An Integrative View of School Functioning: Transactions BetweenSelf-Regulation, School Engagement, and TeacherChild Relationship Quality

Ximena A. PortillaStanford Graduate School of Education

Parissa J. BallardUniversity of California, San Francisco and

University of California, Berkeley

Nancy E. Adler and W. Thomas BoyceUniversity of California, San Francisco

Jelena ObradovicStanford Graduate School of Education

This study investigates the dynamic interplay between teacherchild relationship quality and childrens behav-iors across kindergarten and rst grade to predict academic competence in rst grade. Using a sample of 338ethnically diverse 5-year-old children, nested path analytic models were conducted to examine bidirectionalpathways between childrens behaviors and teacherchild relationship quality. Low self-regulation in kinder-garten fall, as indexed by inattention and impulsive behaviors, predicted more conict with teachers in kin-dergarten spring and this effect persisted into rst grade. Conict and low self-regulation jointly predicteddecreases in school engagement which in turn predicted rst-grade academic competence. Findings illustratethe importance of considering transactions between self-regulation, teacherchild relationship quality, andschool engagement in predicting academic competence.

The transition into formal schooling entails a periodwhen children shift from predominately interactingwith parents and begin interacting with other chil-dren and teachers. As such, children are exposed tonew inuences and settings that shape later experi-ences, marking this transition a sensitive period forlater school success (Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta,2000). These complex social settings place consider-able demands on young children: Kindergartenersneed to form new relationships, control theirimpulses, focus and pay attention, communicatetheir needs appropriately, and engage with learningmaterial. The dynamic interplay among all thesekey ingredients is critical in determining childrens

school readiness. While many studies have exam-ined relations among some of these elements ofchildrens early schooling to predict future aca-demic achievement, few have investigated thesetogether both concurrently and over time. Thisstudy aims to ll this gap by rigorously investigat-ing the dynamic interplay between teacherchildrelationship quality and childrens behaviors acrossthe kindergarten and rst-grade years to predictacademic competence in rst grade.

TeacherChild Relationships

For many young children, kindergarten presentsa time for developing bonds with other adults.Although teachers may appear to be transient g-ures in childrens lives as they progress from gradeto grade, teachers play an important role in shapingchildrens adjustment to the school context.Teacherchild relationships that exhibit high close-ness are characterized by warmth and respect, withchildren seeing their teachers as a source for secu-rity. Conversely, negative teacherchild relation-ships that are characterized by high conict appearto pose risks to childrens school success (Pianta,

This research was supported by Grant R01 MH62320 from theNational Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Preparation of thismanuscript by Ximena A. Portilla was supported in part by theInstitute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Educa-tion, through Grant R305B090016 to Stanford University and aresearch grant from the Canadian Institute for AdvancedResearch (CIFAR) to Jelena Obradovic. The authors acknowledgethe substantive contributions made by Juliet Stamperdahl andNicole R. Bush in collecting and processing the data. The authorsalso thank the teachers, children, and families who participatedand made this research possible. The ndings, conclusions, andopinions here are those of the authors and do not representviews of the NIMH, IES, the U.S. Department of Education, orCIFAR.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to

Ximena A. Portilla, Stanford Graduate School of Education, 520Galvez Mall, #407, Stanford, CA 94305. Electronic mail may besent to ximena.portilla@stanford.edu.

2014 The AuthorsChild Development 2014 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2014/8505-0014DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12259

Child Development, September/October 2014, Volume 85, Number 5, Pages 19151931

1999). While teacherchild closeness and conict arerelated constructs, they are only moderately corre-lated, assessing unique aspects of relationship qual-ity as opposed to falling along an underlyingcontinuum.

It is increasingly evident that the quality of theteacherchild relationship matters for childrenssocial and academic performance in school. Chil-dren who are able to successfully navigate earlysocial environments in school and form close bondswith teachers can be set on positive developmentaltrajectories. Close teacherchild relationships havebeen positively linked to childrens school engage-ment (Birch & Ladd, 1997), academic performance,and good work habits (Baker, 2006; Birch & Ladd,1997; Graziano, Reavis, Keane, & Calkins, 2007;Hamre & Pianta, 2001), and these associations areshown to persist across the elementary schoolgrades (Baker, 2006). Teachers who exhibit strongemotional support in their classrooms have beenshown to improve childrens reading achievementfrom preschool to fth grade (Pianta, Belsky, Van-dergrift, Houts, & Morrison, 2008) and increasephonological awareness from kindergarten to rstgrade (Curby, Rimm-Kaufman, & Ponitz, 2009). Atschool entry, highly sensitive teachers have beenfound to buffer the effects of a negative family con-text for children who have insecure attachmentswith their mothers by reducing childrens risk foraggressive behavior (Buyse, Verschueren, & Dou-men, 2011). Furthermore, positive interactions withteachers may benet children who exhibit the high-est levels of problematic behaviors at the start ofkindergarten (Silver, Measelle, Armstrong, & Essex,2005). These benets appear to extend to otherdomains of adaptive functioning. When comparinga group of children who displayed high levels ofaggression, those who experienced warm relation-ships with their teachers performed better in read-ing achievement than those who did not (Baker,Grant, & Morlock, 2008).

However, children differ in their ability to con-nect with teachers and capitalize on these experi-ences that promote school success. In particular,conict with teachers may negatively impact chil-drens sense of belonging and perception ofacademic competence, as well as the motivation orengagement necessary to excel in school (Spilt,Hughes, Wu, & Kwok, 2012). In fact, relationshipscharacterized by conict have been associated withgreater school avoidance, lower school engagement,less self-directedness, and less cooperative partici-pation (Birch & Ladd, 1997). Teachers who perceiveyoung children to be aggressive, argumentative, or

clingy are more likely to be referred for special ser-vices or be retained (Pianta, Steinberg, & Rollins,1995); this provides more evidence of the deleteri-ous consequences for children who experienceconictual relationships with their teachers.Furthermore, kindergarten teacherchild relation-ships characterized by relational negativity pre-dicted lower student grades, standardized testscores and work habits through elementary school,and continued to uniquely predict behavioral dif-culty through middle school (Hamre & Pianta,2001). Hamre and Piantas (2001) ndings highlightthe long reach early teacherchild relationshipconict may have on childrens future academicsuccess.

Bidirectional Transactions Between TeacherChildRelationship Quality and Child Functioning

Extending a transactional model of development(Sameroff & MacKenzie, 2003) to a school context,it is theorized that childrens behaviors and theclassroom environment, indexed in this study byrelationship quality with teachers, interact throughbidirectional processes. Over time, the interplaybetween teacherchild relationship quality andchildrens behaviors may form patterns that serveas both inputs and outcomes to childrens develop-ment (Arnold, McWilliams, & Arnold, 1998;Downer, Sabol, & Hamre, 2010). To illustrate,Doumen et al. (2008) found empirical evidence thatchildrens aggressive behavior displayed at kinder-garten onset led to greater teacherchild conict bythe middle of the school year, which in turn led tomore aggressive behavior by those children at theend of the year. Some researchers argue that nega-tive child characteristics largely drive conict withteachers as conict tends to be measured byteachers perceptions of relationship quality and iscomposed of reactive teacher behavior resultingfrom dealing with challenging behavior (Silveret al., 2005).

Children who perceive their teachers to beaccepting and caring are more likely to internalizelearning and prosocial goals valued by their teach-ers (Wentzel, 1999). By displaying expectedbehavior in the classroom, positive interactions withteachers are theorized to further reinforceacceptable behavior. However, empirical evidencesuggests that teacherchild closeness is only moder-ately associated with child characteristics (Jerome,Hamre, & Pianta, 2009). The degree to which chil-dren and teachers can connect may be more indica-tive of a dynamic pattern building on strengths of

1916 Portilla, Ballard, Adler, Boyce, and Obradovic

both teacher and child, rather than a reactive pat-tern to child characteristics as is conceptualized forteacherchild conict (Spilt et al., 2012).

Predictors of TeacherChild Relationship Quality andSchool Readiness

There is general consensus that early experiencesin school are critical for shaping childrens futureacademic careers. Children who achieve academi-cally early on continue to show achievement gains;those who encounter learning problems face contin-uing negative consequences that persist over time(Perry, Donohue, & Weinstein, 2007). To enhancechildrens early school experiences, it is essential tobetter understand competencies that promote learn-ing and positive relationship quality with teachers.In particular, two areas of childrens functioningthat are thought to predict school readiness andacademic achievement are childrens self-regulationskills (Blair & Razza, 2007; Duncan et al., 2007;McClelland et al., 2007) and school engagement(Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Ladd &Dinella, 2009).

Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is a broad, multidimensional con-struct consisting of cognitive and behavioral pro-cesses that allow individuals to maintain optimallevels of emotional, motivational, and cognitivearousal for positive adjustment and adaptation(Blair & Diamond, 2008). Self-regulatory capacitiesare implicated in the ability to control impulses andpay attention, behaviors that are relevant for schoolsuccess. Upon entering kindergarten, children arefaced with a new set of challenges in the classroom:They need to learn how to be independent fromtheir caregivers, navigate social interactions withother children, pay attention for longer periods oftime, and adhere to a classroom routine (Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta, 2000).

Difculties with self-regulation may be most eas-ily observed as impulsive and inattentive behaviorin the classroom setting. Both of these behaviorsmay be seen as markers of low inhibitory control,particularly response inhibition in the context ofimpulsive behaviors and interference suppression inthe context of inattention. Furthermore, Barkley(1997) theorized that inattention and impulsivityemerge when children face challenges with emo-tional self-regulation and working memory. Lowperformance on laboratory tasks measuring self-reg-ulation have been associated with higher incidence

of inattention and impulsivity in young children(Olson, Sameroff, Kerr, Lopez, & Wellman, 2005).Moreover, children who lack the attentional andinhibitory control processes necessary to focus oneducational material tend to exhibit challengeslearning and engaging with classroom activities.These challenges potentially place them at risk forreduced academic achievement as they progressthrough school (Blair, 2002). Such an associationwas evident from six longitudinal studies suggest-ing that childrens attentional skills in kindergarten,such as task persistence, predicted math and read-ing achievement in third grade (Duncan et al.,2007).

However, inattention and impulsive behaviorsdo not only reect low levels of self-regulationskills. These behaviors are multiply determined andcan be socially constructed. Indeed, research showsthat relationship quality is important and childrensability to self-regulate contributes to how they areviewed by others, particularly teachers (Myers &Pianta, 2008). Recent empirical studies provide evi-dence that both parent and teacher survey mea-sures of self-regulation skills predict greaterteacherchild closeness (Liew, Chen, & Hughes,2010; Rudasill & Rimm-Kaufman, 2009; Valiente,Swanson, & Lemery-Chalfant, 2012) and parent-reported self-regulation skills predict less teacherchild conict (Myers & Morris, 2009). Conversely,children who display inattention and impulsivitymay experience difculties engaging in positiverelationships with teachers (Barkley, 1998). Teachersmay view children who lack self-regulatory capaci-ties as intentionally misbehaving, causing teachers toreact in a disciplinary fashion and engage in moreconict with these children. Beyond disciplining,teachers may only engage with these children in aninstructional format, affording fewer opportunitiesfor mutual exchange and positive interaction (Silvaet al., 2011). Furthermore, the presence of challeng-ing behaviors may be more salient and consumingto teachers, disrupting learning opportunities for allchildren within the classroom.

School Engagement

School engagement has often been studied as apossible antecedent of academic achievement. Thisconstruct has been broadly conceptualized in threedomains: behavioral (i.e., participation in extracur-ricular activities), emotional (i.e., positive and nega-tive feelings and reactions toward school, teachers,peers), or cognitive (i.e., willingness to invest inlearning difcult skills and comprehension of

Integrative View of School Functioning 1917

complex ideas; Fredricks et al., 2004). Young chil-drens school engagement may be most manifestedthrough an examination of emotional schoolengagement. A signicant body of evidence sup-ports the idea that emotional school engagement isan important predictor for academic functioning(Ladd, Buhs, & Seid, 2000; Ladd & Dinella, 2009).When children exhibit positive attitudes towardschool, they are more likely to engage in classroomactivities that are designed to promote academicand social competencies (Ladd et al., 2000). Simi-larly, children who demonstrate an orientationtoward learning and respond to classroom chal-lenges in a mastery-oriented fashion tend to displaypatterns of motivation that predict positive schooladjustment (Heyman & Dweck, 1992).

Teachers play a role in enhancing childrensschool enjoyment. Within a context of positiveteacherchild relationships, children likely feel morecondent in their abilities and motivated to partici-pate in classroom activities (Silva et al., 2011). Fur-thermore, school engagement has been seen asmediating the association between teacherchildrelationships and academic success in young chil-dren (Hughes, Luo, Kwok, & Loyd, 2008). Applyinga transactional framework, childrens school engage-ment may also predict subsequent teacherchildrelationship quality. However, in a recent large-scalestudy, school engagement in rst grade was unre-lated to teacherchild relationship quality in fourthgrade (Archambault, Pagani, & Fitzpatrick, 2013).

Childrens school engagement is thought to besupported by self-regulation. Children who are ableto control their emotions and behaviors tend to feelmore comfortable in school (Valiente, Lemery-Chal-fant, & Swanson, 2010). In contrast, children wholack self-regulation may feel socially alienated andwithdraw from classroom participation (Valienteet al., 2012). Thus, children who display better self-regulation skills may elicit more positive interac-tions with teachers, which in turn promote theirenjoyment in school and other learning-relatedactivities, indicating that teacherchild relationshipquality may serve as a mediator in this association(Silva et al., 2011). Examining how teacherchildrelationship quality and childrens self-regulationmay promote school engagement is therefore criticalin understanding possible antecedents to academiccompetence and is a central aim of this study.

Gender Differences

A large body of literature has documented gen-der differences in how teachers perceive relations

with children: Teachers report more closeness withgirls and more conict with boys (Birch & Ladd,1998; Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Boys have also beenfound to be more distractible and active (Mendez,McDermott, & Fantuzzo, 2002; Walker, Berthelsen,& Irving, 2001) and less persistent on tasks thangirls (Walker et al., 2001), indicating that, on aver-age, boys tend to experience more issues with self-regulatory skills. Research has also shown that girlsexhibit more school engagement and boys exhibitmore school avoidance (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, &Oort, 2011; Silva et al., 2011). Taken together, thisevidence suggests the importance of controlling forgender differences at kindergarten entry.

An Integrative View of Childrens School Functioning

While making signicant conceptual and empiri-cal advancements to our understanding of howteacherchild conict and closeness predict chil-drens concurrent and prospective behavioral andacademic functioning, much of the extant literaturehas not examined the unique contribution of con-ict over and above teacherchild closeness (Arnoldet al., 1998; Doumen et al., 2008; Hamre & Pianta,2001) or vice versa (Buyse et al., 2011). Some stud-ies have examined the joint contributions of bothteacherchild closeness and conict by aggregatingboth constructs into one measure of overall relation-ship quality (Baker, 2006; Hughes et al., 2008;OConnor & McCartney, 2007), but this methodol-ogy does not allow for an examination of whetherunderachievement or behavior problems are aresult of conict, deterioration of closeness, or both(Spilt et al., 2012). Notably, Silver et al. (2005)accounted for both when predicting growth inbehavior problems from kindergarten to thirdgrade, but did not control for concurrent relationsbetween child behavior and relationship quality inrst and third grades. This study addressed theselimitations by accounting for bidirectional inu-ences of both conict and closeness on childrensschool adjustment over time.

Given the interplay between teachers and chil-dren during this rich period of development, studiesexamining the effect of teacherchild relationshipquality on childrens functioning must also considerthe individual attributes that a child brings into theschool environment and how these attributes shapetransactions between teacherchild relationshipquality and the child. Recent literature has acknowl-edged this, but the majority of studies have onlyinvestigated childrens externalizing behavior as anoutcome (Leot, van Lier, Verschueren, Onghena, &

1918 Portilla, Ballard, Adler, Boyce, and Obradovic

Colpin, 2011; Stipek & Miles, 2008), whereas othershave only examined transactions within the courseof one school year (Doumen et al., 2008). Buildingon this research, this study examined indices of bothpositive and negative behavior longitudinally,investigating the importance of childrens self-regulation and school engagement in predictingteacherchild relationship quality and later aca-demic competence.

Relevant for this study, Eisenberg, Valiente, andEggum (2010) proposed a conceptual model linkingchildrens self-regulation and academic achieve-ment. They posit that self-regulatory skills predictrelationship quality with others (e.g., teachers,peers) and adjustment (e.g., problem behaviors,social competence). These two pathways are theo-rized to affect childrens school engagement, suchthat issues with relationship quality or maladjust-ment will lead to reduced school engagement. This,in turn, predicts lower academic achievement. Thus,relationship quality, appropriate behavior, andschool engagement are conceptualized as account-ing for indirect pathways between self-regulationand academic functioning. This study provided anopportunity to empirically test these theorized link-ages and to expand beyond this conceptual frame-work by examining relations among self-regulation,teacherchild relationship quality, school engage-ment, and academic competence concurrently andover time to tease apart dynamic processes duringthis sensitive period of development.

The Current Study

Extending prior work investigating transactionalprocesses between children and teacherchild rela-tionship quality (Doumen et al., 2008; Leot et al.,2011; Rudasill & Rimm-Kaufman, 2009), this studyhad three goals: (a) to examine how child genderpredicts initial levels of childrens functioning (asindexed by inattention and impulsive behaviors,school engagement, and teacherchild relationshipquality) at school entry, (b) to investigate whetherchildren and the teacherchild relationship qualityengage in bidirectional transactions across the kinder-garten year to inuence later relationship qualityand childrens functioning, and (c) to explore howkindergarten childrens functioning and relation-ships with their teachers predict later behavior,teacherchild relationship quality, and academiccompetence in rst grade.

Central hypotheses were systematicallyevaluated using a series of nested path analyticmodels and successive nested model comparisons

(see Figure 1). Model 1 depicts a continuity modelthat examines the stability of each construct acrosstime, with gender predicting childrens behaviorand teacherchild relationship quality at kindergar-ten entry. We hypothesized that gender at the startof kindergarten would relate to teacherchild rela-tionship quality and childrens inattention andimpulsive behaviors and school engagement in theclassroom. Specically, it was expected that boysmight experience more conict with teachers,whereas girls might experience more closeness. Wealso hypothesized that girls would be moreengaged in school and that boys would exhibitmore inattention and impulsive behaviors.

Across three time points, each construct wasassessed using the same measures. However, chil-dren were exposed to different teachers in kinder-garten and rst grade. Despite changes ininformants for teacher-reported domains, it wasexpected that signicant longitudinal stabilitywould emerge. Considering recent work by Jeromeet al. (2009), we hypothesized that the stability ofteacherchild conict would be stronger than close-ness. As extant research indicates that childrensinattention and impulsive behaviors, school engage-ment, and teacherchild closeness and conict areall related concurrently, this model also accountedfor withintime-point covariation to detect longitu-dinal spillover effects. Cross-sectional researchreviewed earlier provides robust evidence for sig-nicant within-time covariation among these differ-ent domains of adaptation.

Model 2 examined cross-domain transactionsacross kindergarten to investigate whether there arebidirectional transactions between teacherchildrelationship quality and childrens behaviors. Giventheoretical and empirical evidence suggesting thatteacherchild relationship quality and childrensbehavior inuence each other to predict later childoutcomes, we expected to nd reciprocally inuen-tial relations from teacherchild relationship qualityto childrens functioning and vice versa. In particu-lar, we hypothesized bidirectional transactionsbetween childrens school engagement and teacherchild closeness, and bidirectional transactionsbetween teacherchild conict and childrens inat-tention and impulsive behaviors.

Finally, Model 3 examined cross-domain transac-tions to understand whether kindergarten processesaffected childrens functioning and teacherchildrelationship quality in rst grade. We hypothesizedthat school engagement at the end of kindergartenwould predict academic competence in rst gradegiven the mediating pathways that Eisenberg et al.

Integrative View of School Functioning 1919

(2010) have posited. Also, given the empirical evi-dence linking both teacherchild relationship qual-ity and behavior problems with academicachievement, we expected to nd a relation fromcloseness and conict, as well as inattention andimpulsivity, to academic competence.

This investigation extended the current literatureon school readiness and teacherchild relationshipquality. Importantly, it combined research in theareas of self-regulation, teacherchild interactions,and school engagement, and examined how thesedomains predict child academic competence in anempirically rigorous way. Prior work has examineddifferent elements of this model; this studyincluded variables that were theoretically linked toprovide a more holistic picture of childrens schoolfunctioning at the transition to elementary school.

Nested path analytic comparisons offered the bestavailable method to empirically evaluate whether ornot there were bidirectional transactions of childbehaviors and teacherchild relationship qualityacross the kindergarten year (Model 2) and into rstgrade (Model 3). The rigor of this methodology isdue to the fact that these pathways are examinedafter accounting for longitudinal stability andwithintime-point covariation (Model 1). As such,pathways linking domains across time can be

attributed to longitudinal processes because thecross-sectional cross-domain associations are alreadycontrolled for, allowing us to select a model thatmost parsimoniously t the data. This extends priorresearch that nds a signicant association betweenearlier teacherchild relationship quality and lateracademic achievement, but fails to examine whetherthis association is due to longitudinal processes orthe processes that are happening concurrently at thebeginning or the end of the study period.

Method

Participants

The sample was composed of 338 kindergartenchildren (M age at kindergarten entry = 5.31 years,SD = 0.32, range = 4.756.28 years; 175 males, 163females) who participated in a longitudinal studyexamining child mental and physical health, schoolfunctioning, biological responses to adversity, andsocial dominance. Participants were recruited from29 classrooms in six public schools in the Bay Area,California, and data were collected across threewaves in 2004, 2005, and 2006. The sample of childrenwas highly diverse, with 43% being identied as Cau-casian, 19% as African American, 11% as Asian, 4%

Figure 1. A summary of the freely estimated paths in hierarchically nested path analytic models. Numbers denote time point of datacollection (1 = kindergarten fall, 2 = kindergarten spring, 3 = rst-grade spring). Model 1 represents a baseline comparison model oflongitudinal stability with gender predicting this stability, after accounting for withintime-point, cross-domain covariation. Model 2represents diagonal pathways from T1 to T2. Model 3 adds diagonal pathways from T2 to T3. All models include paths from priormodels in sequence. CLO = closeness; CON = conict; SCE = school engagement; INAT/IMP = inattention/impulsivity; ACC = aca-demic competence; T1 = kindergarten fall; T2 = kindergarten spring; T3 = rst-grade spring.

1920 Portilla, Ballard, Adler, Boyce, and Obradovic

as Latino, 22% as multiethnic, and 2% beingdescribed as other. Ten percent of primary caregiv-ers described themselves as single parents and 28% ofchildren had at least one immigrant parent. Totalannual household income varied greatly, rangingfrom 4% of the sample earning less than $10,000 to0.3% earning more than $400,000 (M = $60,000$79,000, Mdn = $80,000$99,999), which is represen-tative of the population in the Bay Area. Primarycaregivers education level also varied greatly, with8% obtaining a high school degree or less and 45%having earned a graduate or professional degree.

Participating teachers from the 29 classroomswere predominately female (76%) and Caucasian(82%). Teachers identied themselves as 11% Asian,4% African American, and 4% self-described asother. Mean age was 52 years (SD = 10.5) andmost of the teachers were veteran teachers with62% having taught kindergarten for more than3 years. Fifty-ve percent had a bachelors degree,31% had a masters degree, and 14% had someother type of credentialing.

Procedures

Data were collected from participants at threetime points: T1kindergarten fall; T2kindergartenspring; and T3rst-grade spring. Before collectingany data, parents provided informed consent to par-ticipate in the study. Parents were asked to provideinformation concerning their demographics, familyfunctioning, and child functioning through a seriesof questionnaires that were mailed to their home.Compensation consisted of $50 per completed parentsurvey. Teachers were asked to ll out question-naires about each participating childs functioningand were compensated $15 per child for each com-pleted survey. At T1, teachers completed responsesbetween October and December, providing sufcienttime to get to know the children.

Measures

For this study, both parents and teachers reportedon childrens levels of impulsivity and inattention,school engagement, and academic competence tocapture multiple perspectives of childrens behavioracross two different contexts (i.e., home and school;Kraemer et al., 2003) and teachers reported on theteacherchild relationship quality. Table 1 providesdescriptive and reliability statistics for the currentsample (e.g., means, standard deviations, number ofitems, Cronbachs alpha) for all measures by infor-mant and across all time periods.

TeacherChild Relationship Quality

Teacherchild relationship quality was reported atall three time points by teachers using a shortenedversion of the StudentTeacher Relationship Scale(STRS; Pianta, 1996). The 10-item version of the STRSassessed teachers perceptions of the level of close-ness and conict they experienced with individualchildren using a 5-point Likert-style rating scale(1 = denitely does not apply, 5 = denitely applies).The 5-item closeness subscale included items such as,You share an affectionate, warm relationship withthis child and This child openly shares his/her feel-ings and experiences with you. The 5-item Conictsubscale included items such as, You and this childalways seem to be struggling with each other andThis child easily becomes angry with you.

Child Functioning

Childrens functioning was assessed in threedomains: inattention and impulsivity, school engage-ment, and academic competence. Parents and teach-ers reported on these domains using scales from theMacArthur Health and Behavior Questionnaire(HBQ; Armstrong & Goldstein, 2003). The HBQcontains parallel measures to assess children in amulti-informant, multidomain approach. Parent andteacher scores were rescaled and averaged to createcomposites for each domain at each time point tocapture assessments of childrens behaviors both athome and in school and equally weight bothcontexts.

Inattention and impulsive behaviors were reportedat all three time points by parents and teachers viaa composite of the mean of the Inattention andImpulsivity subscales from the HBQ (Armstrong &Goldstein, 2003). Both subscales were rated usingthe following categories (0 = never/not true,1 = sometimes or somewhat true, 2 = often or verytrue). Examples of items for the Inattention subscaleincluded, Distractible, has trouble sticking to oneactivity, Cant concentrate, cant pay attention forlong, and Has difculty following directions orinstructions. The Impulsivity subscale includeditems such as, Cant stay seated when required todo so, Has difculty awaiting turn in games orgroups, and Interrupts, blurts out answers toquestions too soon.

School engagement was reported at all three timepoints by parents and teachers using the SchoolEngagement subscale from the HBQ (Armstrong &Goldstein, 2003), which assessed both intrinsicmotivation and school liking. Parents reported on

Integrative View of School Functioning 1921

Table

1Descriptiv

eStatisticsforPredictorsandOutcomes

Dom

ains/scales

Scale

No.

ofitems

Kindergartenfall

Kindergarten

spring

First-gradespring

MSD

%missing

ar

MSD

%missing

ar

MSD

%missing

ar

Teacherchild

relatio

nshipqu

ality

Closeness

15

54.17

0.85

0.0

0.89

4.28

0.81

3.0

0.91

4.18

0.81

12.4

0.90

Conict

15

51.51

0.84

0.0

0.89

1.59

0.92

3.0

0.91

1.62

0.88

12.7

0.88

Self-regu

latio

n0.39

***

0.49

***

0.37

***

PHBQ

Inattention

02

60.52

0.40

13.3

0.81

0.56

0.41

16.9

0.80

0.54

0.42

35.8

0.82

Impu

lsivity

02

90.58

0.36

13.3

0.79

0.60

0.38

16.9

0.83

0.60

0.38

35.8

0.82

THBQ

Inattention

02

60.32

0.44

0.0

0.88

0.34

0.46

3.0

0.88

0.40

0.53

12.4

0.92

Impu

lsivity

02

90.40

0.47

0.0

0.91

0.45

0.50

3.0

0.91

0.41

0.49

12.4

0.92

Scho

olengagement

0.17

**0.27

***

0.37

***

PHBQ

14

83.73

0.37

13.6

0.83

3.66

0.44

16.9

0.87

3.59

0.48

35.5

0.87

THBQ

02

81.80

0.28

0.0

0.81

1.79

0.30

3.0

0.84

1.75

0.33

12.4

0.86

Academiccompetence

0.66

***

PHBQ

17

85.44

1.07

35.8

0.91

THBQ

15

53.49

0.97

12.7

0.96

Note.a=Cronb

achsalph

a;r=correlationbetw

eenscales

used

tocreate

parent

andteachercompo

site

ratin

gs;P-HBQ

=parent

repo

rton

theMacArthu

rHealth

andBehavior

Questionn

aire;T

-HBQ

=teacherrepo

rton

theMacArthu

rHealth

andBehaviorQuestionn

aire.

**p