Teacher Autonomy Support, Teacher-Student Relationship, and Depression of Children and Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: Individual and Contextual Factors Affecting Child and Adolescent Development

Abstract

Based on longitudinal design, this study aimed to examine the trends of depression, and the protective effect of teacher autonomy support and teacher-student relationship on students’ depression. A total of 1656 Chinese elementary school students (fourth grader) and 1435 Chinese middle school students (seventh grader) participated in the study in three years. By using latent growth curve modeling, the result indicated that depressive symptoms of middle school students increased significantly overtime, while this trend was not detected in elementary school students. In both samples, teacher autonomy support and teacher-student relationship significantly alleviated students’ depression over the three years. These findings underlined the buffering effect of teacher autonomy support and teacher-student relationships in both elementary school and middle school.

Authors

• Danhui Zhang, Beijing Normal University

• Bihui Jin, Beijing Normal University