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

Abstract

<p>Teacher-child relationships in early childhood are increasingly considered as a prerequisite for children’s development. The Child Appraisal of the Relationship with the Teacher Scale (CARTS) (Vervoot, Doumen, & Verschueren, 2015) is a new multidimensional measure that evaluates the quality of teacher-child relationships from the children’s perspective. The purpose of this study was to confirm the factor structure of the Dutch version of CARTS in the Greek context, to describe the perceptions of young children about their relationship with their teachers and to examine whether child’s age, gender, and ethnicity contribute to this relationship. In total, 366 children (Mage= 5.4) from 36 kindergarten of Greece participated in this study. Results supported the construct validity of the CARTS scale. CFA implementation, consistent with attachment-based research revealed the three dimensions of the teacher-children relationships, Closeness, Dependency and Conflict. Supportive and warmth relationships were found. Children’s demographics characteristics affect the quality of teacher-child relationships. The results highlighted the importance of the dyadic relationships.</p>

Antecedents to and outcomes associated with teacher–child relationship perceptions in early childhood: Further evidence for child‐driven effects

“…Finally, although we assessed teachers' perceptions of their TCRs, it is not clear how well these reports capture young children's own perceptions of their TCRs. We note that this is an emergent area of research in early childhood development (e.g., Vatou, 2020;White, 2016).…”