This investigation examines teacher—student relationships among African American youth from low-income backgrounds (N = 193). Students and their teachers completed measures of teacher—student relationship quality and measures pertaining to emotional, behavioral, and school-related adjustment. Results indicated that African American youth who fell above the clinical cut point on the externalizing scale of the Child Behavior Checklist (n = 64) reported lower trust in relationships with teachers than did similarly matched students who did not have clinically significant externalizing symptomology. In addition, teachers rated students in the externalizing subgroup as lower in relational closeness and greater in relational conflict. Multiple regression analyses applied to data obtained from the behavioral risk group indicated that both student and teacher perceptions of teacher—student relationship quality were associated with student- and teacher-rated emotional, behavioral, and school-related adjustment. The strength of these associations varied as a function of data source and the specific relationship dimension investigated. Implications for future research and practice efforts aimed at building positive teacher—student relationships are discussed.

This study investigates the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Inventory of Teacher-Student Relationships (IT-SR), a measure that was developed by adapting the widely used Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachments (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) for use in the context of teacher-student relationships. The instrument was field tested with a sample of African American students from low-income backgrounds (N = 171). An exploratory factor analysis was estimated with a randomly selected half of the sample. Three factors pertaining to Communication, Trust, and Alienation in relationships emerged. A confirmatory factor analysis was run on the remainder of the sample. Goodness-of-fit indices indicated that the three factor structure fit the data reasonably well. Scores on each of the three factors correlated with scores on other, existing measures of teacher-student relationship quality as well as with indicators of emotional, behavioral, and school-related adjustment. Implications for research on teacher-student relationships are discussed.

Scores from a revised version of the School Level Environment Questionnaire (SLEQ) were validated using a sample of teachers from a large school district. An exploratory factor analysis was used with a randomly selected half of the sample. Five school environment factors emerged. A confirmatory factor analysis was run with the remaining half of the sample. Goodness-of-fit indices indicated that the factor structure fit the data reasonably well. Further analyses using structural equation modeling techniques revealed that the Revised SLEQ worked equally well for all samples. Invariance testing showed that the fitted model and the estimated parameter values were statistically equivalent across all samples. Internal consistency estimates provided further evidence of the reliability of factor scores. In addition, an analysis of variance indicated that the instrument discriminated climate differences between schools. Results suggest that the Revised SLEQ provides a good tool for studying teachers' perceptions of school climate.

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The purpose of the current study was to develop a multi-indicator construct of economic hardship among adolescents with disabilities ( N = 9,230) participating in the National Longitudinal Transition Study–2, the largest, most comprehensive investigation of adolescents with disabilities ever conducted. Five theoretically relevant indicators (i.e., family income, head-of-household education, head-of-household employment, participation in social programs, and lack of resources) contributed to the formation of an economic hardship latent construct. Scores on this factor were validated through associations with demographic, tangible-resource, school, and family factors. The implications of these findings for continued efforts to understand and respond to economic hardship among adolescents with disabilities are discussed.

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Multilevel modeling techniques facilitated examination of relationships between fidelity indicators and outcomes associated with a summer literacy intervention. Three-level growth models were specified to capture the extent to which students experienced instruction and to demonstrate the ways in which dosage–response relationships manifest in program evaluation contexts. The observation that outcome-related deviations from program protocol occurred both at the provider and at the recipient levels suggests that evaluators will often need to conceptualize, measure, and model “treatment fidelity” as a multilevel, multidimensional construct.

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