the time they are in primary school. These studies show that children with poor relationships with their teachers (conceptualized as high conflict and dependency as rated by teachers) during preschool are more likely to show poor academic performance (Hamre and Pianta
2001), to display poor social skills, such as low cooperation and low self-regulatory behaviors, and to engage in externalizing misbehaviors to a greater extent in primary school (Pianta and Stuhlman
2004). By contrast, children who have had a close relationship with their teachers during preschool (based on teacher ratings of closeness) are more likely to have better language and cognitive skills (Peisner‐Feinberg et al.
2001), and to engage in social behaviors (e.g., initiating and sharing friendships) (Berry and O’Connor
2010). Together, and in support of the premises of attachment theory, these studies suggest that positive early experiences with teachers may provide children with a secure emotional base, and predict their academic and social functioning as they move into a formal educational setting.
From childhood and onwards, the nature of the student-teacher relationship changes. Teachers increasingly become instructors rather than caregivers. Students also have fewer opportunities to interact with their teachers one-on-one. In line with these changes, a decline in the quality of relationships with teachers from childhood to early adolescence has been demonstrated (e.g., Hughes and Cao
2018; O'Connor
2010). For example, in a large-scale longitudinal study, O'Connor (
2010) followed children from 1st to 5th grade, and reported that, on average, the quality of the teacher-child relationship (operationalized as “high close” and “low conflict” based on teacher ratings) declined slightly through elementary school. Despite changes in the nature of the teacher-student relationship, recent studies suggest that the quality of the relationship still plays a crucial role in the adjustment of children up until the middle school years. For example, improvement in the teacher-student relationship (measured as an increase in the teacher rating of closeness) was found to be associated with an increase in reading skills (McCormick and O'Connor
2015), the display of fewer psychosocial problems, such as depressive symptoms and socially withdrawn behaviors (Maldonado-Carreno and Votruba-Drzal
2011), and less engagement in rule-breaking and aggressive behaviors (Maldonado-Carreno and Votruba-Drzal
2011; Rudasill et al.
2010). Together, these findings suggest that, when students form good relationships with their teachers, such relationships may boost their academic commitment and well-being, and protect them from engaging in risky behaviors during childhood.
A majority of the studies that examine the roles of the student-teacher relationship during adolescence are cross-sectional by nature (e.g., Gini et al.
2018; Roeser et al.
1996). However, efforts have been made recently to identify the long-term effects of the quality of the student-teacher relationship on young people’s adjustment during adolescence (e.g., Reddy et al.
2003; Wang and Holcombe
2010). Unlike the studies that focus on early and later childhood, these longitudinal studies do not rely on teacher reports, but examine the extent to which adolescents themselves perceive their teachers as caring, supportive, and fair. It has been shown that when adolescents perceive their teachers as caring and supportive, they are more likely to be satisfied with and interested in school (Wang and Holcombe
2010), to have a sense of belonging in the school environment (Wang and Holcombe
2010), to value learning (Roeser et al.
1998), to engage in class activities (Engels et al.
2016), and in turn, to display better academic performance over time (e.g., Roeser et al.
1998; Wang and Holcombe
2010). Positive relationships with teachers (measured in terms of students’ perceptions of having a close relation to or feeling cared about by their teachers) have also been found to protect adolescents from developing depressive symptoms (Joyce and Early
2014; Reddy et al.
2003), and from being involved in delinquent and violent behaviors over time (Wang et al.
2013). In sum, these studies indicate that relationships with teachers continue to play an essential role in the school and psychosocial adjustment of young people during adolescence.
One of the major limitations of studies of adolescents, however, is that they tend to treat the student-teacher relationship as static (except for a few: e.g., Reddy et al.
2003), and try to predict how the relationship with teachers during early adolescence is linked to young people’s later adjustment outcomes. However, recent studies that focus on childhood have shown that children follow different trajectories in their relationships with teachers, and that the trajectory they actually follow is linked to their long-term adjustment rather than their initial relationship with teachers. For example, O’Connor and McCartney (
2007) followed children from preschool to 3rd grade, and identified subgroups of children who followed different growth trajectories. They showed that the children who were rated as having a poor relationship with teachers to start with
and showed a decline over time were less likely to engage in classroom activities and displayed poorer academic performance than those who had an increasingly good relationship with teachers over time. Similarly, in a recent study, Bosman and colleagues (
2018), when examining whether children from preschool to 6th grade followed different trajectories regarding teacher dependency (measured on the basis of teacher ratings), identified two groups in terms of dependency over time: (1) low-decreasing and (2) low-increasing. They showed that students with low-increasing dependency had more problems at 6th grade, including lower levels of vocabulary, technical reading, reading comprehension, math achievement, self-efficacy, and task motivation, than those on a low-decreasing trajectory. Together, these findings highlight the importance of treating the teacher-student relationship as a time-varying construct so as better to understand its associations with young people’s development. However, no study has examined growth trajectories in student-teacher relationships during adolescence, particularly from the adolescents’ own perspectives.
To address this important gap in knowledge, the present study examined (1) whether young people follow different trajectories in their perceived relationships with teachers during upper-secondary school years (from age 13 to 15), and (2) whether students on different teacher-relationship trajectories differ from each other regarding how they change in their school satisfaction, achievement values, and failure anticipation over time. These three constructs were specifically targeted since they have been shown to be associated with interpersonal relationships in school, and are important indicators of academic performance. For example, previous research has shown that changes in students’ school satisfaction are predicted by students’ relationships with peers (e.g., Bayram Özdemir and Stattin
2014) and teachers (e.g., Zullig et al.
2011). Further, school satisfaction has been found to be associated with academic self-efficacy (Huebner and McCullough
2000) and school grades (e.g., Huebner and Gilman
2006). To sum up, developing a good understanding of the possible reasons why adolescents might become dissatisfied with their school or/and develop failure anticipation may be an important step in boosting adolescents’ academic performance and preventing school drop-out.