Teacher Personality and Student-Teacher Relationship Quality: The Mediating Role of Empathy

Abstract

This study examined the mediating role of teacher empathy in the relationship between teacher personality traits and teacher-student relationship quality among secondary school teachers. A survey method was used to collect data from a sample of 250 secondary school teachers in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, using purposive sampling. Data were collected using structured questionnaires, i.e., the Big Five Inventory (John & Srivastava, 1999), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983), and the Teacher-Student Relationship Inventory (Ang, 2005). Findings revealed that agreeableness, extraversion, and openness were positively associated with both empathy and relationship quality, while neuroticism was negatively associated with both; conscientiousness contributed primarily through a direct pathway independent of empathy. Empathy demonstrated a strong direct effect on relationship quality and partially mediated the effects of personality traits. These findings underscore empathy as a critical psychological mechanism through which teacher personality translates into relational outcomes, with implications for teacher training programs aimed at strengthening empathic capacity to improve student-teacher relationships.