Teacher-student relationships in primary schools in Perth

This study investigated te.acher-student relationships at Perth metropolitan schools in Western Australia. From the literature, three key social and emotional aspects that affect teacher-student relationships, namely, Connectedness, Availability and Communication, were identified as important to good, positive teacher-student relationships. Data were collected in four parts: (1) through a teacher questionnaire; (2) through a student questionnaire; (3) through teacher interviews; and (4) through student interviews. The three relationship aspects formed the structure of a teacher questionnaire in which ten stem-items were conceptualised from easy to hard four stem-items for Connectedness, three for Availability, and three for Communication and answered in three perspectives: (1) an idealistic attitude, this is what I would like to happen; (2) a self-perceived Capability, this is what I am capable of, and (3) Actual Behaviour, this is what actually happens, using three ordered response categories: not at all or some of the time (score 1), most of the time (score 2), and almost always (score 3). The same three aspects formed the structure of a student questionnaire in which ten stem-items were conceptualised from easy to hard and answered in two perspectives: (1)a realistic view, this is what does happen; and (2) an idealistic view, this is what I wish would happen. Questionnaire data were collected from 43 primary teachers concerning 139 teacher-student relationships and 139 primary school students. Interview data were collected from 25 primary teachers and 139 students gave either, or both, a brief written comment and some verbal answers to relationship questions. The teacher questionnaire data were analysed with a Rasch measurement computer program (RUMM2020). Twenty-one out of 24 items fitted the measurement model with p> 0.04 and formed a satisfactory linear scale. The item-trait interaction chi-square =71.37, df=48, p=0.02 and so it can be claimed that a dominant trait (called Teacher-Student Relationships) was measured. The Person Separation Index (reliability) was 0.93 showing that the measures were well-separated along the scale in comparison to the errors (which were mainly from 0.17 to 0.22 logits). The results showed that, for each of the stemitems, the ideal perspective was easier than the capability perspective which was, in turn, easier than the actual happening perspective (where the items fitted the model), as was conceptualised for the structure of the variable. That is, there was reasonably strong, but not total support, for the structure of the conceptualised variable. The easiest ideal item was 'I would like to like this child' (very easy), and the hardest ideal item was 'I would like to be available to this child' (but still very easy). The easiest capability item was 'this child and I are capable of getting along well together' (moderately easy) and the hardest capability item was 'If I am busy and this child needs help urgently, I am capable of stopping what I am doing and making myself available' (moderately hard). The easiest actual behaviour item was 'This child and I actually get along well together' (moderately hard) and the hardest actual behaviour item was 'I am actually interested to learn about this child's personal thoughts, feelings and experiences' (very hard indeed). The student questionnaire data were analysed with a Rasch measurement computer program (RUMM2020). Nineteen out of twenty items fitted the measure.ment model with p> 0.1 O and formed a satisfactory linear scale. The