The association among teacher-student relationship, subjective well-being, and academic achievement: Evidence from Chinese fourth graders and eighth graders

Da Zhou; Shuting Liu; Hao Zhou; Jian Liu; Yue Ma

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1097094

The association among teacher-student relationship, subjective well-being, and academic achievement: Evidence from Chinese fourth graders and eighth graders

Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 26:14:1097094. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1097094. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Da Zhou¹, Shuting Liu¹, Hao Zhou², Jian Liu², Yue Ma³

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
² Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment for Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
³ School of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

This study compared the teacher-student relationship, subjective well-being, and academic achievement between fourth graders and eighth graders, and examined whether and how subjective well-being played a mediating role concerning teacher-student relationship and academic achievement across the two grades. The participants included 19,845 fourth graders and 11,691 eighth graders from a city in central China. The findings indicated that (1) compared with eighth graders, fourth graders reported significantly higher mean scores in the teacher-student relationship, subjective well-being, and academic achievements; (2) a positive teacher-student relationship can promote students' academic achievement both directly and indirectly through subjective well-being across the two groups; (3) The mediating effect of subjective well-being accounted for 42.8% of the total effects between teacher-student relationship and academic achievement for fourth graders, which was higher than that for eighth graders (22.7%). Limitations and future directions are elaborated.

Keywords: Chinese students; academic achievement; grade levels; subjective well-being; teacher-student relationship.