Do teachers really know who my friends are? Agreement between adolescents and teachers in perceiving classroom friendships

Teachers shape classroom friendships through everyday instructional decisions, such as grouping strategies and seat arrangement. However, teachers’ perceptions of peer relationships may not align with students’ perceptions, which would hinder the effectiveness of instructional designs. The current study aims to explore the degree of teacher–student agreement in perceiving classroom friendships from the lens of signal detection theory and to explore variations in agreement across individuals and dyads. This study included a total of 5,852 dyads (i.e., student pairs) formed by 155 students in four tenth-grade classrooms. Results showed that the teacher–student agreement was at a mid-low level overall (Jaccard index = .32). Specifically, teachers only recognized 41% of friendships identified by students, although they correctly rejected 96% of non-friend relationships. Differences in agreement could be explained by characteristics of individual students and similarities within dyads regarding gender, unsociability with peers, and relatedness to teachers. Findings of this study provide in-depth understandings of the alignment and discrepancy between students’ and teachers’ perspectives on the classroom ecology, which suggest that researchers should be cautious in informant selection for peer relationship assessment. Educational practitioners should also enhance their awareness and provide individualized support to improve adolescents’ classroom social experiences.