Teacher–student relationships and students’ self-efficacy beliefs. Rationale, validation and further potential of two instruments

ABSTRACT

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 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. 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.   

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher-student relationship
• student self-efficacy
• students’ perspective
• instrument validation
• factor analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The search was performed in January 2013, but to our knowledge no such instrument as of yet exists.

2. The theoretically assumed correlation between TSR and SSE was ignored in the initial model testing.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Ulf Jederlund

Ulf Jederlund is a teacher educator, school supervisor and authorised psychotherapist, working at the Department of Special Education, at Stockholm University. His research focuses on “Relational School Development”: how improved teacher collaboration and collective learning processes among school staff can support the development of trustful teacher–student relationships, that promote student’s self-believes, well-being and learning.

Tatjana von Rosen

Tatjana von Rosen is a senior lecturer, assistant professor and researcher at the Department of Statistics, at Stockholm University. Her research focuses statistical multilevel models with applications for educational and social sciences, model diagnostics, modelling of different types of dependences, and developing testing procedures.