Revising the Teacher Affiliative Practices Scale (TAP‐S): Development and Validation of General and Specific Student‐Reported Versions in Secondary Education

ABSTRACT

Current measures of teacher−student relationships (TSRs) often emphasize relational constructs (e.g., trust, liking) but overlook specific teacher behaviors that foster these relationships. In particular, there is limited research on how TSRs are built and maintained in secondary education. One notable exception is the newly developed Teacher Affiliative Practices−Student Perspective (TAP‐S), an instrument designed to assess students' perceptions of teachers' everyday relationship‐building and relationship‐maintaining practices in secondary schools. Given the scale's limitations, the purpose of this study was to refine the TAP‐S and further evaluate the psychometric properties of the revised instrument in both its general form (assessing perceptions of teachers in general) and its specific form (assessing perceptions of one particular teacher). A total of 393 secondary school students participated ( M age = 12.71 years, SD = 0.68; 52.7% boys), all from the 7th and 8th grade of secondary education. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) revealed a three‐factor structure for the general scale—sensitive care, disregard, and relational openness—and a two‐factor structure for the specific scale—sensitivity and openness, and disregard. Both scales demonstrated good convergent validity, with factors significantly related to student reports of affiliation and dissatisfaction as measured by well‐validated instruments. The measure further showed strong reliability, criterion and discriminant validity, indicating that students' perceptions of teacher support or disregard are meaningfully associated with their overall school engagement and well‐being. These findings suggest that the revised TAP‐S is a valid tool for assessing teachers' affiliative practices from students' perspectives and show promise for guiding future interventions.