CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Psychology in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1694074
The Mediating Role of Student-Teacher Relationships, Assertiveness, and Curiosity in Science Achievement
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Pristina"Hasan Pristina", Pristina, Albania
- 2University of Pristina "Hasan Pristina" Faculty of Education, Pristina, Albania
- 3Saint Kliment Ohridski University Bitola, Bitola, North Macedonia
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Teacher–student relationships, assertiveness, and curiosity are socio-emotional constructs that influence science achievement. Assertiveness is associated with self-confidence and clear expression, while curiosity fosters exploration and a desire to learn. Investigating their mediating role is important because they represent modifiable factors that teachers and schools can promote to improve science achievement. This study aims to examine the mediating role of Student-Teacher Relationship, Assertiveness and Curiosity of Science Achievement. The quality of the student-teacher relationship (RELATST) was assessed through students' evaluations of seven statements that measured the perceptions of respect and interest from the teachers. Assertiveness (ASSERAGR) measured students' perceptions through statements indicating self-confidence. The degree of curiosity (CURIOAGR) assessed students' inclination toward curiosity by evaluating their agreements with statements reflecting a desire to learn and understand, based on data from PISA (2022) in the OECD Report (2024). Whereas PVSCI represents the results achieved in science from testing conducted in the same year. The data were analyzed through the following statistical analysis: Confirmatory Factorial Analysis and Second Confirmatory Factorial Analysis, Correlation Analysis and mediation analysis for the studied variables. The findings reveal that the quality of the student-teacher relationship (QST) has a positive and significant relationship to self-confidence and curiosity, having an indirect impact on achievement in science (PVSCI). QST also has a positive and strong impact on assertiveness (β = .176, p < 0.001) and Curiosity (β = .331, p < 0.001), while assertiveness impacts curiosity (β = .239, p < 0.001) which consequently impacts Science Achievement (β = .221, p < 0.001). These results indicate that a good relationship with the teacher fosters the development of the student's assertiveness and curiosity, which contributes to improving science achievement.
Keywords: Assertiveness, curiosity, Mediation analysis, PISA, Science achievement, student-teacher relationship
Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ramadani, Koliqi, Pejchinovska-Stojkovikj and Çibukçiu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Fehmi Ramadani, fehmi.ramadani@uni-pr.edu
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