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School social workers address barriers to student well-being, and teachers significantly influence students’ feelings of belongingness and performance in the school environment. This study addresses the gap in understanding the mechanisms of teacher-student relationship formation and the individual and ecological factors that either foster or hinder them. Teachers’ perspectives on these relationships were explored and used to develop and validate a scale to measure teachers’ motivation and capability to establish them. Enhancing teacher-student relationships (TSR) is critical because TSR significantly impacts both students and teachers; the quality of TSR is the strongest predictor of student achievement and teacher occupational well-being.
Methods
The study applied a three-phased exploratory sequential mixed methods approach to investigate, develop and validate a measure of facilitators and barriers to teachers’ motivation to establish positive relationships with students. The argument-based approach to validation was applied throughout. Phase I was a qualitative exploration of the existing literature and focus groups of teachers. The measure items developed from this qualitative exploration were reviewed by measure and content experts and then underwent focus group pre-testing and cognitive interviewing. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed the factor structure, determining the relationships between observed variables and factors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tested the EFA-derived measure factor structure, examining how well the measured variables represented the latent construct.
Results
Qualitative analysis showed that teachers highly valued their relationships with students and felt influenced by school leadership attitudes. They reported a lack of appropriate relationship formation training but realized increased efficacy with teaching experience. School-based violence and political threats were noted as additional barriers to relationship formation. The focus group data and results of the review of existing literature were synthesized and the self-determination theory of motivation dimensions of relatedness, competence, and autonomy were applied to develop the initial items for the measure. From these initial stages a 43-item, eight-factor draft scale emerged. The resulting measure was completed online by 150 teachers, and EFA was applied; Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin statistic of 0.830 and significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity indicated adequate sample size the relationship among variables was suitable for EFA. The EFA revealed a six-factor 33-item scale. The EFA scale items were then subjected to CFA. CFA determined that a second-order 24-item self-determination theory-based model best represented the latent construct of teachers' motivation to form relationships with students. The resulting measure demonstrated good fit to the data, as evidenced by CFI of 0.968, RMSEA of 0.051 (90% CI: 0.044-0.059), SRMR of 0.059, and TLI of 0.963.
Conclusions and Implications
The Teacher TSR (teacher-student relationship) Commitment Scale (T-TSRCS) is the first measure from the teachers’ perspective of factors influencing teachers’ motivation to establish and sustain positive relationships with students. The enhanced understanding and operationalization of teacher motivation and the connection of TSR to teacher occupational well-being provides opportunities for school social work intervention efforts to strengthen teacher occupational well-being by fostering teacher social functioning.