Article Student–teacher relationships and student self-concept: Relations with teacher and student gender Laura McFarland Charles Sturt University, Australia Elizabeth Murray Charles Sturt University, Australia Sivanes Phillipson Monash University, Australia Abstract Research has established that qualities of student–teacher relationships impact children’s self- concept, however, the role of teacher and child gender in these relations is unclear. This study used data from 4169 children aged 10–11 years and 3343 teachers from Wave 4 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children to examine the relationship between child and teacher gender, qualities of the student–teacher relationship and students’ self-concept. A nested structural equation model was constructed to test the concurrent and predictive effects student gender had on student–teacher relationships and students’ self-concept. Moreover, analysis of the model examined the extent to which relationships were mediated by student enjoyment of school and student perceptions of their teacher. For boys, closeness with their teachers did not predict their self-concept although conflict in their relationships negatively affected self-concept. For girls, both closeness and conflict predicted self-concept, with conflict having a greater effect on self-concept than closeness. Keywords self-concept, student gender, student–teacher relationships, teacher gender Introduction For the last two decades, student–teacher relationships have been a focus of educational research (Sabol & Pianta, 2012). Affective qualities of student–teacher relationships are important for children’s development and well-being (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Corresponding author: Laura McFarland, Charles Sturt University, Elizabeth Mitchell Dr, Albury, New South Wales 2640, Australia. Email: [email protected]Australian Journal of Education 0(0) 1–21 ! Australian Council for Educational Research 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0004944115626426 aed.sagepub.com by guest on February 7, 2016 aed.sagepub.com Downloaded from
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Article
Student–teacher relationshipsand student self-concept:Relations with teacher andstudent gender
Laura McFarlandCharles Sturt University, Australia
Elizabeth MurrayCharles Sturt University, Australia
Sivanes PhillipsonMonash University, Australia
Abstract
Research has established that qualities of student–teacher relationships impact children’s self-
concept, however, the role of teacher and child gender in these relations is unclear. This study
used data from 4169 children aged 10–11 years and 3343 teachers from Wave 4 of the
Longitudinal Study of Australian Children to examine the relationship between child and
teacher gender, qualities of the student–teacher relationship and students’ self-concept. A
nested structural equation model was constructed to test the concurrent and predictive
effects student gender had on student–teacher relationships and students’ self-concept.
Moreover, analysis of the model examined the extent to which relationships were mediated by
student enjoyment of school and student perceptions of their teacher. For boys, closeness with
their teachers did not predict their self-concept although conflict in their relationships negatively
affected self-concept. For girls, both closeness and conflict predicted self-concept, with conflict
having a greater effect on self-concept than closeness.
For the last two decades, student–teacher relationships have been a focus of educationalresearch (Sabol & Pianta, 2012). Affective qualities of student–teacher relationships areimportant for children’s development and well-being (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, &
Corresponding author:
Laura McFarland, Charles Sturt University, Elizabeth Mitchell Dr, Albury, New South Wales 2640, Australia.
Oort, 2011). Particularly for children who are at risk of school failure, an emotionallysupportive relationship with a teacher can have positive outcomes (Hamre & Pianta, 2005).
Research has focused on the role of the student–teacher relationship in helping to shapestudent self-concept, which can have long-lasting implications for the child (Sabol & Pianta,2012). The aim of the current study is to extend the existing research on student–teacherrelationships by investigating the role of teacher and child gender on student–teacherrelationships in Australia.
Student–teacher relationships
Although the parent–child relationship plays a large role in children’s social-emotionalcompetence in the years prior school (Ranson & Urichuk, 2008), after the start of formalschooling, interpersonal relationships in the school setting influence children’s development,particularly in relation to self-concept (Pianta, Hamre, & Stuhlman, 2003). Indeed, meta-analyses show that aspects of the student–teacher relationship impact student outcomes,including motivation to learn, behaviour and cognitive skills (Allen, Witt, & Wheeless,2006; Cornelius-White, 2007).
Pianta, Steinberg, and Rollins (1995) describe three important aspects of student–teacherrelationships; closeness, conflict and dependency. Closeness involves warm interactions andopen communication. Conflict involves negativity and discord. Dependency involveschildren’s clinginess and tendency to over-rely on the teacher. Doumen et al. (2012) assertthat these three relationship dimensions have been established in numerous research studieswith various sample characteristics (Pianta, 2001) and in a variety of countries (Beyazkurk &Kesner, 2005; Gregoriadis & Tsigilis, 2008; Koomen, Verschueren, & Pianta, 2007).Closeness, conflict and dependency in the student–teacher relationship have primarilybeen measured with the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS; Pianta, 1996, 2001).
Student–teacher closeness, conflict and dependency are related to children’s earlyacademic and social-emotional adjustment to school (Baker, 2006; Burchinal, Peisner-Feinberg, Pianta, & Howes, 2002; Liew, Chen, & Hughes, 2010). Close, supportiverelationships between students and teachers are related to engagement in classroomactivities (Meehan, Hughes, & Cavell, 2003) whereas student–teacher relationshipscharacterised by high conflict and dependency are associated with student graderepetition, peer rejection, externalising behaviours and negative school adjustment (Hamre& Pianta, 2001; Ladd & Burgess, 2001; Pianta et al., 1995). In fact, the quality of student–teacher relationships in the early years of school predicts long-term academic achievement,even after controlling for child characteristics (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). These findingssuggest that student–teacher relationships play a significant role in many aspects ofchildren’s development and outcomes.
Student–teacher relationship quality
Research shows that teachers and students perceive the quality of their relationshipsdifferently because internal representations of relationships reflect both relationship-specific appraisals and more stable individual perceptions about self and others (Hughes,2011). For example, when students perceive that they are accepted by peers, thereare improvements in student psychological well-being, even when their peers report alower level of acceptance (McElhaney, Antonishak, & Allen, 2008). Thus, it has been
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argued that student-perceived support from teachers may be more important to studentadjustment than the actual support from teachers received by students (Murray, Murray,& Wass, 2008).
Furthermore, Doumen et al. (2012) found that teacher judgements of closeness, conflictand dependency were highly stable over time (Murray, 2008). Study findings have alsorevealed that different aspects of the student–teacher relationship were related to differentstudent outcomes (Harrison, Clarke, & Ungerer, 2007). Higher levels of closeness predictedhigher levels of student engagement in the classroom, whereas higher levels of conflictpredicted lower child engagement and less cooperative participation and taskinvolvement. Higher conflict was related to lower student independence, while highdependency predicted lower student independence, yet higher student cooperation andtask involvement.
It is clear that the quality of student–teacher relationships is related to student outcomes.Moreover, it has been suggested that the way that students think about themselves (theirself-concept) is one important mechanism by which student–teacher relationships influencelater outcomes (Colwell & Lindsey, 2003). However, what accounts for this relation remainsimportant to examine.
Student–teacher relationships and students’ self-concept
According to Shavelson’s Hierarchical model (Shavelson, Hubner, & Stanton, 1976),domain-specific self-concept perceptions are organised hierarchically with the generaloverarching self-concept at the apex (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003; Byrne, 2002). Harter (1999)suggests that a person develops an overarching general self-concept, with four discretedomains; physical, academic, social and self-esteem. More recently, researchers haveidentified other domains of self-concept, including scholastic competence, athleticcompetence, physical appearance, peer acceptance, close friendships, romanticrelationships, job competence and conduct/morality (Hadley, Hair, & Moore, 2008).
Harter (1999) suggested that children’s relationships with their teachers can influencechildren’s self-concept and explained that when teachers are affectionate, emotionallyavailable, involved and supportive, children will repeat and internalise these positiveaspects of the relationship by developing positive self-evaluations. However, whenteachers are unresponsive, discouraging, rejecting, punitive, or neglectful, children may bemore likely to develop negative self images and view themselves as unlovable, incompetentand unworthy (Harter, 2006).
A meta-analysis by Roorda et al. (2011) suggests that various demographic characteristicsof students and teachers could influence the association between the student–teacherrelationship and student outcomes. Thus, the quality of the student–teacher relationshipwas more influential for students from a lower socio-economic background (SES), andstudent–teacher conflict had a particularly pronounced negative impact on students withlearning difficulties.
With regard to teacher characteristics, Martin and Marsh (2005) found that for junior andmiddle high school students, academic motivation and engagement were not related to theirteacher’s gender. Furthermore, a meta-analysis of learner-centred student–teacherrelationships showed a significant moderating effect of teacher gender on studentoutcomes with person-centred teacher variables such as empathy, warmth and self-awareness with both male and female teachers, with a larger association for female
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teacher samples than for male teacher samples or even mixed or non-specified samples(Cornelius-White, 2007). Clearly, more research is needed to clarify and interpret theimpact of teacher gender on the influence of student–teacher relationships on studentself-concept.
There are few studies examining relations between the quality of student–teacherrelationships and self-concept (Verschueren, Doumen, & Buyse, 2012). One study ofpreschool children found that teacher–child interactions characterised by more positivechild emotions were related to more positive self-perceptions in children (Colwell &Lindsey, 2003). Evidence from a longitudinal study by Leflot, Onghena, and Colpin(2010) indicated that supportive teacher–child interactions (as reported by teachers) wererelated to more positive academic and social self-concept in students. Results of severalcross-sectional studies have shown that supportive student–teacher interactions are relatedto more positive self-concept in students, particularly in the areas of academic and globalself-concept (e.g. Colwell & Lindsey, 2003; Demaray, Malecki, Rueger, Brown, & Summers,2009; Hardre & Reeve, 2003; Patrick, Mantzicopoulos, Samarapungavan, & French, 2008;Valeski & Stipek, 2001).
Another longitudinal study involving seven year-olds found that children’s social self-concept, even after controlling for beginning levels of self-concept, was positively associatedwith teacher involvement and autonomy support and negatively associated with teacherstructure (Leflot et al., 2010). Students’ academic self-concept was associated withteachers’ autonomy supportive behaviours. Students’ behavioural and global self-conceptswere unrelated to student–teacher interactions and no gender differences emerged. Thisstudy provides evidence for the direction of effects, and that different aspects of student–teacher relationships predict different domain-specific areas of self-concept.
The role of gender in student–teacher relationships and students’ self-concept
Findings are mixed regarding gender difference in the relation between student–teacherrelationships and student self-concept (Leflot et al., 2010). One meta-analysis revealedmore positive self-concept for boys compared to girls, with this difference increasing withage (Kling, Hyde, Showers, & Buswell, 1999). When looking at domain-specific self-concept,research finds that girls generally have more positive perceptions of their behaviouralconduct and literacy abilities. In contrast, boys have more positive perceptions of theirphysical ability and math skills (e.g. Eccles, Wigfield, Harold, & Blumenfeld, 1993;Jacobs, Lanza, Osgood, Eccles, & Wigfield, 2002). In relation to gender difference in thestudent–teacher relationship, teachers report having more positive interactions with girlsthan boys (e.g. Baker, 2006).
Some evidence suggests that different aspects of the student–teacher relationship couldhave different effects on self-concept for boys and girls (Roorda et al., 2011). Colwell andLindsey (2012) examined the relation between preschool children’s self-reported self-conceptand observed teacher–child interactions. It was found that boys who had cooperativerelationships with teachers had high self-perceptions; however, girls who had cooperativerelationships with teachers had low self-perceptions. Interestingly, boys who spent more timewith teachers and who were aggressive had low self-perceptions, whereas no suchrelationships existed with girls. Colwell and Lindsey (2003) also found gender differenceswhere positive interactions between the teacher and the child were linked to a low self-concept for girls and high self-concept for boys.
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Although some studies found evidence for gender differences in the relation betweenstudent–teacher relationships and student self-concept, Leflot et al.’s (2010) study failed tofind such differences in teacher-reports of the quality of the student–teacher relationship andself-reports of student domain-specific self-concept. Given the contradictory findings ongender differences in the relation between student–teacher relationships and student self-concept, the current study aims to investigate these relations further. This investigation isimportant as recent PISA results have shown a gender disparity in academic performancethat highlights issues surrounding global self-concepts of boys and girls (OECD, 2014).Australia has been identified as one of the countries with such a disparity and it is thusimperative to examine whether gender differences exist in student–teacher relationships thataffect self-concept in the early years of school.
Study questions
As emphasised by previous research findings discussed above, student–teacher relationshipsplay an important role in predicting students’ global self-concept (Furrer & Skinner, 2003;Hardre & Reeves, 2003; Leflot et al., 2010). However, the literature lacks evidence of the wayin which closeness and conflict in student–teacher relationships are influenced by students’perception of teachers, students’ enjoyment at school and teacher gender. In addition, theway in which relationship quality impacts boys’ and girls’ self-concept also needs to beexamined. Hence, the research questions in this study are:
RQ1. How do the relationships between boys and girls and their teachers, predict students’self-concept?RQ2. How do boys’ and girls’ perceptions of their teachers and their enjoyment at schoolpredict students’ self-concept?RQ3. How do boys’ and girls’ perceptions of their teachers and their enjoyment at schoolpredict student–teacher relationships and students’ self-concept?RQ4. How does teacher gender influence the predictive role of student–teacherrelationships on students’ self-concept?
Method
Sample
The current study draws on data from children and teachers participating in Growing up inAustralia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), which is a major study thatbegan in 2004 that has been following the development of a Kindergarten cohort (4- to 5-year-old children in 2004) and a Birth cohort (families with 0- to 1-year-old infants in 2004)(Australian Institute of Family Studies [AIFS], 2014). A two-stage clustered sampling wasused for the LSAC data with postcodes as the primary sampling units and children as thesecondary sampling units (AIFS, 2011). The current study uses data collected from theKindergarten cohort at Wave 4, which included 4164 children aged 10–11 years and 3343teachers with most teachers reporting on one child only. The children are referred to as theStudy Child. The percentage of response rate for Wave 4 (in comparison to Wave 1) was 83.5per cent. The possible bias of the non-response rate has been weighted against and noted insome extreme cases in the LSAC data.
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Child data were obtained via a Self-Report Interview in the LSAC study, which consisted ofitems answered by the Study Child and administered by an interviewer via Audio Computer-Assisted Self Interview (ACASI). Teacher data were obtained via a mail-back questionnairecompleted by the child’s teacher.
Participants
The overall data were checked for listwise missing data, normality and outliers. In order toarrive at a data set for the planned analysis, only those cases were retained that hadresponses from both students and their teacher to questions regarding their relationship.This resulted in 3286 responses from students and their teachers forming the data set thatwas analysed.
Children. The study sample (N¼ 3286) included 50.5 per cent boys (n¼ 1661) and 49.5 percent girls (n¼ 1625). Boys were coded as 1 whilst girls were coded as 2 in the raw data.Children had a mean age of 10.31 years (SD¼ 0.46).
Teachers. Of the 3286 teachers who participated in data collection at Wave 4, 71.4 per cent(n¼ 2346) were female and 28.6 per cent (n¼ 940) were male. Male teachers were coded as 1whilst female teachers were coded as 2 in the raw data. Cross-tabulation of teacher genderwith student gender showed that 526 male teachers taught 526 boys and 1135 female teacherswere teachers of 1135 boys whilst 414 male teachers were teachers of 414 girls and 1211female teachers taught the 1211 girls in this study. Table 1 shows the distribution of studentsand teachers according to their gender as found in this article.
Measures
In this section, all measures used for data collection in this study are discussed. However,reliability and fit indices of the measures are reported later in this article in the preliminaryanalysis section.
Child self-concept. Children’s self perception of their own self-concept was measured usingitems adapted from the Marsh Self-Description Questionnaire I (Marsh, 1990). The measureconsisted of 17 items which assessed children’s self perception of their appearance, ability,socialisation skills and popularity at home and school. Items were assessed on a five-point
Table 1. Distribution of number of boys and girls against number of male
and female teachers in the study.
Students Male teachers Female teachers Total
Boys 526 1135 1661
Girls 414 1211 1625
Total 940 2346 3286
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scale (false¼ 1, mostly false¼ 2, sometimes false¼ 3, sometimes true¼ 4, true¼ 5), andincluded statements such as ‘I have many friends’ and ‘I do lots of important things’.
Child enjoys school – satisfaction and liking. Children’s enjoyment at school was assessed using a12-item subset of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) Attitudes to SchoolSurvey (Marks, 1998). Items were measured on a four-point scale (1¼ strongly disagree to4¼ strongly agree) with higher scores indicating a higher level of school satisfaction andincluded statements such as ‘My school is a place where . . . I feel happy’ or ‘. . . I likelearning’.
Child perception of teachers – relationship with teachers. Children’s perception of their teacherswas assessed using an eight-item version of the People in My Life (PIML) Teacher AffiliationScale (Ridenour, Greenberg, & Cook, 2006). Items were measured on a four-point scale(1¼ almost never or never true to 4¼ almost always or always true) with higher numbersindicating increased level/degree of truth or relevance of the statement to the individual, andincluded statements such as ‘I like my teachers’ and ‘My teachers respect my feelings’. Thismeasure was originally designed to assess parent and peer attachment but has been adaptedby Ridenour et al. (2006) to assess student–teacher attachment. It should be noted thoughthat the responses to this measure might not have been solely focused on the teachers whoparticipated in this study.
Student–teacher relationship quality. The quality of student–teacher relationships was measuredby teachers responding to a 14-item version of the STRS (Pianta, 1991). This versionincluded items for both conflict and closeness – the latter as represented by warmthand open communication. An example of an item for conflict is ‘This child and I alwaysseem to be struggling with each other’ and an example for closeness is, ‘I share anaffectionate, warm relationship with this child’. Items were rated on a five-point scale(1¼definitely does not apply to 5¼ definitely applies) with higher scores indicating higherlevels of relationship quality.
Analyses
Two main types of analyses were completed – Rasch analysis (including principalcomponent analysis (PCA) of residuals) followed by structural equation modelling. Inorder to meet the parametric requirements of structural equation modelling, Raschanalysis using WINSTEPS version 3.74.0 (Linacre, 2012) was a useful method totransform the ordinal data in this study obtained from measures of student perceptions ofteachers, school enjoyment and self-concept along with teacher perceptions of student–teacher relationship into interval data. It was also a useful way of confirming thedimensionality of each measure used in this study by examining the PCA of residualsavailable in Rasch analysis.
Rasch and PCA of residuals
Initially, Rasch analysis (Rasch, 1960) was performed on each of the measures reported inthis study in order to obtain estimates of reliability as well as composite measures for each ofthe variables in the research questions. Results of the Rasch analyses include information
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about infit and outfit mean squares with values close to þ1 for both items’ and persons’measures (similar to Cronbach’s Alpha) being seen as desirable as they indicate good fittingmeasures to scale (Bond & Fox, 2015). Similarly, the infit and outfit t values should alsoshow a spread of close to zero and standard deviations within the stipulated range of þ2 and�2, indicating good construct validity for measures within the population of this study.Another indicator of good-fitting data to the Rasch model is the reliability index.A reliability index of close to 1 is desirable as it indicates a conforming and viable modeland item separation shows how distinctly well spread items are on a scale of measure. Thesame underlying principles of item reliability apply to person reliability. Person performanceshould be widespread along the scale of appropriately difficult items, meaning persons whorespond to a measurement scale with specific abilities should respond to a similarmeasurement scale in the same manner. The spread of persons is indicated by personreliability indexes (Bond & Fox, 2015).
PCA of residuals within Rasch analysis allows for extraction of the common factor thatexplains the most residual variance under the hypothesis that there is such a factor (Smith,2002). This means that if a factor does not show substantial common variance, then thereshould not be any meaningful structure in the residuals. Rasch’s PCA does not require factorrotation nor oblique axes that are commonly needed in the traditional PCA conducted inSPSS. The Rasch PCA basically does the opposite of a traditional PCA whereby it looks atthe residuals of unexplained variances to explain the secondary dimensions, components orcontrasts. The Rasch PCA identifies the opposing response patterns and interprets thecontrast between positive and negative loadings to provide a view of the items to seewhether the residuals provide a meaningful structure. A lack of structure points to theresiduals contributing to a unidimensional scale (Bond & Fox, 2015).
Structural equation modelling
Based on the research questions outlined previously, a nested structural equation model wasdeveloped and analysed by way of multi-group analysis (one for 1661 boys and another for1625 girls) to explore whether student perception of teachers and their enjoyment at schoolinfluenced student–teacher relationships in predicting student self-concept. Teacher genderwas then added to this model as the final full SEM model to explore moderation effects ofteacher gender on the student and teacher variables in the models for boys and girls. Themodel was analysed using AMOS version 20.0 (Arbuckle, 2011). Modification indexes ofinterim analysis results identified misspecifications in terms of co-variances between STRConflict and Closeness and between Child Enjoys School and Child Perception of Teacher.In the boys’ model, modification indexes indicated that the model could be improved byadding a path between Teacher Gender and Child Enjoys School. To arrive at the finalmodel, all non-significant paths were removed after chi-square difference tests indicated thatthe model could not be improved further. This nested model allowed for a view of therelationships that exist for boys and girls in this study.
A number of goodness of fit indexes have been reported in this study to assess model fit. Anon-significant �2 (p> .001) is preferred as it shows a small discrepancy between thehypothesized model and the population. Other goodness of fits that are reported in thisstudy includes the goodness of fit index (GFI) (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1986), comparative fitindex (CFI) (Bentler, 1990) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)(Bollen, 1989). These indices were chosen because they provide stringent measures of fit in
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consideration of sample variances and have been frequently quoted as the sufficientindicators of fit along with the traditional chi-squares (Hu & Bentler, 1999). The criteriafor testing mediation effects using a bootstrap method followed those that were set out inShrout and Bolger (2002) and MacKinnon (2008). A 95 per cent bias-corrected confidenceinterval that includes a non-zero interval was taken as showing a reliable mediation effectwith the number of bootstrap iterations set at 1000 in AMOS.
Results
Rasch and PCA of residuals
Table 2 presents the reliability estimate summaries and fit statistics for the five constructs inthis study. Initially, two-factor scales of a nine-item scale of popularity and an eight-itemscale of self view were analysed. The first scale resulted in moderate item separation of 0.81and person reliability of 0.67. Similarly, the second scale had an item separation of 0.87 andperson reliability of 0.71. The PCA results showed that though there was moderately largeexplained variance of 55 per cent and 49 per cent for each of the scale, there were equallylarge unexplained variances in the dimensionality that were showing contrasts indicative of aunidimensional scale. When combined into one scale, the analysis of the 17-item students’self-concept measure as a unidimensional measure showed good fitting measures to theRasch model with an item separation reliability of 0.98 while person reliability wasequally high at 0.86. The PCA results also showed a large unexplained variance (54.9%)with contrasting loadings that were of random structure, confirming that the measure can betaken as a global construct of self-concept. This result is consistent with the view that self-concept can be a general representation of self image (Harter, 1999).
Rasch analysis of the data obtained for student perception of teacher and enjoyment atschool also showed good fitting measures to the Rasch model with item separationreliabilities of 1.00 and person reliabilities 0.80 and 0.87, respectively. The measures wereeach unidimensional in nature, one measuring student perception of teacher and the othermeasuring student enjoyment at school. The PCA confirmed these results with 43 per cent ofunexplained variance showing random structures in the contrasts of item loadings.
Rasch analysis of data for student–teacher relationship of conflict and closeness revealedtwo factors in the PCA residuals with 43 per cent of variance explained by student–teacherrelationship conflict and 38 per cent of variance explained by student–teacher relationshipcloseness with clear structures in the contrasting residuals. Separate Rasch analyses wereundertaken again on each of the measures, one consisting of items on conflict and the otherconsisting of items on closeness. Each of the measures showed a good fit to the Rasch modelwith item separation reliabilities of 0.99 and person reliabilities of 0.71 (STR Conflict) and0.80 (STR Closeness).
A single Rasch person estimate for each of the student and student–teacher relationshipmeasures was generated as the composite scores for further analysis planned in this study.The Rasch person estimates were in the form of transformed logarithm scores known aslogits. The original codes (1 for male and 2 for female) were used for teacher gender measure.Normality tests were conducted on the Rasch transformed data and teacher gender rawscore, which showed very small levels of kurtosis and skewness, and hence, a very smalldeparture from normality (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013). Tabachnick and Fidell noted thatsmall departures of normality on a fairly large sample would not impact on the results of astudy and their interpretations.
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Table 3 shows the one-way comparisons between boys and girls for the interval variables inthis study. For means and standard deviations for each variable in boys and girls, refer toTable 4. The comparison results showed statistically significant differences between boys andgirls at p< .001 for all variables in the study. Girls (M¼ 1.47, SD¼ 1.12) had higher self-concept than boys (M¼ 1.29, SD¼ 1.16), though the Cohen’s d was rather small On theother hand, boys (M¼�3.13, SD¼ 1.88) had higher conflict with their teachers than girls(M¼�3.98, SD¼ 1.48). Furthermore, girls (M¼ 2.24, SD¼ 1.82) felt closer to their teachersthan boys (M¼ 1.52, SD¼ 1.71) and the Cohen’s d for both conflict and closeness differencewere medium in size. Girls (M¼ 2.15, SD¼ 1.93) also had better perceptions of theirteachers than boys (M¼ 1.60, SD¼ 2.05), though the effect size was small. Similarly, girls(M¼ 2.03, SD¼ 1.71) reported greater enjoyment at school than boys (M¼ 1.23, SD¼ 1.87)for their enjoyment at school. The Cohen’s d for this last difference was in the medium size.
Intercorrelations of variables for boys and girls
The inter-correlations with two-tailed significance, means and standard deviations ofvariables for 1661 boys and 1625 girls are presented in Table 4. The results showed thatChild Self-concept had a small and negative correlation with STR Conflict for both boys(r¼�0.19 and girls (r¼�0.20), which indicated that both boys and girls with lower self-concept were more likely to report conflict in their student–teacher relationships. Child Self-concept had a small correlation with STR Closeness for girls (r¼ 0.12) and for boys(r¼ 0.09). This result showed that girls and boys who have higher self-concept tend tohave closer relationship with their teachers. Child Self-concept also had moderately largepositive correlations with Child Enjoys School for both boys (r¼ 0.47) and girls (r¼ 0.51)with similar results for correlations between Child Self-concept and Child Perception ofTeacher. These correlations showed that boys and girls with higher self-concept enjoyschool more and have better perception of their teachers. Furthermore, STR Conflict andSTR Closeness had significant moderate correlations with Child Perception of Teachers andChild Enjoys School for both boys and girls.
Teacher Gender had no correlations with Child Self-concept for both boys and girls.Teacher Gender had a positive correlation with STR Closeness for boys (r¼ 0.14) andgirls (r¼ 0.24), showing that female teachers are closer with boys and girls (more thanmale teachers). Teacher Gender had a negative but small correlation with STR Conflictfor boys (r¼�0.09) and girls (r¼�0.09), indicating that male teachers more than female
Table 3. One way comparisons of variables between 1661 boys and 1625 girls.
Variable Mean difference F p Cohen’s d
Child Self-concept �0.177 1.334 .000 0.157
STR Conflict 0.850 217.223 .000 0.502
STR Closeness �0.712 8.288 .000 0.402
Child Perception of Teachers �0.555 2.407 .000 0.276
Child Enjoys School �0.801 3.345 .000 0.446
Note: p at two-tail significance.
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teachers have conflicts with both boys and girls. Interestingly, Teacher Gender had a verysmall correlation with Child Perception of Teacher for girls (r¼ 0.06). The small correlationsthat were found between STR variables, student variables and teacher gender, suggest lowincidents of multicollinearity needed to infer mediation and moderation effect in pathanalysis (MacKinnon, 2008). This lends confidence to the structural equation modelsdiscussed in the next sections.
Structural equation modelling
A multi-group structural equation nested model was built for boys and girls, with the modelconsisting of STR Conflict and STR Closeness, Child Enjoys School, Child Perception ofTeachers and Child Self-concept, with Teacher Gender as the moderating variable. The fitof the overall model showed a p value of .083. The GFI and the CFI were excellent values of0.999 and 0.988, respectively. The RMSEA value was 0.015 which, according to Browne andCudeck (1993), indicated a close approximate model fit. The fit values indicated a non-significant over-fitting multi-group nested model. Standardised estimates are reported inthe graphic figures of the models whilst Table 5 reports unstandardised estimates of themodels.
Boys’ SEM model. Figure 1 shows the model for boys. The model accounted for 26 per cent ofvariance in Child Self-concept, indicative of a large effect size. The model also consisted ofeight per cent of variance in Child Perception of Teacher that is explained by STR Conflictand STR Closeness. In addition, STR Conflict and STR Closeness and Teacher Genderexplained six per cent of that variance in Child Enjoys School. Worthy of note is the non-significant path between STR Closeness and Child Self-concept (though this path was shownas significant in the correlation estimates). The significant negative path between STR
Table 4. Intercorrelations, means and standard deviations for boys and girls.
CSC: Child Self-concept. Two tailed significance: **p< .001; *p< .01.aAll means are of Rasch person measures except for Teacher Gender which is raw categorical data with coding 1 for male
teachers and 2 for female teachers.
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Conflict and Child Self-concept also reduced more than half the regression weight from(�0.18 to �0.08). Both these changes were indicative of indirect effects that were presentin the model.
The first instance of mediation was found where both Child Perception of Teachers andChild Enjoys School mediated STR Closeness’ negative prediction of Child Self-concept,The second instance of mediation in the model was found where both Child Perception ofTeachers and Child Enjoys School mediated STR Conflict’s negative prediction of ChildSelf-concept. The third instance of mediation existed where STR Closeness and STRConflict mediated Teacher Gender in affecting both Child Perception of Teachers andChild Enjoys School. The indirect effects show that female teachers have a positive effecton boys’ perception of teachers and their enjoyment at school. These results are additional tothat of Teacher Gender’s moderation interaction with STR Conflict and STR Closeness ininfluencing Child Self-concept, where a negative relationship with STR Conflict shows maleteachers tend to have more conflict with boys than the female teachers, and a positiverelationship with STR Closeness shows that female teachers tend to be closer with boysthan the male teachers.
Girls’ SEM model. Figure 2 shows the model for girls. The model accounted for 32 per cent ofvariance in Child Self-concept, indicative that the model explains more about the differencesin child concepts for girls more than boys in this study. The model also consisted of 8 percent of variance in Child Perception of Teacher that is explained by STR Conflict and STRCloseness. In addition, STR Conflict and STR Closeness and Teacher Gender explained
Figure 2. Final SEM model for 1625 cases of girls with standardised estimates and squared multiple
correlations. STR Conflict and STR Closeness are co-variates with a regression weight of �0.21. Child
Enjoys School and Child Perception of Teacher are co-variates with a regression weight of 0.51. Teacher
Gender is moderator variable for STR Conflict and STR Closeness, with a stronger effect evident for
closeness for girls.
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4 per cent of that variance in Child Enjoys School. Interestingly, Teacher Gender explained 6per cent of STR Closeness in the girls’ model with a large unstandardised estimate of 1.01,almost twice the size of the unstandardised path for boys (0.50) – refer to Table 5 forunstandardised estimates. Of importance as well, are the non-significant paths betweenboth STR Closeness and STR Conflict with Child Self-concept, which are the reversefrom the correlation estimates for girls. The changes from significant to non-significantpaths are indicative of full mediatory effects that might be present in the model.
The first instance of mediation in the model for girls was found where both ChildPerception of Teachers and Child Enjoys School mediated STR Closeness’ prediction ofChild Self-concept. The second instance of mediation existed where both Child Perceptionof Teachers and Child Enjoys School mediated STR Conflict’s negative prediction of ChildSelf-concept. The third instance was where STR Closeness and STR Conflict mediatedTeacher Gender in affecting both Child Perception of Teachers and Child Enjoys School.Similar to the boys, these indirect effects were small but still significant within the 95 percent percentile.
The fourth instance and different to that of the boys – Teacher Gender – indirectlyaffected girls’ self-concept. Close examination of the indirect effects showed that morecloseness and less conflict in girls’ and female teachers’ relationships seem to indirectlyaffect girls’ self-concept, whereby an increase in relationship closeness equates to anincrease in girls’ self-concept.
Discussion
This study sought to examine the role of teacher and child gender on student–teacherrelationships. Our findings support previous research by Leflot et al. (2010) suggestingthat supportive relationships play a role in children’s wellbeing at school, and extendcurrent understandings about the role teacher gender plays in children’s schoolenjoyment, conflict and closeness.
Overall, gender differences emerged in terms of means and standard deviations for variousconstructs in the analyses. Thus, girls had higher overall self-concept than boys, boys hadmore conflict with their teachers, whereas girls had closer relationships with their teachers,and girls had a more positive perception of their teachers and reported higher schoolenjoyment than boys. Although initial correlation analyses showed moderate to strongassociations between student–teacher relationships and students’ perceptions of teachers,their enjoyment at school and their self-concept, these analyses also showed minimaldifferences between boys and girls with the exception of a small correlation betweencloseness and self-concept for boys. However, results of the more complex SEM analysesuncovered a more detailed picture in terms of the strength and patterns of relationshipsbetween constructs and their effects on self-concept for boys and girls.
The first research question examined how the relationships between boys and girls andtheir teachers predicted students’ self-concept. For boys, closeness with their teachers did notpredict their self-concept; however conflict in their relationships affected self-conceptnegatively. This result supports previous research findings that boys who had cooperative(Colwell & Lindsey, 2012) and positive (Colwell & Lindsey, 2003) relationships with teachersdisplayed more positive self-concept. Additionally, the finding that student–teacherrelationship closeness did not seem to be as important for boys as for girls supports otherresearch findings that student–teacher closeness had a greater impact on school-related
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outcomes for girls compared to boys (Van Campen, Ewing, & Taylor, 2009). For girls, bothcloseness and conflict predicted self-concept with conflict having a greater negative effectthan closeness. This result contrasts previous, somewhat surprising, findings that girls whohad cooperative (Colwell & Lindsey, 2012) and positive (Colwell & Lindsey, 2003)relationships with teachers had more negative self-concepts.
The second research question explored how boys’ and girls’ perceptions of their teachers,and their enjoyment at school predicted self-concept. Findings from the current studyindicated that for both boys and girls, their perception of teachers and enjoyment of schoolsignificantly predicted their self-concept. These findings support Harter’s (1999) ideas thatwhen teachers are affectionate, emotionally available, involved and supportive, childreninternalise these positive aspects of the relationship by developing positive self-evaluations.Our findings support other empirical research finding relations between positive teacher–childand positive self-perceptions in children (Colwell & Lindsey, 2003; Leflot et al., 2010).
The third research question examined how boys’ and girls’ perceptions of their teacherand their enjoyment at school affected the relation between student–teacher relationshipsand students’ self-concept. Results from SEM showed that boys’ self-concept was higherwhen they were in a close relationship with their teachers because the relationship wasaffected by their strong perception of teachers and enjoyment of school. Boys’ self-concept was also higher when they were not in a conflicting relationship with teachers,again because their relationship was affected by how boys perceived their teachers andtheir enjoyment of school. Results for girls showed that girls’ self-concept was higherwhen they were in a close relationship with their teachers because, like the boys, theirrelationship was affected by their perception of their teachers and their enjoyment atschool. This result indicated that girls’ self-concept was higher when they were not in aconflicting relationship with their teachers because their relationship was affected by howthe girls perceived their teachers and their satisfaction with schooling interactions. Theseresults support other findings that children who form close relationships with their teachersenjoy school more (Birch & Ladd, 1997; Hamre & Pianta, 2006) and are more engaged inschool (Skinner, Furrer, Marchand, & Kindermann, 2008).
The final research question asked how teacher gender influences the predictive role ofstudent-teacher relationships on students’ self-concept. There were two main differences inour findings, in terms of teacher gender on boys and girls. Firstly, boys’ enjoyment at schoolwas directly affected by teacher gender, suggesting that female teachers positively contributedto boys’ enjoyment at school. Secondly, the current study found male teachers tended to havemore conflict with boys and female teachers tended to be closer with boys. This finding is incontrast to previous research such as that of Martin and Marsh (2005) who found that highschool students’ motivation and engagement was not inFuenced by the gender of their teacher.Male teachers also tended to have more conflict with girls while female teachers reportedcloser relationships with girls. However, the finding that female teachers had a positiveeffect on both boys’ and girls’ perception of their teachers and their enjoyment of school, isin line with previous research such as that by Carrington, Tymms, and Merrell (2008).
The current study adds to the number of cross-sectional studies examining the linkbetween student–teacher relationships and student self-concept (Doumen, Buyse, Colpin,& Verschueren, 2011; Leflot et al., 2010). Future research could make use of the longitudinaldesign of LSAC to allow for more in-depth examinations of relationships and self-conceptover time and the possibility that more accurate direction effects could be established usingdifferent waves of longitudinal data, as suggested by Colwell and Lindsey (2003).
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The results of this study have implications for teaching practice, particularly in relation topre-service teacher training and professional development. Sabol and Pianta (2012) discussthe importance of engaging teachers in pre-service training programs to help developpositive relationships between students and teachers. Leflot et al. (2010) suggest thatteachers need professional development in relationship building, in addition to theirformal teaching practices.
For example Spilt, Koomen, Thijs, and van der Leij (2012) provide evidence that a reflection-focused intervention (where teachers reflect on their interactions with students) improvesteachers’ observed sensitivity, which could contribute to better student–teacher relationships.Hughes (2012) also suggests that schools should implement screening programs for low qualitystudent–teacher relationships, in order to provide support and training in this area. Given ourfinding about the negative impact of student–teacher conflict on students’ self-concept, thesesuggestions of early screening and reflective professional development are relevant.
In conclusion, the current study contributes to the body of knowledge in the area ofstudent–teacher relationship and self-concept by emphasising the importance ofdeveloping not only close relationships with both boys and girls, but even more notably,relationships low on conflict. The main limitation of this study is that, given the study design,students’ responses may not have been solely focused on the teachers who responded to thequestionnaire in this study. The relationships that are highlighted, hence, need to beinterpreted cautiously. Nevertheless, this study brings to light new information about theeffect of students’ school enjoyment and their perspective of teachers and how these aspectsplay a mediating role in fostering students’ positive self-concept. Results of the study alsoprovide evidence to encourage institutions and policy makers to further support and guideteachers in the development of high quality student–teacher relationships, especially thoseaimed at reducing student–teacher conflict.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance provided through the CRN skills development
activities.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
This study was supported by the Charles Sturt University-led Excellence in Research in Early Years
Education Cooperative Research Network (in partnership with Queensland University of Technology
and Monash University).
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