The Teacher-Class Relationship: Insights From a Qualitative and Quantitative Validation of a New Scale

• In Event: Beliefs, Identity, Teacher Motivation, and Emotions: Perspectives for Teacher-Student Relationships

Abstract

Background: Teacher-student relationships have been studied from multiple theoretical viewpoints, including attachment theory, self-determination theory and research on social-motivational processes (Wentzel, 2012). The last decade has brought forward cumulative evidence that the teacher-student relationship has a substantial influence on students’ motivation and performance in school (Roorda et al., 2011). Recent research takes the teacher into account, and first results indicate the quality of teacher-student relationships is essential for teachers’ well-being and accomplishments (Hagenauer, et al. 2015; Klassen et al., 2012). To date, comprehensive instruments are lacking which target the teacher-class relationship from the perspective of the teachers, taking the entire class as object focus. Based on a comprehensive literature research which identified more than 15 existing questionnaires on teacher-student relationships (mostly focussing on dyadic relationships), we created an instrument which consists of 14 items, of which 4 pertain to the general judgment of the teacher-class relationship (e.g. “How would you judge your relationship with this class?”), and 5 pertain to closeness (e.g. “Do you feel connected to this class?”, “Can you rely on this class?”), and conflict (e.g. “Does this class get on your nerves?”, “Do you feel rejected by this class?”).
Samples & Procedures: We interviewed N = 56 secondary school teachers (60.7% female) from Bavaria, Germany; following the typical procedure of cognitive validation (e.g. Karabenick et al., 2007) to explore item comprehension, memory retrieval, and the judgement and response process for each item. In addition, N = 209 secondary school teachers (73.9% female) responded to the new scale, as well as a range of established scales to explore convergent and discriminant scale validity, including enjoyment, anger and anxiety about teaching the class (Frenzel et al., 2016), self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1986), and emotional labor (Lee & Brotheridge, 2011).
Results & Discussion: The interview results suggest that items were predominantly well understood and teachers could easily retrieve examples, while they mostly corresponded to the group as a whole, but also to individual students. The interviews reflected that succeeding at establishing a good relationship with a class as a whole was an important aspect of the teachers’ identities and something they considered essential for general classroom functioning. The quantitative data revealed that the scale had a strong internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha = .93). Partially confirming our expectations on the internal structure of the construct, subordinate factors turned out to be: (a) relationship with class most generally (which also included feeling connected to the class and not feeling rejected by it), (b) conflict, and (c) trust and reliance. Mean scale scores were systematically related with enjoyment (.82), anger (-.77), and anxiety (-.71) when teaching the class, but also general self-efficacy (.40), burnout (-.49), deep acting (.23), faking (-.25), and hiding emotions (-.38; all ps < .01), confirming the external validity of the scale.
Significance: We strive to shorten and further refine the scale and hope its existence will inspire future research on the links between teacher-student relationships and teachers’ emotional lives and well-being.

Authors

• Julia Maria Gertrud Hoelzl, University of Munich

• Anne C. Frenzel, University of Munich (LMU)