The association between student–teacher relationship quality and school liking: A small-scale 1-year longitudinal study

Abstract

This 1-year longitudinal study examined the association between student—teacher relationship quality and school liking in a sample of 234 students from two public schools in Sweden, who completed an online questionnaire on two separate occasions. The age range was 9–15 years in Time 1 and 10–16 years in Time 2. A path analysis showed that students who were younger, liked their school more, and had more positive, warm, and supportive relationships with their teachers were more inclined to score high in school liking one year later. In addition, younger students and students who liked their school and had better relationships with their teachers at Time 1 were inclined to have better relationships with their teachers one year later.

Keywords:

• student–teacher relationships
• school liking
• supportive teachers
• longitudinal study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Ethics approval statement

The study received ethical approval from the Regional Ethical Review Board in Linköping.

Participant consent statement

We obtained parental consent and student assent for all students, who participated in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant awarded to Robert Thornberg (main applicant), Camilla Forsberg (co-applicant) and Eva Hammar Chiriac (co-applicant) from The Swedish Institute for Educational Research [grant number 2017-00038].