Teacher Support and Students' Achievement in Mathematics—Discovery and Enlightenment Based on PISA 2022 East Asian Cultural Circle Data

To elucidate the mechanism through which teacher support influences students' academic achievement in mathematics, this study constructs a moderated mediation model. It focuses on the mediating role of the teacher-student relationship quality in this connection, as well as the moderating effect of math anxiety. Using the PISA 2022 data report officially released by the OECD, this study analyzes responses from 23,082 junior high school students across South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong (China), and Chinese Taipei within the East Asian Cultural Circle. The investigation examines teacher support, teacher-student relationship quality, and math anxiety, employing the within-structure matrix sampling method. The results reveal that: (1) Teacher support significantly positively predicts students' academic achievement in mathematics, even after controlling for economic, social, and cultural factors; (2) The quality of the teacher-student relationship mediates the relationship between teacher support and students' academic achievement in mathematics; (3) The direct predictive effect of teacher support on the quality of the teacher-student relationship is moderated by math anxiety. These findings not only enhance our understanding of the relationship between teacher support and mathematical academic achievement from the perspectives of attachment theory and control-value theory, but also offer practical insights for guiding junior high school students in managing their math anxiety, reinforcing the positive impact of teacher support, and improving the quality of teacher-student relationships.