The Student-Teacher Relationship and Children’s Internalizing Difficulties: Psychometric Properties of the Student-Teacher Relationship Drawings (STRDs) in Italy

The quality of dyadic student-teacher relationships appears crucial for promoting children’s social adjustment and reducing their internalizing difficulties. The current study aims to assess the psychometric properties of the Student-Teacher Relationship Drawings (STRDs) in the Italian educational context and test its concurrent validity by associations with self- and parent-reported internalizing difficulties. Participants were N = 143 children and early adolescents (n = 79 girls), between 8 and 14 years (M = 10.66, SD = 1.65), attending primary and middle schools in Italy. They were invited to draw a picture of themselves and their teacher and completed an online questionnaire assessing internalizing difficulties (i.e. loneliness, social anxiety, and depression). Parents assessed children’s internalizing problems. Overall, findings revealed good psychometric properties of the STRDs, composed of one factor assessing the quality of the student-teacher relationship. Moreover, results from a multivariate regression analysis, controlling for age and sex assigned at birth, suggested that the student-teacher relationship quality was negatively related to children’s loneliness and depression. The study suggests that a positive student-teacher relationship, as assessed by children’s drawings, could be a protective factor for the development of internalizing difficulties in children and early adolescents.