The purpose of this study is: 1) to develop and validate the teacher-trust scale for the secondary school students in Korea; and 2) to construct and analyze the structural equation model on students' teacher-trust and the school effects. To accomplish ...
The purpose of this study is: 1) to develop and validate the teacher-trust scale for the secondary school students in Korea; and 2) to construct and analyze the structural equation model on students' teacher-trust and the school effects. To accomplish this purpose, this study sets up the specific questions as follows:a) To develop and validate the teacher-trust scale; b)To examine the relations between the teacher-trust and the school effects and to construct and analyze the structural equation model on these two variables. In order to examine these questions, this study gathers data in three stages: 1) open-ended questionnaire survey of 140 people(students and adults) for the definition of the concept; 2) structured questionnaire survey of 1,718 students from the secondary schools and the universities for the development and validation of the teacher-trust scale; 3) structured questionnaire survey of 1,134 students from the secondary schools for the investigation of the relations between teacher-trust and school effects. The results of this study appear as follows: a) Teacher trust perceived by students is "an attitude to willingness to construct and keep positive relation without doubt based on the cognitive, affective, and moral characters of the school teachers"; b) As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, teacher-trust scale comes to consist of 6 factors(ability, openness, reliance, intimacy, caring, integrity). Each and every factor includes 5 items and the total is 30 items. The result of concurrent validity test shows that the teacher-trust scale is a valid instrument to predict the personal trust disposition(r= .45**, R2=.23); c) There are positive correlations between the teacher-trust and the school effects(academic achievement=.37**, self-esteem=.28**, learning motivation=.30**, class climate=.54**, p<.01); d) Results of the structural equation model illustrate that teacher-trust indicator has direct and indirect impacts on the school effects(self-esteem=.21, learning motivation=.34, class climate=.52). This study shows that the trust and trust relations between teacher and student are the significant predictor for the cognitive, affective, and environmental aspects of the school effects. Sociocultural contexts of the school, especially teacher-student relationship, have a significant influence upon the cognitive and affective development during the secondary school ages. As a kind of sociocultural capital in school community, trust should be seriously taken into account.