European Journal of Special Needs Education

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The importance of teacher-student relationships

in classrooms with ‘difficult’ students: a multi-
level moderation analysis of nine Berlin secondary
schools

Lars Dietrich, David Zimmermann & Josef Hofman

To cite this article: Lars Dietrich, David Zimmermann & Josef Hofman (2021) The importance
of teacher-student relationships in classrooms with ‘difficult’ students: a multi-level
moderation analysis of nine Berlin secondary schools, European Journal of Special Needs
Education, 36:3, 408-423, DOI: 10.1080/08856257.2020.1755931

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2020.1755931

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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION
2021, VOL. 36, NO. 3, 408–423
https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2020.1755931

ARTICLE

The importance of teacher-student relationships in

classrooms with ‘difficult’ students: a multi-level moderation
analysis of nine Berlin secondary schools
Lars Dietrich , David Zimmermann and Josef Hofman
Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Meta-analyses suggest that instructional quality in the classroom Received 23 February 2020
and the quality of teacher-student relationships (TSR) predict posi- Accepted 9 April 2020
tive social-emotional and achievement-related outcomes. KEYWORDS
Psychoanalytic theory asserts that positive teacher-student rela- Teacher-student
tionships are particularly important for outcomes in classrooms relationships; psychosocial
with more students with severe psychosocial difficulties. Hence, difficulties; student social-
this study tests whether classrooms with more students with severe emotional outcomes;
psychosocial difficulties have better social-emotional and achieve- instructional teaching
ment-related outcomes when teachers have been able to establish quality; student
more positive relationships with their students. Hierarchical linear achievement; student
well-being
regression models use nested student survey data from 32 class-
rooms. Results only partially support the hypothesis and suggest
that too many students with psychosocial difficulties might over-
whelm even teachers with strong relationship-building skills, lead-
ing to detrimental outcomes.

Introduction
While the role of elementary school teachers is often seen as that of both nurturer and
knowledge conveyor, many teachers at the secondary school-level interpret their job as
only the latter (Garcia-Moya, Moreno, and Brooks 2019). These teachers’ traditional views
have been increasingly challenged, most recently by those advocating for student-
centred learning approaches that more strongly focus on students’ individual needs,
including the need for close relationships with adults (Garcia-Moya, Moreno, and Brooks
2019; Kaput 2018).
Empirical research supports the student-centred learning approach, suggesting that it
has a small but significant positive effect on achievement compared to more traditional
teacher-centred learning approaches (Cornelius-White 2007; Wilson et al. 2019). It is
unclear, however, how exactly these positive effects are attained, because the greater
emphasis on relationships is only one of several differences between student-centred
learning and more traditional teaching styles (Keiler 2018).
Meta-analyses have confirmed that both the quality of teacher-student relationships
(Roorda et al. 2011) and teaching quality (Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan 2018) are significant

CONTACT Lars Dietrich lars.dietrich@hu-berlin.de

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med-
ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION 409

predictors of positive student outcomes. However, these studies typically do not differ-
entiate between the two constructs, which are most likely correlates (Ferguson et al.
2015). Thus, it is largely unclear to what degree and how the quality of teacher-student
relationships improves student outcomes beyond instructional quality.

Instructional versus relational dimensions of teaching quality

Leading theoretical frameworks of teaching quality differentiate between teachers’
instructional teaching skills and their ability to establish positive relationships with
students. For example, Panorama (2020) distinguishes between pedagogical effectiveness
(‘the quality of teaching and amount of learning students experience from a particular
teacher’) and classroom teacher-student relationships (‘How strong the social connection is
between teachers and students within and beyond the classroom’) in their teacher
evaluations.
Similarly, the Tripod 7Cs Framework of Effective Teaching (Tripod 2016, 2) is composed
of six dimensions of classroom-related instructional teaching skills,1 and one dimension
going beyond the classroom, Care (‘show concern for students’ emotional and academic
well-being’). A large study of N = 16,300 American classrooms using the Tripod framework
shows that the instructional dimensions of the 7Cs tend to be more strongly related to
students’ achievement-related outcomes, while Care most strongly and positively corre-
lates with emotional and relational outcomes, i.e. feelings of happiness and help-seeking
(Ferguson et al. 2015).

Teachers’ impact on students’ academic and social-emotional development

Widely regarded studies (Hattie 2009; Cantrell and Kane 2013; Kane and Cantrell 2010)
and metanalytic calculations (Kraft, Blazar, and Hogan 2018) show that the instructional
teaching quality in the classroom is a reliable and valid predictor of students’ learning
progress, controlling for confounding student background characteristics. Theoretically, it
is assumed that better instructional teaching quality improves achievement in part
because it positively impacts achievement-related student factors, including feelings of
efficacy, sense of purpose, and joy of learning (Ferguson et al. 2015), and because it
reduces academic-status insecurity (Dietrich and Hofman 2019).
The quality of teacher-student-relationships (Roorda et al. 2011) and the overall school
relationship climate (Dulay and Karadağ 2017) have also been found to impact student
achievement. This can be explained with attachment theory, which proposes that devel-
oping a more or less secure attachment style as a young child, which is based on primary
caregivers’ nurturing and emotional responsiveness, can impact behaviour and develop-
mental outcomes throughout one’s entire lifetime (Ainsworth and Bell 1970; Riley 2010).
While people with secure attachment – i.e. secure inner emotional representations of
positive relationships – are able to sustain positive relationships, those with insecure
attachments struggle with this task.
Mentalisation theory adds that a secure attachment style is closely linked to develop-
ing the skills for understanding others’ thoughts and emotions impacting behaviour
(Fonagy et al. 2004; Gingelmaier, Taubner, and Ramberg 2018; Taubner 2015). These skills
can be improved at any developmental stage with the help of ‘relevant others’, such as
410 L. DIETRICH ET AL.

teachers (Fonagy et al. 2004; Gingelmaier, Taubner, and Ramberg 2018; Taubner 2015).
Quantitative-empirical findings indicate that better teacher-student relationships can
improve students’ social-emotional skills, which in turn lead to higher achievement
(Skinner et al. 2008).
The positive link between teacher-student relationships and students’ social-emotional
well-being has also been repeatedly confirmed (Durlak et al. 2011; Holt-Lunstad, Smith,
and Layton 2010; Waldinger et al. 2014). While there is most certainly a direct effect,
positive teacher-student relationships might also indirectly improve students’ emotional
well-being, because how teachers treat students affects how students treat each other
(Chory and Offstein 2018; Dietrich and Cohen 2019; Hughes, Cavell, and Jackson 1999).
Teacher support, a concept closely related to teacher-student relationships, has been
positively linked to students’ school-related feelings of anger, anxiety (Lei, Cui, and Chiu
2018), and school-connectedness (Joyce 2018).
Instructional teaching skills might also influence students’ social-emotional well-being.
A significant link has been found between teachers’ ability to explain content material and
students’ feelings of anger (Ferguson et al. 2015). Similarly, students of worse teachers are
academically less successful (Cantrell and Kane 2013; Kane and Cantrell 2010), and lower
academic success is associated with a decrease in emotional well-being (Bücker et al.
2018).

Students with severe psychosocial difficulties

High quality teacher-student relationships might be more important for student out-
comes when there are more students with severe psychosocial difficulties in the class-
room, which include those with overly externalising or internalising behaviours
(Zimmermann 2018). Many of these students have had traumatising early childhood
experiences and are particularly in need of positive relationships (Zimmermann 2016).
Psychoanalytic theory assumes complex transference – countertransference processes in
which students unconsciously re-enact early childhood experiences in subsequent rela-
tionships (Würker 2007). Most teachers are overwhelmed by the resulting severe misbe-
haviour and emotional outbursts of such students, and tend to react with punishment
and feelings of helplessness (Zimmermann 2018). This reaction only worsens misbeha-
viour and escalates conflict, which re-traumatises students and threatens teachers’ mental
health (Aloe et al. 2014; Gavish and Friedman 2010; Ozkilica and Kartal 2012). As a result,
internalising and externalising students who experience conflict with their teachers show
worse school adjustment and behaviour (Baker, Grant, and Morlock 2008).
However, psychoanalytic theory also asserts that teachers can learn to establish
corrective emotional experiences (Alexander and French 1946) in their relationships
with students who identify with them due to their parental roles. This provides teachers
a unique opportunity to positively influence or ‘correct’ these students’ internal repre-
sentations of close relationships, leading to better behaviour (Hanifin and Appel 2000;
Aichhorn 2005) and thus, more positive classroom environments, which improve student
outcomes (Roorda 2011; Durlak et al. 2011).
Although most teachers might not know a great deal about their students’ early
childhood experiences, they can often find out enough information to establish a
professional attitude that can bring about these corrective experiences. Here, the
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION 411

concepts of holding by Donald Winnicott (1986) and containment by Wilfred Bion (1962)
suggest that teachers can facilitate students’ processing of otherwise overwhelming
negative emotions. Students’ emotional trust (Müller 2017) and positive transference
(Aichhorn 2005) are considered preconditions for corrective relationship experiences
(Müller 2017).

Study purpose
Previous research suggests that teachers with stronger relationship-building skills
improve student outcomes (e.g. Roorda 2011; Durlak et al. 2011), and psychoanalytic
theory proposes that such skills might be particularly important for student outcomes
when there are students with severe psychosocial difficulties in the classroom
(Zimmermann 2018). Hence, this study tests the following hypothesis:
Classrooms with higher ratios of students with severe psychosocial difficulties have
better social-emotional and achievement-related outcomes when teachers have been
able to establish more positive relationships with their students – in terms of students’
emotional trust in the teacher, students’ identification with the teacher, and overall
teacher-student relationship climate in the school– holding instructional teaching quality
and students’ background characteristics constant.
This study focuses on the classroom-level, because the key interest of this study is in
teachers’ skills, most reliably measured at the classroom-level using student survey data
(Cantrell and Kane 2013), and teachers’ relationships with entire classrooms and their
complex group dynamics.

Methods
Participants
For the study’s data collection, virtually all of the approximately 200 public and private
secondary schools in Berlin were initially contacted via email and phone. Of these, a
convenience sample of a total of nine schools, including 452 students and 39 teachers,
decided to participate and filled in student and teacher surveys. Very low school response
rates are common in Berlin, where schools tend to be overburdened and battle with
teacher shortages (Tagesspiegel 2020), which is one reason why the Berlin school system
is considered to be among the worst in Germany (Statista 2020). In return for their
participation, all schools received a summary report of their results, including recommen-
dations for school development and teacher training.
In the data collection process, each class was assigned to only one teacher in order to
avoid cross-classification problems in the analysis. According to informal feedback, stu-
dents typically needed about 30–45 minutes to fill in the questionnaire. Parents of
students under the age of 16 were given an information sheet about the study and
required to sign a written permission statement for their children’s participation. All
students were informed that their participation is voluntary. Parents typically had several
weeks to consider giving their consent.
412 L. DIETRICH ET AL.

Answering socioeconomic background questions required all parents to sign a permis-

sion statement, independent of students’ age. Students of parents who did not sign this
permission, but a permission to participate in the survey, received a shortened version of
the questionnaire that omitted the socioeconomic questions.
Some classrooms/teachers were excluded from the analysis because fewer than five
students completed the questionnaire, which can lead to reliability problems with Tripod
survey instruments (Tripod 2015). The final dataset contained 32 classrooms from nine
schools and its student composition is presented in Table 1.

Procedures
All schools were offered to conduct the surveys online in computer rooms via internet
links generated with the online software tool LimeSurvey. However, only five teachers
made use of this option, all others chose pen and paper versions of the questionnaires.
These were sent to the schools in exact numbers via mail. Teachers were required to put
the completed surveys in a sealed envelope, in order to assure confidentiality.

Instruments
This study only uses data from the student survey, not the teacher survey. All indices used
in this study are generated as follows: first, the individual items were aggregated to the
classroom-level; second, the indices were standardised.

Social-emotional and achievement-related student outcomes

Achievement-related efficacy. Students’ sense of efficacy is a 4-item index drawn from
the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales (Midgley et al. 2000), and has established validity
and reliability (Midgley et al. 1998). The items are measured on a 5-point Likert scale,
ranging from Totally True to Totally Untrue. An example item is ‘I can do almost all the work
in this school if I don’t give up’. In this study the efficacy index has an internal reliability of
α =.81.

Sense of school purpose. Students’ sense of school purpose is a 4-item index drawn
from the Student Subjective Well-Being Scale (Long et al. 2012). The items are measured on
a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from Totally True to Totally Untrue. An example item is ‘I feel
like the things I do at school are important’. In this study the school purpose index has an
internal reliability of α = .80.

Table 1. Student characteristics.

Variable %
At least one parent has a Bachelor’s degree 55
100+ books at home 48
At least 3 computers at home 44
Male 46
Internalising psychosocial difficulties 10
Internalising psychosocial difficulties 9
Non-EU family background 39
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION 413

Joy of learning. Students’ joy of learning is a 4-item index from the Student Subjective
Well-Being Scale (Long et al. 2012). The items are measured on a 5-point Likert scale,
ranging from Totally True to Totally Untrue. An example item is ‘I get excited about
learning new things in class’. In this study the joy of learning index has an internal
reliability of α = .86.

School-connectedness. Students’ school-connectedness is a 4-item index from the

Student Subjective Well-Being Scale (Long et al. 2012). The items are measured on a 5-
point Likert scale, ranging from Totally True to Totally Untrue. An example item is ‘I feel like
I belong at this school’. In this study the school-connectedness index has an internal
reliability of α = .86.

School-related anger. Students’ school-related anger is a 2-item index developed from

the Tripod Survey; its construct validity has been previously confirmed via confirmatory
factor analysis (Dietrich and Zimmermann 2019). The items are measured on a 5-point
Likert scale, ranging from Totally True to Totally Untrue. An example item is ‘Being in this
class makes me feel angry’. In this study the school-related anger index has an internal
reliability of α = .82.

Academic-status insecurity. Students’ academic-status insecurity is a 4-item index devel-

oped by Dietrich and Ferguson (2019). It conceptually derives from the learning goal
concept of performance avoidance (Midgley et al. 2000; Midgley and Urban 2001), which
has established validity and reliability (Jagacinski and Duda 2001). Construct validity has
also been confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis (Dietrich and Zimmermann 2019). The
items are measured on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from Totally True to Totally Untrue. An
example item is ‘In this class, I worry what other students think about me’. In this study’s
data the academic-status insecurity index has an internal reliability of α = .73.

Teacher-student relationships
Teacher-student relationship climate at school. This is a 3-item index derived from the
Tripod survey; its validity has been confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis (Dietrich and
Cohen 2019). The items are measured on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from Totally True
to Totally Untrue. An example item is ‘Teachers in the hallways treat me with respect, even
if they don’t know me’. In this study the teacher-student relationship climate at school
index has an internal reliability of α = .82.

Students’ emotional trust towards the teacher. This 3-item index is derived from the
Teacher-Student Relationship Scale (Pianta 2019), and measured on a 5-point Likert scale
ranging from Totally True to Totally Untrue. The items are: ‘The teacher in this class is aware
of my feelings’, ‘When I am in a bad mood, the teacher in this class knows how to handle
me’, and ‘I openly share feelings and experiences with the teacher in this class’. In this study
the students’ emotional trust towards the teacher index has an internal reliability of α = .74.

Students’ identification with the teacher. While ‘positive transference’ is difficult to

measure directly, the identification of a student with a teacher is used as a proxy. This is
because patients ‘transfer onto the analyst or therapist those feelings of attachment, love,
414 L. DIETRICH ET AL.

idealization, or positive emotions that the patient originally experienced toward parents
or other significant individuals during childhood’ (APA 2020). The same processes occur
between students and teachers (Hanifin and Appel 2000; Freud 1970).
This 3-item index is derived from the Composite Teacher-Student Relationship
Instrument (Barch 2015), measured on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from Totally True to
Totally Untrue. They are, ‘I would feel good if someone said I was a lot like the teacher in
this class’, ‘I want to be like the teacher in this class’, and ‘As I get older, I’ll probably try to
be a lot like the teacher in this class’. In this study the students’ identification with the
teacher index has an internal reliability of α = .86.

Teachers’ instructional teaching skills

This is an index based on the Tripod 7Cs Framework of Effective teaching (Tripod 2016).
Most studies use the 7Cs composite score, which is the combined average of the
individual 7Cs, to measure teaching quality. Validity and reliability of the 7Cs
Framework have been previously confirmed (Cantrell and Kane 2013; Polikoff 2016). The
internal reliability of the 7Cs in this study’s dataset are: α = .89 for Care, α = .76 for Confer,
α = .84 for Captivate, α = .93 for Clarify, α = .78 for Consolidate, α = .81 for Challenge, and
α = .94 for Classroom Management.
For this study, Care was taken out of the 7Cs composite in order to create a 6Cs
composite that only measures the overall classroom-related instructional dimension of
teaching quality. The resulting 6Cs composite has an internal reliability of α = .92. In
addition, Care was entirely excluded from the analyses, because of multi-collinearity
issues with the students’ emotional trust towards the teacher index, indicating that
these two indices measure essentially the same latent construct.

Students’ psychosocial difficulties

Students’ psychosocial difficulties were measured via the self-reported Strengths and
Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which includes 21 items measured on a 3-point Likert-
scale ranging from Not True to Certainly True. Validity and reliability of the SDQ have been
previously established (Goodman 2001). Final scoring revealed that approximately 23
percent of the students in this study’s sample have psychosocial difficulties, close to the
German national average of 20 percent (KiGGs 2014).
For this study, externalising (8 percent of the sample) and internalising psychosocial
difficulties (10 percent of the sample) were separately scored (SDQinfo 2016). The reason
for this is that internalising and externalising students strongly differ in their behaviour and
relationship patterns (Levesque 2014) and thus, are likely to impact groups and group
dynamics in classrooms in fundamentally different ways (Jenson, Harward, and Bowen
2012; Ollendick, Shortt, and Sander 2005). The two variables used in the analysis are the
percentage of students with internalising and externalising psychosocial difficulties in the
classroom.

Students’ socioeconomic status

The SES index includes three items: the number of books at home, the number of
computers at home, and the highest educational level among students’ parents.
Construct validity of this index has been previously confirmed (Dietrich and
Zimmermann 2019d). In this study SES has an internal reliability of α = .86.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION 415

Students’ accumulated grade point average (GPA)

This item asked students about their accumulated grade point average in the previous
semester. Answers ranged from 1.0 to worse than 4.7; grades in Germany are given on a
scale ranging from 1.0 (best) to 6.0 (worst).

Analyses
This study uses STATA 14 to conduct the analyses. Six multivariate regression models are
created to predict the six social-emotional and achievement-related outcome variables
– i.e. school-related efficacy, sense of purpose, academic-status insecurity, joy of learn-
ing, school-connectedness, and school-related anger – separately. The key independent
variables of interest in all models are the interaction terms between the three teacher-
student relationship variables and the two psychosocial difficulties variables. Each
model controls for instructional teaching quality, i.e. the 6Cs composite score of
instructional teaching quality (excluding Care), and the student body composition in
the classroom in terms of SES-background and students’ GPA from the previous
semester.
Equation (1) depicts the HLM applied in models 1 through 6 at level-1 (classroom level):
Yij ¼ β0j þ β1j X1j þ β2j X2j þ β3j X3j þ β4j X4j þ β5j X5j þ β6j X1j X4j þ β7j X2j X4j
X
þβ8j X3j X4j þ β9j X1j X5j þ β10j X2j X5j þ β11j X3j X5j þ βqj Xqj þ rij (1)

In this equation Yij represents the model’s respective dependent variable measured for
case i nested within school j (level-2). β0 j is the intercept, β1 jX1j through β3 jX3j depict the
three TSR-predictors and their coefficients, β4 jX4 j and β5 jX5 j depict the two predictors for
students’ psychosocial difficulties and their coefficients, and β7jX2jX4j through β11jX3jX5j the
interaction terms and their coefficients; ∑ βqj Xqj depicts the sum of all remaining
predictors of the model. The random error at level-1 is depicted as rij.
Equations (2) and (3) depict the HLM at level-2 (school-level):
βpj ¼ γp0 (2)

β0j ¼ γ00k þ u0j (3)

All p independent variables, which include all predictors and interaction terms of equation
(1), are held constant at the school-level as depicted in equation (2); the classroom-level
constant β0j is allowed to vary at the school-level, as depicted by the random factors u0j
(level-2) in equation (3).
All models exclude outliers with Cook’s Distance > 4/n, with the exception of Model A.
An Inter-Correlation-Coefficient (ICC) analysis revealed that school-related efficacy, the
outcome variable of Model A, has < 1% variance explained at the school-level, rendering
a hierarchical linear analytical approach unnecessary. For this reason, Model A applies
STATA 14’s rreg-command for robust regression, which weighs the impact of outliers
based on Cook’s Distance and is thus, a more precise and effective way to deal with
outliers than the simple elimination of outliers (Rousseeuw and Leroy 2005).
Unfortunately, robust regression and HLM cannot be combined.
416 L. DIETRICH ET AL.

Missing data
With the exception of the three SES variables and previous semester GPA, all items used in
this study have between 5% and 15% missing values. The number of books at home has
23% missing values, the number of computers at home 19%, the highest educational
degree among parents 38%. Previous GPA has 19% missing values.
This study used subgroup-mean imputation to treat missing data (Musil et al. 2002), i.e.
all missings of students were replaced with their classmates’ average. This approach was
considered the most economical solution to handle the higher missing rates of the SES
variables. German secondary schools and classrooms tend to be socioeconomically highly
homogeneous, which is in part the result of Germany’s early tracking system and
advanced placement course system (Georg 2018). This limits the threat of bias due to
non-random missing values.

Results
Table 2 displays the regression results for the six models of this study, one for each of the
six outcome variables. The focus in these models lies on the interaction-terms. Results
partially confirm the hypothesis.
Five of the interaction terms, between the internalising psychosocial difficulties and
teacher-student relationship variables, are significant: the interaction term with the overall
teacher-student relationship climate correlates with less class-related anger (Model L: stan-
dardised coefficient = −.75, p < .01), which is expected and supports hypothesis (b), but
also more academic-status insecurity (Model M: standardised coefficient = .83, p < .001),
which is unexpected and contradicts hypothesis (b); the interaction term with students’
emotional trust towards their teacher correlates with less class-related anger (Model L:
standardised coefficient = −1.50, p < .01), as expected, and more academic-status insecurity
(Model M: standardised coefficient = 2.21, p < .001), which is unexpected; the interaction
term with students’ identification with the teacher correlates with less academic-status
insecurity (Model M: standardised coefficient = −3.02, p < .001), as expected.
Seven of the interaction terms, between externalising psychosocial difficulties and the
teacher-student relationship variables, are significant: the interaction term with the overall
teacher-student relationship climate correlates with a stronger sense of school purpose (Model
I: standardised coefficient = 1.38, p < .001) and more school-connectedness (Model M:
standardised coefficient = .93, p < .01), as expected; the interaction term with students’
emotional trust towards their teacher correlates with more school-connectedness (Model K:
standardised coefficient = .72, p < .01), as expected, and unexpectedly more academic-
status insecurity (Model M: standardised coefficient = .97, p < .001); the interaction term with
students’ identification with the teacher correlates with less academic-status insecurity (Model
M: standardised coefficient = −1.99, p < .001), as expected, but also a lower sense of school
purpose (Model I: standardised coefficient = −1.86, p < .001) and less school-connectedness
(Model K: standardised coefficient = −1.61, p < .001), which are unexpected results.

Discussion
The majority of the results support the theory that positive teacher-student relationships
are particularly important in classrooms with greater numbers of students with severe
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION 417

Table 2. Relationships*psychosocial difficulties interaction terms as predictors of student outcomes.

Model A Model B Model C Model D Model E Model F
Dependent Variables: Efficacy Purpose Enjoy Learn Connect Anger Academ. Insec.
Interaction Terms
TSR Climate * Ext. PSD 0.598 1.377*** 0.631 0.929** -0.146 -0.0377
(0.460) (0.368) (0.452) (0.285) (0.488) (0.151)
TSR Climate * Int. PSD -0.488 0.0650 -0.0790 0.322+ -0.748** 0.827***
(0.339) (0.216) (0.305) (0.170) (0.271) (0.116)
T Emotional Trust * Ext. 0.0633 0.266 0.0706 0.716** 0.282 0.973***
PSD (0.604) (0.319) (0.450) (0.248) (0.409) (0.169)
T Emotional Trust * Int. -0.725 0.190 0.264 0.136 -1.502** 2.205***
PSD (0.844) (0.435) (0.550) (0.334) (0.567) (0.198)
ST Identification * Ext. -0.679 -1.864*** -0.357 -1.614*** 0.357 -1.986***
PSD (0.672) (0.442) (0.666) (0.368) (0.526) (0.220)
ST Identification * Int. 0.831 0.0887 -0.00188 0.112 1.210+ -3.020***
PSD (1.008) (0.571) (0.840) (0.443) (0.732) (0.236)
Independent Variables
TSR Climate 0.203 0.973*** 0.226 0.683*** -0.0619 0.308***
(0.273) (0.210) (0.301) (0.164) (0.258) (0.0934)
T Emotional Trust 0.00918 0.228 0.174 -0.0879 -0.0715 2.507***
(0.422) (0.258) (0.385) (0.206) (0.309) (0.0956)
TS Identification -0.279 -0.659 -0.319 -0.0845 0.447 -2.949***
(0.718) (0.412) (0.621) (0.320) (0.524) (0.140)
Externalizing PSD -0.247 0.123 -0.748** 0.335+ 0.754** -1.062***
(0.311) (0.230) (0.280) (0.187) (0.276) (0.128)
Internalizing PSD -0.398 -1.258*** -0.488 -1.154*** 0.659* -0.273**
(0.354) (0.274) (0.386) (0.231) (0.336) (0.0930)
Controls
Instructinoal Quality 0.0177 -0.0579 0.282 0.0220 -0.600* -0.351***
(0.276) (0.212) (0.339) (0.167) (0.264) (0.0683)
Average SES -0.218 -0.388* -0.714* 0.539*** -0.216 1.011***
(0.236) (0.189) (0.321) (0.155) (0.198) (0.0788)
Acc. Grade Average 0.388 0.252 0.552* 0.0489 -0.284 -0.240***
(0.277) (0.156) (0.278) (0.127) (0.203) (0.0486)
Constant -0.269 -0.0854 -0.219 -0.0266 0.188 -0.180
(0.157) (0.146) (0.220) (0.128) (0.136) (0.284)
Observations 32 30 30 29 30 28
Adjusted R-squared 0.571
Number of groups - 9 9 9 9 9
Standard errors in parentheses
*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05, + p < 0.1
TSR = teacher-student relationships; T = teacher; TS = teacher-student

psychosocial difficulties, in accordance with the hypothesis. However, several of the

results also challenge the hypothesis, indicating that stronger relationship-building skills
among teachers do not (i.e. linearly) translate into better student outcomes across the
board in classrooms with increasing numbers of students with severe psychosocial
difficulties, but instead can even lead to worse outcomes.
An explanation for this might be that inner conflicts and difficult group dynamics arise
from such constellations (Koch 2014). For example, students with internalising psychosocial
difficulties might respond to positive relationship climates with stronger worries about
their status among peers. As a result, students with severe internalising difficulties might
not be able to participate in positive group dynamics. When they see how well others
come along with each other in a cordial climate, they might wonder why they are unable to
be a part of it and conclude that they themselves are at fault, triggering extremely negative
emotions. This explanation would be in line with a similar phenomenon that has been
revealed in the field of bullying research, the so-called healthy-context paradox (Huitsing et
al. 2018). Students who get bullied in school climates with comparatively little bullying
418 L. DIETRICH ET AL.

report less emotional well-being than students who get bullied in schools with more
overall bullying. This finding has been explained with the idea that students in healthier
school climates are more likely to internalise their bullying experiences, concluding that
there is something fundamentally wrong with them, not their environment.
The finding that the interaction effect between higher emotional trust towards the
teacher and having more students with psychosocial difficulties (internalising and exter-
nalising) in the classroom correlates with more academic-status insecurity might be
explained similarly. Students with severe psychosocial difficulties tend to be particularly
worried about how peers view their close relationships with teachers (Weiner 2007).
Additional research, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, is required
to shed further light on these unexpected findings.
The reason why having more students with externalising psychosocial difficulties in
combination with stronger teacher identification correlates with lower feelings of school
purpose and school-connectedness might be the following: it is possible that these students
do not want to ‘share’, with other needy students, a teacher who has (unconsciously) taken on
a parental role (Hanifin and Appel 2000; Freud 1970). Nonetheless, this is what likely happens
in a classroom with more students with severe psychosocial difficulties. These students might
experience feelings of jealousy and disappointment, and feel neglected when the teacher
they feel so closely connected to dedicates significant amounts of time and energy to other
students. Externalising students might release their resulting inner emotional upheaval and
feelings of frustration as aggressive behaviour (Berkowitz 1989), which leads to worse class-
room climates that reduce all students’ positive feelings about school.
Hence, even teachers with highly advanced relationship-building skills may simply
become overwhelmed in classrooms with too many externalising students because, as
we know from psychoanalytic theory, emotional attention is a limited resource (Bruya and
Tang 2018). This interpretation concurs with the results from a depth-hermeneutic analysis
of teacher interviews, which revealed that highly committed teachers often face particu-
larly severe feelings of helplessness and alienation when trying to reach students with
severe psychosocial difficulties. As one teacher in that study explained: ‘It’s like a wall they
form around themselves, that’s how it feels to me’ (Zimmermann 2016, 160).
Education policy leaders need to take note of this study’s results, which suggest that
emphasising relationship-building skills in teachers’ professional development training
can, overall, improve students’ social, emotional, and academic development. However, it
is important to realise that too many students with psychosocial difficulties in the class-
room might overwhelm even the best teachers. Thus, schools should prevent a concen-
tration of such students in a single classroom. It might be a helpful guidance for education
policy makers to estimate how many externalising students in a classroom are still
manageable for teachers of different skill levels without leading to significant reductions
in students’ social-emotional and academic outcomes.

Limitations
The main limitations of this study are the comparatively small sample size and cross-
sectional nature of the data. As a result, the study does not have sufficient power to reveal
small effects, and causalities of the relationships in the proposed models cannot be verified.
Future research needs to test the proposed models with larger and longitudinal samples.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION 419

Conclusion
This study provides some evidence that strong relationship-building skills are important
for teachers in classrooms with more students with severe psychosocial difficulties, above
and beyond instructional teaching skills. However, some unexpected results indicate that
the relationship is not linear. More quantitative and qualitative research studies are
required.

Note
1. Confer = ‘encourage and value students’ ideas and views’, Captivate = ‘spark and maintain
interest in learning’, Clarify = ‘help students understand content and resolve confusion’,
Consolidate = ‘help students integrate and synthesize key ideas’, Challenge = ‘insist that
students persevere and do their best work’, and Classroom Management = ‘foster orderly,
respectful, and on-task classroom behavior’.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Lars Dietrich http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5469-9801

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