Linking Teacher-Child Relationships and Instructional Quality to Preschoolers’ Math Skills: Insights from South Korea

While teacher-child relationships vary across sociocultural contexts, most research has focused on Western settings. Given Korea’s collectivistic culture and the hierarchical nature of adult-child relationships, this study examined how teacher and child perceptions of their relationships influence children’s math skills mediated by instructional quality. Participants included 283 children and 16 preschool teachers. Findings reveal that child-perceived negativity and conflict were negatively associated with children’s math skills, with concept development mediating these effects. In contrast, teacher-perceived closeness and conflict did not have a direct effect on math skills. These results underscore the critical role of children’s perceptions in math development, particularly in Korean cultural contexts. We discussed nuanced approaches for teachers to respond to children’s perceived conflict in collectivistic and hierarchical cultural contexts, such as Korea.