Teachers' Self-Efficacy and Perceptions of School Climate are Uniquely Associated with Students' Externalizing and Internalizing Behavior Problems.

ABSTRACT: Early externalizing and internalizing problems undermine children's school success and long-term well-being. Leveraging a large, U.S.-representative dataset (N ≈ 14,810), we examined how kindergarten teachers' self-efficacy and school climate perceptions were linked to students' behavior problems in kindergarten and first grade. Teachers' self-efficacy and school climate perceptions were uniquely linked to kindergarteners' externalizing and internalizing behaviors, after controlling for demographic covariates and children's executive functions. Kindergarten teachers' higher self-efficacy predicted lower levels of children's externalizing problems in first grade, while teachers' positive school climate perceptions predicted children's lower internalizing problems in first grade. Long

SUBMITTER: Finch JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9937514 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature