How do Adolescents' Perceptions of Relationships with Teachers Change during Upper-Secondary School Years?

Unfair teachers, unhappy students: longitudinal associations of perceived teacher relational unfairness with adolescent peer aggression and school satisfaction

Introduction

Teacher relational unfairness is a significant risk factor for students' physical and mental well-being, especially during adolescence. However, school psychology research has not yet fully analyzed the links between teacher unfairness and important indicators of school experience and wellbeing, including peer aggression and school satisfaction. Even less evidence does exist with longitudinal, multilevel data.

Methods

The present study tested the prospective relations between Fall perceived teacher unfairness and Spring reactive and proactive aggression, and school satisfaction. At T1, participants were 1,299 students (48.3% girls, mean age = 13.6 years, SD = 1.1) attending 67 classrooms in Italian public schools, whereas 1,227 students participated in the second wave 6 months later.

Results

Multilevel regressions showed that, at the individual level, T1 perceived teacher unfairness positively predicted T2 reactive and proactive aggression, and negatively predicted school satisfaction. At the class-level, T1 class teacher unfairness explained between-class variability in T2 school satisfaction, but not variability in peer aggression.

Discussion

The findings expand current knowledge about the role of teacher unfairness with the classroom and have implications for interventions at school.

How do teacher support trajectories influence primary and lower-secondary school students' study well-being

Effective long term teacher support is key to promoting and sustaining students' study well-being at school. However, little is known about individual variations in the development of perceived teacher support and how such variations are associated with study engagement and study-related burnout. Also, understanding of the differences between age cohorts across school levels is still limited. To address this limitation, we used latent growth mixture (LGM) modeling to study whether teacher support trajectories influenced study engagement and study-related burnout among Finnish primary and lower-secondary school students. Two cohorts of students, namely primary school students from the 4th to 6th grades (N = 2,204) and lower-secondary school students from the 7th to 9th grades (N = 1,411), were followed for three years. LGM revealed four latent trajectories for teacher support, which were labeled high stable (72%), low stable (12%), decreasing (11%) and increasing (5%). The teacher support trajectories were strongly associated with students' study engagement and study burnout. Moreover, heightened study-related burnout symptoms and decreased study engagement were associated with a decline in perceived teacher support, while higher levels of study engagement and low levels of study burnout symptoms were associated with a continuum of positive teacher support experience. Primary school students were more likely to employ stable and high levels of teacher support, compared with lower-secondary school students, highlighting the importance of improving conditions in lower-secondary school so that the teacher support will better reach all their students.

Influence of motivation on the perception of mathematics by secondary school students

Motivation, the teacher-student relationship, the use of resources, and the time spent studying, in addition to the family economic and social context, are some of the factors that affect academic performance and directly influence student failure. This paper evaluates the motivation in mathematics students' performances by analyzing indicators of the mathematics learning dimensions. A total of 2,018 secondary students were evaluated in this cross-sectional study. Motivation, teaching, resources, and study time were analyzed with a validated 20-item questionnaire. Statistical analysis revealed that student motivation appears to be significantly related to perceptions of teaching practices and the use of resources for study. Students with high motivation have positive perceptions of teaching practices. Gender differences were not observed. In addition, the motivation indicator allowed for grouping students into various motivational profiles.

Fair Teachers, Fair Police? Assessing the Pathways between Perceptions of Teacher and Police Authority in Childhood and Adolescence

Existing research has shown that the quality of the relationship between teacher and child is associated with more positive perceptions of school authorities. There has been relatively less attention to the processes that connect attitudes towards different sources of authority, such as between teachers and police. The current study uses a counterfactual approach to estimate the direct and indirect effects of teacher-child relationships on children's later perceptions of police legitimacy. Using data from a longitudinal study of youth in Zurich, Switzerland, this study applies non-bipartite propensity score matching to identify matched pairs (n = 232 pairs, 55% male) of children with better versus worse relationships with their teacher at age 11 following a teacher change. Matched pairs were then compared on potential mediators (moral norms about deviant behavior and low self-control) at age 13 and perceptions of police legitimacy at age 15. The results demonstrate the importance of the quality of the relationships between students and teachers in shaping young people's interpersonal characteristics as well as perceptions of the world around them. Namely, if young people feel that they are being treated fairly by their teachers, they are more likely to distinguish behaviors that are right or wrong (moral norms) and control their actions (self-control). Moreover, as a result they are also more likely to perceive authorities such as police as legitimate agents that facilitate societal order.

Adolescents' Mental Health at School: The Mediating Role of Life Satisfaction

In this study, we further developed prior research on risk and protective factors in adolescents' mental health. More specifically, we used structural equation modelling to assess whether relationships at school with teachers and peers, and life satisfaction predicted mental health in a large sample of adolescents, while also testing for age and gender invariance. The sample comprised 3,895 adolescents (M age = 16.7, SD = 1.5, 41.3% girls), who completed self-report instruments assessing their perceived life satisfaction, student-teacher relationship, school connectedness and mental health. Overall, the results suggested that life satisfaction acted as a mediator between adolescents' positive school relations and their mental health. Outcomes were invariant across genders, while quality of school relations and mental health declined with age. Limitations of the study and futures lines in mental health research among adolescents are briefly discussed.

Estimating the Academic Performance of Secondary Education Mathematics Students: A Gain Lift Predictive Model

Several socioeconomic, environmental, ethnic, family, and educational factors influence an individual’s academic performance and can determine their school performance in mathematics. Mathematical competence is one of the skills that allow students to build visions of the future from performance in the present. However, the perception that students have of mathematics, in addition to the teacher–student relationship, the classroom, gender, teaching–learning, and motivation are crucial factors for achieving an optimal academic performance and preventing school failure. The aim of the present study was: (1) to examine which variables of the dimensions “Learning Mathematics” and “School Environment” significantly contribute to the marks in the second quarter and quantify their relative importance; (2) to determine the optimal algorithm model for predicting the maximum gain in students’ marks in the second quarter and quantifying it; and (3) to analyze the maximum gain in terms of gender. A total of 2018 high school students in Melilla were included in this cross-sectional study. Mathematical learning and the school environment were assessed using a validated 14-item questionnaire. Gain lift was employed to quantify the improvement in students’ performance. The role of the classroom and teacher–student relationship had a greater influence on mathematics scores than affinity indicators, teaching, study time, teaching resources used, study aids, and motivation.