Long Shadows of Remembered Teacher-Student Relationships: Between- and Within-Person Associations With Motivation and Competence

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Abstract
Although teacher-student relationships (TSRs) are well-established predictors of students' academic development, little is known about whether adolescents' retrospectively remembered teacher-student relationships from primary school are associated with later relational, motivational, and achievement-related outcomes in secondary school. In addition, most longitudinal studies rely on single-informant data and do not distinguish stable between-person differences from within-person developmental processes. Using four measurement occasions across Grades 8-9 and 9-10 and applying Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models (RI-CLPM), this study examined whether students' retrospectively reported primary-school TSR and contemporaneous teacher-rated teacher–class relationships (TCR) were associated with secondary-school students' perceived TSR, learning goal orientation, and competence in mathematics and German literacy while disentangling stable between-person differences from within-person dynamics. The sample comprised 935 students in mathematics classes (MageT1 = 13.9 years, 52.5% female) and 755 students in German classes (MageT1 = 13.9 years, 52.7% female), along with 60 mathematics and 53 German teachers. RI-CLPM results revealed selective long-shadow associations of retrospectively remembered primary-school TSR, which were primarily related to later academic competence rather than subsequent relationship perceptions. In contrast, teacher-rated TCR in Grade 8/9 showed consistent longitudinal associations with students' relational and motivational functioning and, in mathematics, also with academic competence. Most longitudinal associations reflected stable between-person differences, whereas within-person dynamics were comparatively limited and domain-specific.

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