A Closer Look at Teacher–Child Relationships and Classroom Emotional Context in Preschool

Which aspects of education are health protective? a life course examination of early education and adulthood cardiometabolic health in the 30-year study of early child care and Youth Development (SECCYD)

BACKGROUND

Past research describes robust associations between education and health, yet findings have generally been limited to the examination of education as the number of years of education or educational attainment. Little is known about the specific features or processes underpinning education that are health protective. The objective of the current study was to address this gap by examining specific aspects of early education pertaining to student characteristics and experiences, as well as features of the classroom environment, in predicting cardiometabolic health in adulthood.

METHODS

Subjects were 1364 participants in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD, 1991-2009) and recent SECCYD 30-year follow-up, the Study of Health in Early and Adult Life (SHINE, 2018-2022). Models examined individual education indicators (student social skills, student-teacher relationship quality, and classroom emotional and instructional quality in the period of elementary school and student academic performance between ages 54 months and 15 years) in relation to a composite of cardiometabolic risk in adulthood (ages 26-31), reflecting central adiposity, blood pressure, insulin resistance, inflammation, and dyslipidemia. Models were adjusted for key explanatory factors including socio-demographics, infant characteristics, parental socioeconomic status (SES), and child health status. Follow-up analyses were performed to test potential mediators of early education effects on adult health, including adult SES (educational attainment, household income) and health behaviors (diet quality, activity level, sleep duration, smoking).

RESULTS

In adjusted models, results showed greater student social skills, indexed by a mean of annual teacher ratings between kindergarten and 6th grade, predicted lower cardiometabolic risk in adulthood (β=-0.009, p <.05). In follow-up analyses, results showed the protective effect of student social skills on cardiometabolic risk may be mediated by adult income (β=-0.0014, p <.05) and diet quality (β=-0.0031, p <.05). Effects of the other early education indicators were non-significant (ps > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Findings point to the potential significance of early student social competence as a link to long-term health, possibly via the acquisition of resources needed for the maintenance of health, as well as through engagement in health behaviors supporting healthy eating. However, more research is needed to replicate these findings and to elaborate on the role of early student social competence and the pathways explaining its effects on cardiometabolic health in adulthood.

The influence of teacher-student relationship on Chinese high school students' academic motivation for the ideological and political subject: the mediating role of academic emotions

Introduction

This study investigated the influence of teacher-student relationship on Chinese high students' academic motivation for the ideological and political subject and the parallel mediating roles of positive and negative academic emotions on this influence.

Method

The participants of this study were 425 Chinese high school students. This study measured teacher-student relationship, academic motivation, and academic emotions through several self-reported questionnaires. Structural equation models were used to analyze data and investigate the direct and indirect influence of teacher-student relationship on Chinese high school students' academic motivation for the ideological and political subject.

Results

Teacher-student relationship had a significant, positive, and direct impact on Chinese high school students' academic motivation for the ideological and political subject. Moreover, positive and negative academic emotions, in parallel, mediated the relationship between these two factors.

Discussion

This study demonstrates the important influence of teacher-student relationships on Chinese high school students' academic motivation for the ideological and political subject. A positive teacher-student relationship can directly increase students' academic motivation for this subject and indirectly enhance their motivation by generating positive academic emotions. Therefore, teachers should express care for their students, make friends with them, and be their partners in learning and life. Additionally, teachers need to pay close attention to students' academic emotions and provide them emotional support so that they can develop positive academic emotions while learning, and strive to establish and maintain a good teacher-student relationship.

The effectiveness of a rational-emotive intervention on teachers' unconditional self-acceptance, perfectionism, and pupil control ideology

Introduction

The present research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) intervention on in-service teachers.

Methods

A quasi-experimental 2-group (intervention vs. control) × 3-time (pre, post-test, follow-up) design was applied to explore to what extent the REBT interventions help teachers increase their level of unconditional self-acceptance as the primary outcome and decrease their perfectionism tendencies and pupil control ideology as secondary outcomes. The sample consisted of 100 in-service teachers assigned to either the intervention group (n = 50) or the control group (n = 50). The experimental group received a 6-week intervention program. Every session was held weekly and lasted 90-120 min. The Unconditional Self-Acceptance Questionnaire (USAQ), Pupil Control Ideology Scale (PCI), and Perfectionism Inventory Scale (PI) were used to collect data. This study used a mixed model ANOVA 2 × 3 for data analysis.

Results

The results indicated that in the experimental group, there was a statistically significant increase in unconditional self-acceptance level from pre-test to post-test, which remains significant at the 6-month follow-up. Likewise, there were no statistically significant differences in unconditional self-acceptance levels between the post-test and 6-month follow-up in the intervention group.

Discussion

These findings prove that REBT interventions are effective in increasing teachers' unconditional self-acceptance.

Using research-practice-policy partnerships to mitigate the effects of childhood trauma on educator burnout

BACKGROUND

The effects of COVID-19 pandemic on children have been immense.

OBJECTIVE

In this commentary, we argue for the need to utilize research-practice-policy partnerships to address the issue of educator burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

Education systems have the potential to be the site of public health interventions in helping to identify and address the needs of children and families.

METHODS

In this commentary, we review the literature on child trauma and adversity, educator burnout, and research-practice-policy partnerships.

RESULTS

With the return to in-person learning, educators, and the systems in which they work are overwhelmed by the magnitude of mental health challenges presenting in the classroom due to child trauma. As a result, many educators are reporting high levels of compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and burnout, which are known predictors of leaving the workforce. Many of the strategies employed to address educator compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and burnout focus directly on the individual level (e.g., deep breathing, yoga). Yet the compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and burnout are rooted in larger system failures to address the growing needs of children and families.

CONCLUSIONS

By bringing together key community members, including educators, and utilizing local data to inform policy decisions, actionable, trauma-informed solutions can create the conditions for thriving educators and therefore, thriving children.

Teacher-child relational conflict and maladaptive social behaviors: The moderating role of children's values

Beginning in the preschool years, it is well established that teacher-child conflictual relationships are likely to have detrimental effects on children's behaviors. However, to date little attention has been paid to how certain core child factors, such as young children's personal values, might act as risk or protective factors in this context. Accordingly, we examined the associations between teacher-child relational conflict and children's maladaptive behaviors and asked whether children's personal values, defined here as their broad motivations in life, moderate these associations. Our sample consisted of 120 kindergarten children (58 girls; M_age = 67.53 months, SD = 6.53) and their teachers. Children's values were examined in a one-on-one interview using an animated values instrument. Teachers reported the level of conflict in the teacher-child relationships and children's maladaptive behaviors. The findings supported our hypothesis that teacher-child relational conflict is positively associated with children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors. In addition, children's self-transcendence values acted as a protective factor by weakening the adverse associations between teacher-child conflict and children's externalizing behaviors. Conversely, children's conservation values acted as a risk factor by strengthening the associations between teacher-child conflict and children's internalizing behaviors. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Qualitative evaluation of the implementation of “Tuning in to Kids” in Norwegian Kindergartens

Background

From January to June 2020, 22 FUS kindergartens across Norway implemented Tuning in to Kids for Kindergarten Teachers (TIK-KT) as part of a randomized control trial (RCT). Between the evaluation of an intervention and use of it in daily practice, a research-to-practice gap can often occur. The theory of planned behavior constituted the theoretical basis for the qualitative interviews that were administered to explore these gaps. This study aimed to explore motivation among kindergarten staff regarding the implementation of TIK-KT.

Methods

Participants from the FUS kindergartens RCT were part of the current study. A stepwise deductive inductive strategy was used in the thematic content analysis. The data were from eleven semi-structured telephone interviews with kindergarten leaders and teachers. Codes from interviews before and after implementation were grouped based on thematic connections, and code groups were further combined into themes. The Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research were used as a reporting standard.

Results

The interviews resulted in four main themes: (1) understanding the rationale of implementation, (2) "aha"-experiences, (3) the research-to-practice gap and (4) the main motivation. Kindergarten leaders and teachers expressed positive attitudes toward the intervention ideas and motivation to practice emotion coaching skills and toward implementing TIK-KT both before and after implementation.

Conclusion

Kindergarten leaders’ and teachers’ motivation for implementation came from having a good understanding of the ideas of Tuning in to Kids for Kindergarten Teachers (TIK-KT), experiencing moments of “aha” regarding the intervention, not being held back by practical issues, and working toward their ultimate goal, the wellbeing of the children. These findings have implications for future implementation of TIK-KT and other mental health-promoting interventions and guide further areas of research to examine implementation mechanisms.

Trial registration: The study was registered with the Clinical Trials Registry (NCT03985124), June 13th, 2019.

Preschool Children's Observed Interactions with Teachers: Implications for Understanding Teacher-Child Relationships

Theory and research point to the daily interactions between individual children and teachers as formative to teacher-child relationships, yet observed dyadic teacher-child interactions in preschool classrooms have largely been overlooked. This study provides a descriptive examination of the quality of individual children's interactions with their teacher as a basis for understanding one source of information theorized to inform children's and teachers' perceptions of their relationships with each other. Children's dyadic interactions with teachers, including their positive engagement, communication, and conflict, were observed across a large and racially/ethnically diverse sample of 767 preschool children (M = 4.39 years) at three time points in the year. On average, most children displayed low-to-moderate levels of positive engagement (78%), while nearly all children showed rare communication (81%) and conflict (99%) with the teacher. Boys demonstrated lower positive engagement and higher conflict with the teacher than girls. Black children were observed to demonstrate higher positive engagement with the teacher compared to White children. No differences in interaction quality were observed for Black children with a White teacher compared to White child-White teacher or Black child-Black teacher pairs. Results advance our understanding of dyadic teacher-child interactions in preschool classrooms and raise new questions to expand our knowledge of how teacher-child relationships are established, maintained, and modified, to ultimately support teachers in building strong relationships with each and every preschooler.

A new look at teacher interactional quality: Profiles of individual teacher-child relationship and classroom teaching quality among Head Start students

Preschool teachers' relationships with children are a critical component of classroom quality. We draw from a sample of N=2,114 children attending Head Start to examine child-centered profiles of experiences across two dimensions of classroom interaction quality that are often considered separately, individual teacher-child closeness and conflict and classroom-level instructional and emotional support. Findings reveal considerable heterogeneity in Head Start children's experiences, as the profiles differed on individual conflict, and classroom emotional and instructional support. The largest profile was characterized by a positive emotional climate and low instructional support. Higher teacher distress was associated with the highest quality and the highest conflict profiles. The results also revealed early evidence for gender and race and ethnicity-based disadvantages in Head Start classroom experiences.

Patterns of Children's Relationships With Parents and Teachers in Grade 1: Links to Task Persistence and Performance

Our study aimed to investigate the patterns of children's relationships with their parents and teachers, the development of these relationships during Grade 1, and respective links to children's learning (in task persistence and performance). Parents of 350 children answered questionnaires about the quality of their relationships with their children; 25 teachers answered questions about children's task persistence at school and the quality of their relationships with their students; 350 children completed literacy and math performance tests; and six testers evaluated children's task persistence when completing those tests. All measures were administered twice: at the start and end of Grade 1. Latent profile analyses found two meaningful child profiles that were similar at the beginning and end of Grade 1: average relationship (89% at T1, 85% at T2) and conflictual relationship (11% at T1, 15% at T2) with parents and teachers. These profiles were highly stable throughout Grade 1, except for 15 children who moved from an average relationship to a conflictual relationship profile. This declining trajectory can be characterized by poor relationships with teachers and low task persistence at the end of Grade 1, although they did not perform any worse than other children. Finally, children exhibiting conflictual relationships with their parents and teachers at the beginning of Grade 1 performed worse on spelling and subtraction tasks and demonstrated lower task-persistent behavior at the end of Grade 1 than those with average (good) relationships with parents and teachers.

Closeness, Conflict, and Culturally Inclusive Pedagogy: Finnish Pre- and In-service Early Education Teachers' Perceptions

This study explored the factorial and concurrent validity of a scale developed for assessing teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in engaging with diversity in early childhood education settings. According to tests of measurement invariance, the conceptualization of the constructs varied to some extent between Finnish student teachers and qualified teachers. Qualified teachers reported, at the item level, higher confidence in engaging with diversity in mainstream early childhood classrooms than student teachers. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that for both groups, higher levels of reported confidence in planning and implementing inclusive teaching-learning interactions were related to a higher level of closeness during interactions with children. The evidence for concurrent validity may imply beneficial and reciprocal influences between teachers' confidence in their professional competence and close teacher-child relationships. The implications of the study are discussed from the perspective of teacher training and professional development in the early childhood education context.

Teacher–Child Interaction in a Goal-Oriented Preschool Context: A Micro-Analytical Study

The international trend of positioning the preschool as a pre-academic learning environment is challenging for preschool teachers, as it necessitates a balance between emotionally supportive interaction and goal-oriented learning instruction. However, previous research suggests that the complexities of such interactions need to be further studied. This article contributes by presenting a very detailed exploration of how social adaptation is pursued in a goal-oriented documentation activity. The study used a micro-sociological approach, characterized by the careful analysis of verbal and nonverbal interactions. Two research questions were raised: (1) How is social adaptation pursued in verbal and nonverbal interactions in preschool teacher–child relationships during a goal-oriented activity? and (2) How can social adaptation in the preschool context be understood in terms of a “deference-emotion system”? Interactions between a teacher and child in two video-recorded episodes were transcribed and sequentially analyzed thoroughly. The findings suggest that the interactions were regulated through an informal system of social sanctions, in which nonverbal signs of deference played a key role. The interaction was shown to be embedded in an institutional context that advocates goal-oriented instruction, thus highlighting the challenge of preschool teaching in attempting to promote goal-oriented processes while simultaneously maintaining respectful, caring teacher–child relationships.

The Role of Emotional Intelligence, the Teacher-Student Relationship, and Flourishing on Academic Performance in Adolescents: A Moderated Mediation Study

Educational context has an important influence on adolescents’ development and well-being, which also affects their academic performance. Previous empirical studies highlight the importance of levels of emotional intelligence for students’ academic performance. Despite several studies having analyzed the association and underlying mechanisms linking emotional intelligence and academic performance, further research, including both personal and contextual dimensions, is necessary to better understand this relation. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to deepen the understanding of the effect of emotional intelligence has on academic performance, examining the possible mediating role of flourishing and the moderating role of the teacher-student relationship. A convenience sample of 283 adolescents (49.8% female), aged 12–18 years (M = 14.42, SD = 1.12), participated in a cross-sectional study by completing self-report questionnaires measuring emotional intelligence (Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale), flourishing (Flourishing Scale), and teacher-student relationship (Inventory of Teacher-Student Relationships) and reported their grades of the previous term on four mandatory subjects in the Spanish education curriculum. Results indicated that flourishing completely mediated the path from emotional intelligence to academic performance and that teacher-student relationship was a significant moderator in this model. Thus, in adolescents with worse teacher-student relationship, the association of emotional intelligence and flourishing was stronger than in adolescents with better teacher-student relationship. In turn, flourishing was positively associated with academic performance. These results suggest that it is crucial to foster better teacher-student relationship, especially in adolescents with low emotional intelligence, and to positively impact their well-being and their academic performance.

Promoting Higher Quality Teacher-Child Relationships: The INSIGHTS Intervention in Rural Schools

Children’s relationships with teachers in kindergarten are crucial for academic and social success. Research shows that teacher–child relationships are predicated, in part, on children’s temperament. The “INSIGHTS into Children’s Temperament” intervention was intended to improve children’s and teachers’ understanding of their and others’ temperament, and has been shown to improve children’s social skills and self-regulation in urban, under-resourced schools. The current study is part of a replication of the effects of INSIGHTS with a sample in rural schools. The purpose was to test the effectiveness of INSIGHTS for promoting positive relationships between teachers and children in kindergarten. Two cohorts of kindergarten students (N = 127) and teachers (N = 30) were randomized into INSIGHTS or control conditions by school. Teachers reported on the quality of the teacher–child relationship before and after the INSIGHTS intervention (Time 1 and 2) using the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale: Short Form and provided a rating of children’s temperament with the Teacher School-Age Temperament Inventory at Time 1. Data were analyzed with hierarchical linear modeling. Two significant findings emerged. First, INSIGHTS promoted more closeness between teachers and children, regardless of temperament. Second, the INSIGHTS intervention was protective against the development of conflictual teacher–child relationships for children with negative reactivity.