The relationship between teachers and students: Children’s pictorial representation and teachers evaluation

Abstract

The student-teacher relationship (STR) in a primary school was examined through children’s drawings of a positive and a negative situation and how they related to teachers’ answers both to the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) as well as to a School Adaptation Scale (SAS). Drawings were scored with PAIR, an instrument devised to measure Cohesion (psychological relatedness) and Distancing (psychological autonomy) between partners. Cohesion prevailed over Distancing in the drawings of the positive situations, while the opposite happened in the negative situations. The amount of Cohesion and Distancing introduced in the two drawings correlated with some dimensions of the STRS and SAS. A series of hierarchical regressions, in which children’s gender and age were entered at the first step followed by the scores of Cohesion and of Distancing at the second step, showed that children’s pictorial representation of different interpersonal school situations predicted relevant aspects of their relationship with teachers as well as school adaptation.