Open Access

ARTICLE

Teacher-student relationship quality effects on school students’ bullying victimization: A serial mediation model by student-student relationship and student engagement

Yuan Yuan¹, Yanfei Yang^2,*

1 School of Teacher Education, Heze University, Heze, 274015, China
2 School of Educational Science, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, 464000, China

* Corresponding Author: Yanfei Yang. Email:

Journal of Psychology in Africa 2025, 35(4), 541-548. https://doi.org/10.32604/jpa.2025.069551

Received 20 December 2024; Accepted 26 June 2025; Issue published 17 August 2025

Abstract

This study examined the impact of teacher-student relationship quality on students’ risk of bullying victimization and the mediating roles of student-student relationships and student engagement in this relationship. A total of 656 Chinese junior high school students (females = 361, mean age = 13.75, SD = 0.98) completed validated measures of teacher-student relationship quality, student-student relationship quality, student engagement, and bullying victimization. Regression analysis results indicated that higher teacher-student relationship quality predicted a lower risk of student bullying victimization. Serial mediating effect testing of the student-student relationship quality and student engagement revealed that these factors fully mediated the relationship between teacher-student relationship quality and bullying victimization, resulting in a lower risk of bullying victimization. The results showed that student-student relationship quality had a more substantial mediating effect than student engagement. The findings support the Socio-Ecological Framework, suggesting that within the Microsystem, interactions between individuals and their immediate environments significantly impact their behavior. Specifically, these findings suggest that good teacher-student relationships can enhance the quality of student-student relationships and student engagement, thereby preventing and reducing the occurrence of bullying victimization.

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Keywords

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