Applying Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling to Examine the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale in a Representative Greek Sample

Abstract

Teacher-child relationships in early childhood are a fundamental prerequisite for children's social, emotional, and academic development. The Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) is one of the most widely accepted and used instruments that evaluate the quality of teacher-child relationships. STRS is a 28-item questionnaire that assess three relational dimensions, Closeness, Conflict, and Dependency. The relevant literature has shown a pattern regarding the difficulty to support the STRS factor structure with CFA, while it is well-documented with EFA. Recently, a new statistical technique was proposed to combine the best of the CFA and EFA namely, the Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM). The purpose of this study was (a) to examine the factor structure of the STRS in a Greek national sample. Toward this end, the ESEM framework was applied in order to overcome the limitations of EFA and CFA, (b) to confirm previous findings about the cultural influence in teacher-child relationship patterns, and (c) to examine the invariance of STRS across gender and age. Early educators from a representative Greek sample size of 535 child care and kindergarten centers completed the STRS for 4,158 children. CFA as well as ESEM procedures were implemented. Results showed that ESEM provided better fit to the data than CFA in both groups, supporting the argument that CFA is an overly restrictive approach in comparison to ESEM for the study of STRS. All primary loadings were statistically significant and were associated with their respective latent factors. Contrary to the existing literature conducted in USA and northern Europe, the association between Closeness and Dependency yielded a positive correlation. This finding is in line with previous studies conducted in Greece and confirm the existence of cultural differences in teacher-child relationships. In addition, findings supported the configural, metric, scalar, and variance/covariance equivalence of the STRS between males and females and between preschoolers (3–5 years) and early primary years (5–7 years). Latent factor means comparisons showed that females seem to have a warmer and more dependent relationship with their teachers and are less conflictual in comparison to males.

Quality of attachment relationships and frequency of mathematics- and science-related activity offers in kindergarten as predictors of girls' and boys' mathematics-related motivation

“…Our observations of the quality of the child-teacher relationships revealed that girls were more closely attached to their kindergarten teachers than boys, a finding from our sample that has already been reported by Glüer (2013). This result is consistent with evidence from various other studies according to which boys are involved in less quality interactions or secure attachment relationships with their preschool teacher than girls (e. g., Ahnert et al, 2006;Koepke & Harkins, 2008;Spilt, Koomen, & Jak, 2012;Tsigilis, Gregoriadis, Grammatikopoulos, & Zachopoulou, 2018;Winer & Phillips, 2012;Wolter, Glüer, & Hannover, 2014). A possible interpretation is that girls and boys differ in their behavior and therefore each trigger different, complementary behaviors in the teacher, with, for instance, a child's cheerful behavior triggering warm behavior in the teacher or a child's aggressive behavior triggering harsh behavior in the teacher (cf.…”

Kindergarten Students’ Understanding of the Quality of Their Relationship With Their Teacher

“…Young children perceived their relationships with a dependent way, a finding that has been reported for the first time in young children perceptions. Additionally, this finding is repeatedly noted in the prior studies based on preschool teachers' perspectives (Gregoriadis & Grammatikopoulos, 2014;Gregoriadis & Tsigilis, 2008;Tsigilis, Gregoriadis, Grammatikopoulos, & Zachopoulou, 2018) and scholars have suggested that there is a cultural influence in the way relationships are interpreted in different contexts.…”

Dependency in teacher–child relationships: deepening our understanding of the construct

“…A large body of research has supported the validity of the STRS. Its three-factor structure has been confirmed in several studies, both within the US (Pianta, 2001) and in other countries (Fraire, Longobardi, Prino, Sclavo, & Settanni, 2013;Koomen et al, 2012;Solheim, Berg-Nielsen, & Wichstrøm, 2012;Tsigilis, Gregoriadis, Grammatikopoulos, & Zachopoulou, 2018;Zhang, 2010). Moreover, teacher perspectives on relationship quality, assessed by the STRS, have been found to converge with teacher reports in narrative measures (Koenen, Vervoort, Verschueren, & Spilt, 2018;Spilt & Koomen, 2009), peer reports (Doumen et al, 2009;Zee, de Bree, Hakvoort, & Koomen, 2020), student reports (Chen, Zee, Koomen, & Roorda, 2019;Doumen et al, 2009;Henricsson & Rydell, 2004;Koomen & Jellesma, 2015;Vervoort, Doumen, & Verschueren, 2015;Zee & Koomen, 2017), and observer ratings of dyadic teacher-student interactions (Doumen, Koomen, Buyse, Wouters, & Verschueren, 2012;Henricsson & Rydell, 2004).…”