Past research of teacher-student interaction has suggested that the quality of interaction influences motivational, cognitive and affective aspects of learning, but those investigations were mostly focused on individual aspects of teacher-student interaction. This research was conducted with the purpose of encompassing several different components of teacher-student interaction, establishing their mutual relations and validating how the components of established interactions are related to different components of self-regulated learning, the sense of anxiety in students and their school achievements. During the first part of the investigation, the authors used the Teacher-Student Interaction Scale (Šimić Šašić, 2008) and Support vs. Challenge in Classroom Interaction Questionnaire (Mariani, 1997) on a sample of high-school teachers (N = 123). By using cluster analysis, the authors selected three teachers who provided their students with high support and high challenge in classroom interaction and three teachers who provided little support and little challenge in classroom interaction. In the second part of the research, subscales of the Components of Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire (Niemvirta, 1998), Self-Efficacy for Learning and Performance Scale (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia and McKeachie, 1991), Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Children (Muris, 2001), Foreign Language Learning Strategies Questionnaire (Oxford, 1990), and Test Anxiety Scale (Vulić-Prtorić, 2004) were applied on a sample of students (N = 201) whom the selected teacher taught a foreign language (English or Italian). The results showed interesting interactions of variables related to students’ gender and type of teacher-student interaction. Positive type of interaction was more useful for boys, who needed more help from the teachers. The girls’ learning was more self-regulated, so they were better in the context of negative interaction with teachers, but on the other hand, test anxiety was more pronounced in girls. The results of our research suggest that the behavior of students in the classroom (selection of learning strategies) is associated with different individual characteristics of students (gender, control belief, motivation orientation, self-efficacy) depending on the quality of teacher-student interaction. Therefore, we can conclude that the quality of teacher-student interaction has indirect influence (through the individual features of students) on students’ behavior, which ultimately affects the outcome of foreign language learning as the output variable in the teaching-learning process.

teacher-student interaction, test anxiety, support and challenge in classroom interaction, self-regulated learning, academic achievement