KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF THE QUALITY OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR TEACHER

Anastasia Vatou

doi:10.46827/ejes.v7i7.3147

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, &amp; 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>

Highlights

confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and SRMR fit indices did not suggest a satisfactory fit to the data (χ2 = 997.57, df = 129, p < .001, CFI = .852, Root-Mean-Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .059, SRMR = .074)
New CFA showed an improvement of the model fit (χ2 = 147.51, df = 86, p < .001, CFI = .924, RMSEA = .044, SRMR = .061)
All factors loadings were statistically significant, ranging from .31 to .79 and the three factors corresponded fully to the dimensions that were previously found for the Child Appraisal of Relationship with Teacher Scale (CARTS) (e.g. Gregoriadis et al, 2020)

Summary

Introduction

In the realm of the teacher-child relationship, scholars have supported several theoretical models to conceptualize the teacher-child quality relationships, like models based on attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969; Davis, 2003), on the self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Wentzel, 2002) and on the interpersonal theory (Thijs, Koomen, Roorda & Hagen, 2011). It seems that attachment theory provides the most widely used and accepted framework when examining the teacher-child quality relationship (Davis, 2003; Mi-young & Neuharth-Pritchett, 2011). Stemming from the attachment theory, scholars are describing the parent-child relationship based on three dimension, closeness, conflict, and dependency (Davis, 2003)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion