Teacher-Student Relationships and Students’ Self-efficacy Beliefs. Rationale, Validation and Further Potential of Two Instruments.

• High quality of teacher-student relationships is widely recognized as fundamental part of good education. Moreover, students' self-efficacy beliefs, or their confidence to succeed within different domains at school, are important impact factors to achievement. Although there is support for an association between student-perceived teacher-student relationship quality and students' self-efficacy judgements, which mediates achievement, no tool explores this association. This article suggests that two instruments, respectively measuring students' perceptions of teacher-student relationship quality (TSR) and student's self-efficacy (SSE), can be used in parallel for a multifaceted exploration of individual students’ perception of TSR quality, in relationship to their self-efficacy. Two well-established instruments were adopted, validated and their factor structures re-confirmed in a Swedish sample, using data collected from students in five schools (n=382). Factor analysis showed that models with three underlying dimensions of TSR and four underlying dimensions of SSE were the most appropriate, although not entirely satisfying. All sub-scales showed good-to-excellent reliability (Cronbach’s α=0.75-0.94). Findings indicated a lack of multigroup invariance across gender and school level for the TSR-model. Substantial associations were found between student-perceived teacher support, and students’ self-efficacy for self-regulated learning and global academic success. We discuss utility and limitations, need of model improvement, and future potential.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Lärande (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Learning (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Teacher-student relationship

student self-efficacy

students’ perspective

instrument validation

factor analysis

specialpedagogik med inriktning mot utbildningsvetenskap

Special Education with a Focus on Educational Science

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)