Teacher-student perceptual mismatch in positive co-experiences is associated with adolescent depression, bullying victimization, and suicidality.

BACKGROUND

Positive teacher-student interactions may be associated with adolescent mental health, but teachers and students may not experience the same interactions similarly. Integrating self-determination theory with the Operations Triad Model, we examined whether mismatch in positive teacher-student co-experiences was associated with adolescent mental health and whether mismatch direction mattered.

METHODS

Cross-sectional paired data were analyzed from 1,836 students aged 11-17 years nested within 40 homeroom teachers in Hunan Province, China. Students and teachers completed parallel three-item measures of positive co-experiences. Four profiles were defined using reporter-specific medians: both high, teacher high-student low, both low, and teacher low-student high. Generalized estimating equations accounted for classroom clustering and adjusted for demographic covariates.

RESULTS

Homeroom-teacher ratings showed little convergence with class-mean student ratings (r = -0.186, P = 0.250). Compared with the both-high profile, the teacher high-student low profile showed higher depressive symptoms, bullying severity, odds of any bullying victimization (OR = 1.343, 95% CI 1.129-1.598), and odds of suicidality (OR = 1.729, 95% CI 1.183-2.526). Directional mismatch was especially informative: relative to the teacher low-student high profile, the teacher high-student low profile had higher depressive symptoms (beta = 0.665), higher bullying severity (beta = 0.730), 1.79-fold higher odds of bullying victimization, and 2.04-fold higher odds of suicidality. Extreme-discrepancy sensitivity analyses yielded the same pattern.

CONCLUSION

Teacher-student perceptual mismatch was associated with adolescent mental health in a direction-specific manner. The findings are consistent with the proposition that positive relational experiences may be most protective when teacher-perceived support is also experienced positively by students, and that multi-informant discrepancies can provide useful contextual information for school-based mental health screening, rather than constituting clinical diagnostic measures.