Introduction
Over the past two decades, researchers have diligently sought to identify the crucial factors for ensuring children’s long-term success in school. Among these factors, teacher-child relationship (TCR) stands out as a proximal predictor of early education outcomes, ultimately influencing children’s developmental trajectories (Sankalaite et al., 2021). Gender differences in TCR have also garnered attention within this research landscape (Acar et al., 2022). Notably, girls tend to exhibit more closeness in TCR than boys (Cadima et al., 2019). This heightened closeness TCR, in turn, corresponds to greater self-regulation (SR) and positive social emotions (SE) among girls, while boys are more likely to experience conflict in TCR (Yang et al., 2022), potentially impeding the development of SR and SE. Furthermore, teachers adopt different focuses when interacting with children of varying ages (Koepke & Harkins, 2008). Younger children typically receive more social-emotional support (Horn et al., 2021), whereas teachers’ interactions with older children may center more on academic achievement (Jones & Bouffard, 2012).
SR and SE represent pivotal priorities in preschool due to their profound influence on children’s academic success and social adaptation (Esenturk & Asi, 2022). Girls have demonstrated significant advantages in SR (Reilly et al., 2019) and SE development (Karaca & Bektas, 2022), with these advantages becoming more pronounced as they grow older (Berti & Cigala, 2022).
However, the intricate relationships between TCR and SR and SE, and the associations between SR, SE, and academic achievement have received limited attention across different genders (Cameron et al., 2019) and ages (Lin & Powell, 2023). Questions such as whether TCR consistently predicts SR and SE across ages, whether boys’ SR and SE disadvantages hinder their academic achievement (Arnold et al., 2012), whether SR and SE predict academic achievement consistently in younger versus older children, and whether there exists a universally predictive variable across genders and ages remain largely unexplored (Hong et al., 2009). To address the gaps, the current study explored whether gender and age differences would moderate the relationships between TCR, SE, SR, and academic achievement. By doing so, it seeks to provide implications for targeted interventions for children of different genders and ages, optimizing the beneficial impacts of TCR, SR, and SE on academic achievement.