Teachers’ self-efficacy and its association with their quality of relationships with pre and early adolescents: a hierarchical linear modelling approach

ABSTRACT

The present study was set out to investigate the association between teachers’ perception of the quality of their relationships with their students’ and teachers’ professional self-efficacy. Fifty public school teachers were asked: (a) to assess their perceived levels of efficacy and (b) to randomly select eight students from their classrooms (4 males and 4 females) for whom (n = 395) to evaluate the quality of their relationships. The two administered instruments were the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale [Tschannen-Moran and Hoy. 2001. “Teacher Efficacy: Capturing an Elusive Construct.” Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (7): 783–805] and the Teacher–Student Relationship Inventory (TSRI; Ang. 2005. “Development and Validation of the Teacher–Student Relationship Inventory Using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis.” The Journal of Experimental Education 74 (1): 55–74). Initially, the psychometric properties of the TSRI were examined. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the Greek version of TSRI has the same three-factor structure reported in other cultures. Multilevel analysis revealed that teachers’ beliefs were not related to any of the TSRI dimensions. Teachers’ and students’ gender seem to affect teachers’ perceptions of their relationships with their students.

KEYWORDS:

• Student–teacher relationships
• teachers' beliefs
• multilevel analysis
• confirmatory factor analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Athanasios Gregoriadis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3026-6614

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research Committee, of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki [grant number 9737].