Some students experiencing lack of some important factors such as a strong family structure, school allocations, high socio-economic status, safe living conditions, improved health conditions etc. are called disadvantaged. One of the most influential factors of being disadvantaged is socio-economic status, which is one of the strongest factors explaining change in student achievement (Guzel & Berberoglu, 2005; Kalender & Berberoglu, 2009),

Several mechanisms are built up by disadvantaged students that help them be able to handle the factors mentioned above. Students use some individual factors such as intelligence, temperament, internal locus of control, or autonomy to protect themselves and again to be able to put up with the problems they face (Beauvais & Oetting, 1999; Greene & Conrad, 2001). Although these mechanisms are (the) well-documented in the literature; most of them are hardly possible to be altered by external intervention. On the other hand, it is performable for a student to learn how to manage with the negative factors with the help of a teacher. It is of vital importance that disadvantaged students cope with such negative factors because doing so provide them with a good learning opportunity (Borman & Rachuba, 2001). Academic resilience is not only about the improvement of students’ achievement at school, but also about obtaining various positive outcomes in their lives such as stronger social relations, less emotional and behavioural problems, etc. Hanson and Austin (2003) reported that existing students who had a higher resiliency had higher achievement levels in schools.

Concerning with resilient students, student-teacher relations have a significant role in the way teachers treat that may have a positive impact on disadvantaged students and may increase student achievement. A report on PISA 2009 (OECD, 2009) stated that, although disadvantaged students need better access to teachers, they do not have to be best teachers. Instead, teachers’ practices in class can boot student learning and engagement (OECD, 2010).

Although today’s curriculum development philosophies put student on focus, the teacher seems to be the strongest predictor of student achievement in many countries including Turkey. Several researchers (Ceylan & Berberoglu, 2007; Yayan & Berberoglu, 2004) found that there was a significant correlation between teacher-related factors (attitude towards teacher, in-class practices by students, etc.) and student achievement. They also stated that student-centred approaches in class had negatively associated with achievement.

Mean rate of resilient students given by OECD is approximately 6% with a maximum of 13% for some countries such as Korea, Hong Kong-China (OECD, 2013). PISA 2012 results show that in addition to receiving lower scores in mathematics, disadvantaged students in terms of  socio-economic status also received low scores from several dimensions such as engagement, drive, motivation and self-confidence.

As being among the first eight countries that had the highest ratios of resilient students among disadvantaged students Turkey as a developing country sets a good example to study resilient students, although Turkish students showed low performance on PISA from 2003 to 2012. In Turkey, Yilmaz and Findik (2012) showed that most of the disadvantaged students reached to 2^nd level, while resilient students generally went up to 3^rd level.

The significance of teacher-student relationships on differentiation on resilient and low-achieving students’ performance directed the researchers to investigate the importance levels of the factors mentioned above. Equivalency of factor loadings among groups may provide information related to attributions of groups to the latent variables. In other words, importance levels given for traits given by different groups can be defined (Lubke, Dolan, Kelderman & Mellenbergh, 2003). Significant differences between factor loadings across groups indicate that groups have different interpretations of traits. In this case, comparison of relationships among groups may not be possible. 

Beauvais, F., & Qetting, E. R. (1999). Drug use, resilience, and the myth of the golden child. In Glantz, M. D. & Johnson, J. L. (Eds), Resilience and development: Positive life adaptations (pp. 01-107). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Borman, G. D., & Rachuba, L. T. (2001) Academic success among poor and minority students: an analysis of competing models of school effects. Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk, Baltimore. Ceylan, E., & Berberoglu, E. (2007). Factors Related With Students’ Science Achievement: A Modeling Study. Education and Science, 32(144), 36-48. Fındık, L. Y., & Kavak, Y. (2013). Assessing the PISA 2009 Achievement of Disadvantaged Students in Turkey. Kuram ve Uygulamada Eğitim Yönetimi. Educational Administration: Theory and Practice, 19(2), 249-273. Greene, R., & Conrad, A. P. (2001). Basic assumptions and terms. In R. Greene (Ed.), Resiliency: An integrated approach to practice, policy, and research. s(pp.29-62). Washington, DC: NASW Press. Hanson, T. L., & Austin, G. (2003). Student health risks, resilience, and academic performance in California: Year 2 Report, Longitudinal Analyses. Los Alamitos, CA: WestEd. Is Guzel, C., & Berberoğlu, G. (2005). An analysis of the Programme for International Student Assessment 2000 (PISA 2000) mathematical literacy data for Brazilian, Japanese and Norwegian students. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 31, 283–314. Joreskog, K. G., & Sorbom, D. (1996). LISREL 8: user’s reference guide. Chicago, IL: Scientific Software International. Kalender, I., & Berberoglu, G. (2009). An assessment of factors related to science achievement of turkish students. International Journal of Science Education, 31(10), 1379-1394. Lubke, G. H., Dolan, C. V., Kelderman, H., & Mellerbergh, G. J. (2003). On the relationship between sources of within- and between-group differences and measurement invariance in the common factor model. Intelligence, 31, 543-566. OECD (2010), PISA 2009 Results: Overcoming Social Background: Equity in Learning Opportunities and Outcomes (Volume II), OECD Publishing. OECD (2013), PISA 2012 Results: Excellence Through Equity: Giving Every Student the Chance to Succeed (Volume II), PISA, OECD Publishing. Yayan, B., & Berberoglu, G. (2004). A Re-Analysis of the TIMSS 1999 Mathematics Assessment Data of the Turkish Students. Studies in Educational Evaluation. 30, 87-104.