Meta-Analytic Associations Between the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale and Students’ Social Competence With Peers

According to developmental psychologists, more supportive and less conflictual relationships with teachers play a positive role in children’s social behavior with peers both concurrently and in the future. This meta-analysis examined the association between teacher-student relationship quality, as measured by the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS), and social competence from early childhood through high school. Based on nearly 30,000 students from 87 studies, the weighted average association between teacher-student relationship quality and social competence with peers was r = .31 (z = .32; 95% CI: .28, 37). Neither age nor length of time between assessments were associated with effect size, suggesting that teacher-student relationships continue to be associated with children’s social competence beyond the early years. Additionally, the STRS total score was the best predictor of social competence, whereas dependency was more weakly associated with social competence. The findings of this study suggest that teacher-student relationship quality as measured by the STRS is an important correlate of both concurrent and future social competence from early childhood to adolescence.Impact StatementCloser and less conflictual teacher-student relationships are consistently associated with higher social skills, peer relationships, and social acceptance among peers from early childhood through adolescence. Further work implementing teacher training programs that aim to improve teacher-student relationship quality as a mechanism for enhancing students’ social competence with peers is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of such trainings across ages and sociocultural contexts.