Support From Parents, Peers, and Teachers Is Differently Associated With Middle School Students’ Well-Being

Abstract

Parents, peers, and teachers provide a powerful context for school students’ well-being. However, a detailed and systematic analysis of how parental, peer, and teacher support relate to students’ well-being, measured by the dimensions self-worth, psychological and physical well-being, is still missing. To address this research gap, the following study investigates 733 adolescent German students from grades 7 and 8 (Mage = 13.97, SD = 0.41, 52% girls) with respect to their perceived supportive relationships at home and within the school context. The study considers gender, socioeconomic status, and school form as potential confounders. The results of the structural equation model, analyzed with the statistical software R, indicate that perceived teacher support was positively related to students’ self-worth and physical well-being, while peer support was related to psychological well-being. Students who perceived their parents as supportive reported higher well-being with respect to all three dimensions investigated.

How teacher and classmate support relate to students’ stress and academic achievement

“…Future research should therefore investigate the longitudinal relationship between teacher and peer support on students’ stress and academic achievement over the school years, to consider long-term effects of social resources and further develop COR by adding the time factor and by covering developmental processes of students. As the school context shapes students’ stress, school engagement, and motivation ( Hoferichter and Raufelder, 2022 ), future studies are advised to investigate potential differences across students from various school types (e.g., lower- and higher track schools) and consider different age groups (e.g., elementary school students), as peer relationships and teacher-student relationships change during students’ school career as well as students’ needs for social support from different agencies ( Tarrant, 2002 ; Branje, 2018 ; Hoferichter et al, 2021a ). In addition to self-report data, future studies may include teacher and parental ratings when it comes to students’ ability to cope and helplessness as well as include competencies of students in various subjects that complement GPA.…”

“…Students' academic achievement is conceptualized by students' grades in the subjects German, Math, and English. So far, there have been some empirical studies investigating the single paths on how peer support and/or teacher support relate to students' stress, while others have focused on how social support relates to students' achievement (e.g., Tennant et al, 2015;Hoferichter and Raufelder, 2021;Hoferichter et al, 2021a).…”

“…So far, there have been some empirical studies investigating the single paths on how peer support and/or teacher support relate to students’ stress, while others have focused on how social support relates to students’ achievement (e.g., Tennant et al, 2015 ; Hoferichter and Raufelder, 2021 ; Hoferichter et al, 2021a ). Although COR provides a framework for how social support may be related to student stress and academic achievement, it has not been empirically quantified how peer support as well as teacher support relate to students’ stress and academic achievement on an individual (student) and contextual (classroom) level.…”

“…During adolescence, peers become increasingly important as peer relationships contribute to social, emotional, and cognitive development (see Tarrant, 2002 ; Reitz et al, 2014 ). Although there are only a few studies that have investigated the direct link between peer support and students’ stress, various studies emphasize the beneficial role of supportive peer relationships for students’ mental and physical health ( Rageliené, 2016 ), including better psychological well-being ( Holt et al, 2018 ; Moore et al, 2018 ; Hoferichter et al, 2021a ), adaptive behavior ( La Greca and Harrison, 2005 ; Yeung and Leadbeater, 2010 ), and low levels of stress ( Lyons and Jiang, 2021 ). Research suggests that peer support acts as a protective factor against depression, social anxiety ( La Greca and Harrison, 2005 ), and test anxiety ( Hoferichter and Raufelder, 2015 ).…”

The relation between sensory processing sensitivity and telomere length in adolescents

“…The reason for this is that TL is considered an outcome of both genetic and developmental influences, which suggests confounding of different processes or variables. Therefore, it might also be promising to investigate the effects of protective factors that are associated with decreased telomere shortening in future studies (e.g., parental support, Brody et al., 2015 ; Hoferichter et al, 2021 ).…”