Reciprocal Relations Between Conflicted Student-teacher Relationship and Children’s Behavior Problems: Within-person Analyses from Norway and the USA

Abstract

Current evidence suggests that conflicted student-teacher relationships may increase behavior problems in children and vice-versa, but this may be due to confounding. We therefore analyzed their relation applying a within-person approach that adjusts for all time-invariant confounding effects, involving samples from Norway (n = 964, 50.9% females) and the USA (n = 1,150, 48.3% females) followed from age 4–12 years with similar measures. Increased parent-reported behavior problems forecasted increased student-teacher conflict to a similar extent in both countries (β = 0.07, p = .010), whereas teacher-reported behavior problems predicted increased student-teacher conflict more strongly in Norway (β = 0.14, p = .001) than in the US (β = 0.08, p = .050). Increased teacher-child conflict also predicted increased parent-reported (β = 0.07, p = .010), but not teacher-reported, behavior problems in both countries. Findings underscore the reciprocal relation between behavior problems and a conflictual student-teacher relationship.

Adapting a video-feedback intervention to support teacher–child interaction and behavior regulation of young children at school: A qualitative pilot study

“…Keywords teacher-child interaction, behavioral problems, primary school, professional development, interventions, VIPP (video-feedback intervention to promote positive parenting), coaching, qualitive analysis Child behavior problems in the classroom are challenging for teachers (see e.g., Aldrup et al, 2018;Spilt & Koomen, 2009). Children with behavior problems experience more negative interactions with their teachers and often develop less positive relationships with their teachers (García-Rodríguez et al, 2023;Hamre & Pianta, 2001;Husby et al, 2023;Lei et al, 2016;McGrath & Van Bergen, 2015;O'Connor, 2011;Spilt et al, 2022). Negative interactions tend to accumulate, leading to a downward spiral of problematic behavior and jeopardizing the child's school adjustment (Spilt & Koomen, 2009).…”