How and why students make academic progress: Reconceptualizing the student engagement construct to increase its explanatory power

This paper sought to explain how the student engagement construct could be reconceptualized so to increase its capacity to explain course-specific academic progress.To do so, we proposed that agentic engagement should be added as a new engagement component while the status of emotional engagement should be reconsidered. In two longitudinally-designed studies, secondary-grade students self-reported four aspects of their course-specific classroom engagement (behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and agentic) throughout an 18-week semester, and these scores were used to predict their objectively-scored course achievement (Study 1) and end-of-semester gains in perceived academic progress and perceived autonomy-supportive teaching (Study 2). In both studies, multilevel regressions showed that agentic engagement explained independent variance in the outcomes, while emotional engagement (and cognitive engagement) did not. These findings highlight the need to add agentic engagement and to reconceptualize the role of emotional engagement, so the discussion offers a reconceptualized model with greater explanatory power than its 3-component (behavioral, emotional, cognitive) predecessor.     

Teachers' intrinsic vs. extrinsic instructional goals predict their classroom motivating styles

We introduce the concept of teachers' intrinsic vs. extrinsic instructional goals and demonstrate its contribution to teachers' classroom motivating styles using independent samples across four studies. Based on self-determination theory, we hypothesized that the more teachers adopted intrinsic instructional goals the more they would rely on an autonomy-supportive motivating style, and the more they adopted extrinsic instructional goals the more they would rely on a controlling motivating style. Because no measure existed to assess intrinsic vs. extrinsic instructional goals, we created the new 4-scale, 16-item Teacher Goals Questionnaire (TGQ) in Study 1, using a pool of 72 candidate items and data from 212 fulltime K-12 teachers. In Study 2, we demonstrated the TGQ's construct and factorial validity by sampling 149 fulltime K-12 teachers. In Study 3, we tested our hypothesized model by sampling 147 fulltime K-12 teachers who reported their instructional goals on the TGQ and their motivating styles on two separate measures. Structural equation modeling analyses confirmed the hypothesized model. In Study 4, we replicated the findings from Study 3, using a multilevel sample (92 secondary teachers, 2749 students), a longitudinal research design, and student measures of teachers' motivating styles. The discussion focuses on instructional goals as key antecedents of teachers' classroom motivating styles.     

Effects of an autonomy-supportive intervention on tutor behaviors in a higher education context

Empirical evidence has attested to the benefits of autonomy support in a classroom context, in facilitating students' autonomous motivation, well-being, creativity, engagement, and persistence. However, most interventional research aiming to increase teachers' autonomy-supportive behaviors has been conducted in school and college contexts, with few studies aimed at university tutors. The current study implemented a brief theory-driven autonomy-supportive intervention in university seminars and developed an observational checklist instrument to assess behavior change. Tutors who received brief training in autonomy-supportive teaching techniques showed significant increases from baseline in two important autonomy-supportive behaviors in their classes. Potential implications and suggestions for further development of the intervention are discussed.     

Linking teacher self-efficacy and responsibility with teachers’ self-reported and student-reported motivating styles and student engagement

Teachers' motivational beliefs—i.e., teachers' self-efficacy and felt responsibility for educational outcomes—can shape their professional decision-making and approaches to teaching. However, theorized associations with student outcomes remain elusive. In a multi-level analysis with 96 Swiss vocational teachers and their 1300 students, we examined the interrelations between teachers' self-efficacy, responsibility, teacher- and student-reported autonomy-supportive versus psychologically controlling teaching, and student motivation (emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagement). Teachers' motivational beliefs predicted their endorsement of autonomy-supportive teaching, which in turn predicted student-reported autonomy support. Student-reported autonomy support was a powerful predictor of student engagement. Teachers’ motivational beliefs did not predict student-reported instructional practices and engagement directly, and indirect effects via teacher- and student-reported autonomy support were small. Teacher- and student-reported controlling practices were not significantly correlated. The degree of (mis)alignment of teacher- and student-reported instructional practices is a key ingredient in understanding the often missing link between teacher motivation and student outcomes.     

A New Autonomy-Supportive Way of Teaching That Increases Conceptual Learning: Teaching in Students' Preferred Ways

We tested the educational utility of “teaching in students' preferred ways” as a new autonomy-supportive way of teaching to enhance students' autonomy and conceptual learning. A pilot test first differentiated preferred versus nonpreferred ways of teaching. In the main study, a hired teacher who was blind to the purpose of the study taught 63 college-age participants in small groups the same 48-minute lesson in one of these two different ways, and we assessed participants' perceived autonomy support, autonomy-need satisfaction, engagement (self-report and rater scored), and conceptual learning (self-report and rater scored). Multilevel analyses showed that participants randomly assigned to receive a preferred way of teaching perceived the teacher as more autonomy supportive and showed significantly greater autonomy-need satisfaction, engagement, and conceptual learning. Mediation analyses using multilevel modeling for clustered data showed that this way of teaching enhanced conceptual learning because it first increased students' autonomy. We conclude that “teaching in students' preferred ways” represents a way of teaching that increases students' autonomy, engagement, and conceptual learning.     

Stable or situated understandings of adolescent reading engagement across readers and raters

Teachers' skill in inferring students' reading motivation influences their ability to provide responsive literacy instruction. Yet, studies show that convergence between students' and teachers' reports of students' affective experience with reading is moderate to poor. The present study, with a sample of 140 students, and 15 middle school teachers, examined the convergence across different rater reports (teachers, students, and research observers) of reading motivation and behavioral engagement in daily reading activities as well as the factors that explain teachers' perceptions of students' daily behavioral engagement with reading. Results indicate that there was no correlation between teacher or research observer reports with student ratings. However, teachers' perceptions of students' behavioral engagement in reading was explained by stable as well as situated student indicators of reading engagement. Additional measures to help teachers more easily detect shifts in motivation as a function of classroom practices are discussed.     

It's more about a lesson than a domain: Lesson-specific autonomy support,motivation, and engagement in math and a second language

Expanding research on the relative impact of different autonomy-supportive strategies employed by teachers across domains, the present study investigated the variation in 4 lesson-specific autonomy-supportive strategies (providing choices, rationales, accepting frustration, and stimulating interests) and 6 aspects of students' motivation and engagement in 2 domains with a repeated measurement design. For 3 weeks, 202 Dutch students from 8 eighth grade classes and 1 ninth-grade class and 12 teachers completed lesson-specific measures at the end of Math and German lessons. Students' perceptions of teachers' autonomy support and their motivation and engagement varied considerably across lessons within a domain (variance at the within-student level ranged from 19% to 51%). In random intercept-random slope models, we found that all autonomy-supportive strategies showed meaningful associations with aspects of students’ motivation and engagement. We did not find substantial domain-dependency in the associations between autonomy support and the outcomes.     

Emotionally and motivationally supportive classrooms: A state-trait analysis of lesson- and classroom-specific variation in teacher- and student-reported teacher enthusiasm and student engagement

Teacher enthusiasm and student engagement are often interrelated and have important implications for student learning and students' and teachers' well-being. However, results on the lesson-specific variation of teachers' and students' affective-motivational experiences and their interplay are scarce. This study investigated variation in teacher enthusiasm and student engagement, each rated by teachers (n = 70) and students (n = 1537), as indicators of a shared affective-motivational climate in ninth-grade math classrooms across five consecutive lessons. Multitrait-multistate analyses revealed substantial “trait-like” consistency in all four affective-motivational measures. However, there was also a substantial degree of “state-like” lesson-specific variance that was shared across the four measures. This indicates that teachers' and students’ affective-motivational experiences are shaped by situation-specific influences and person-by-context interactions, which are shared between teachers and students. Teacher gender, teaching experience, class-level achievement, and the availability of motivationally supportive instructional interventions failed to explain substantial variance in these associations.     

Why students become more engaged or more disengaged during the semester: A self-determination theory dual-process model

We adopted a dual-process model within a self-determination theory framework to investigate why students sometimes veer toward a longitudinal trajectory of rising classroom engagement during the semester and why they other times tend toward a trajectory of rising disengagement. Measures of perceived autonomy support, perceived teacher control, need satisfaction, need frustration, engagement, and disengagement were collected from 366 (174 females, 192 males) Korean high-school students using a three-wave longitudinal research design. Multi-level structural equation modeling analyses found that perceived autonomy support predicted longitudinal changes need satisfaction which predicted changes in engagement and also that perceived teacher control predicted longitudinal changes need frustration which predicted changes disengagement. Reciprocal effects also emerged in that extent of disengagement predicted both longitudinal increases in students' perceptions of teacher control and decreases in perceptions of teacher autonomy support. We conclude that students tend toward a semester-long trajectory of rising engagement when they perceive their teachers to be autonomy supportive and need satisfying while they tend toward a trajectory of rising disengagement when they perceive their teachers to be controlling and need frustrating.     

Agency as a fourth aspect of students’ engagement during learning activities

While a consensus has emerged to characterize student engagement during learning activities as a three-component construct featuring behavioral, emotional, and cognitive aspects, we propose adding agentic engagement as an important new aspect, which we define as students’ constructive contribution into the flow of the instruction they receive. High school students (237 females, 128 males) from Taiwan completed surveys of their classroom motivation and the four hypothesized aspects of engagement while grades were obtained at the end of the semester. Structural equation modeling analyses showed that agentic engagement was both a distinct and an important construct, one that was associated with students’ constructive motivation, related to each of the other three aspects of engagement, and predicted independent variance in achievement. The discussion highlights the important, though currently neglected, ways that students contribute constructively into the flow of the instruction they receive, as by personalizing it and by enhancing both the lesson and the conditions under which they learn.     

Moving across physical and online spaces: a case study in a blended primary classroom

With the introduction of digital tools and online connectivity in primary schools, the shape of teaching and learning is shifting beyond the physical classroom. Drawing on the architecture of productive learning networks framework, we examine the affordances and limitations of an upper primary learning network and focus on how the digital and physical elements involved in set design shape teachers' pedagogical approaches and students' learning processes. The findings suggest that blended spaces support teachers' distributed orchestration of classroom activities across tools and resources while also leveraging students' engagement in reciprocal teaching and collaborative learning.     

The role of affective teacher-student relationships in adolescents’ school engagement and achievement trajectories

This longitudinal study investigated the role of teacher-student closeness and conflict in adolescents' school engagement trajectories, and how school engagement dimensions predict achievement trajectories. A sample of 5,382 adolescents (M_age.wave1 = 13.06, SD = 0.51; 49.6% boys) were followed from Grade 7 to 9. Yearly measures included student reports on school engagement dimensions, teacher reports on closeness and conflict, and standardized tests for math achievement. Latent growth models revealed that closeness positively and conflict negatively predicted students' school engagement. Furthermore, adolescents' behavioral and emotional engagement, and disaffection in particular, played an important role in predicting achievement within the same schoolyear. Moreover, increases in behavioral disaffection and emotional engagement aligned with reduced and steeper increases in achievement between Grade 7 and 9, respectively. In general, this study underscores the importance of adolescents’ affective teacher-student relationships for their engagement in school, and the role of school engagement in predicting achievement.     

The defining features of teacher talk within autonomy-supportive classroom management

Classroom management practices were studied in middle school classrooms with positive interpersonal classroom climates, high levels of student engagement, and high levels of autonomy support. Students' motivational responses to autonomy-supportive instructional interactions were explored to understand variability within classroom management practices identified and described in this study as providing autonomy support. Our findings suggest proactive classroom management is enacted through instructional interactions wherein teachers scaffold students' autonomous self-regulatory capacities that sustain student engagement in classroom activities by supporting students' strategy use, transferring responsibility to students, encouraging students' to structure physical and social contexts to support learning, and promoting prosocial behavior.     

Engaging in science practices in classrooms predicts increases in undergraduates' STEM motivation,identity, and achievement: A short-term longitudinal study

Our short-term longitudinal study explored undergraduate students' experiences with performing authentic science practices in the classroom in relation to their science achievement and course grades. In addition, classroom experiences (felt recognition as a scientist and perceived classroom climate) and changes over a 10-week academic term in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) identity and motivation were tested as mediators. The sample comprised 1,079 undergraduate students from introductory biology classrooms (65.4% women, 37.6% Asian, 30.2% White, 25.1% Latinx). Using structural equation modeling (SEM), our hypothesized model was confirmed while controlling for class size and GPA. Performing science practices (e.g., hypothesizing or explaining results) positively predicted students' felt recognition as a scientist; and felt recognition positively predicted perceived classroom climate. In turn, felt recognition and classroom climate predicted increases over time in students' STEM motivation (expectancy-value beliefs), STEM identity, and STEM career aspirations. Finally, these factors predicted students' course grade. Both recognition as a scientist and positive classroom climate were more strongly related to outcomes among underrepresented minority (URM) students. Findings have implications for why large-format courses that emphasize opportunities for students to learn science practices are related to positive STEM outcomes, as well as why they may prove especially helpful for URM students. Practical implications include the importance of recognition as a scientist from professors, teaching assistants, and classmates in addition to curriculum that engages students in the authentic practices of science.     

Potential classroom stressors of teachers: An audiovisual and physiological approach

The number of teachers leaving their professions due to high levels of stress is a growing worldwide concern. Previous psychological and physiological research has already identified potential classroom stressors: low student engagement and motivation, negative teacher-student relationships and interactions, as well as teacher-centered activities. The current study extends this research by examining the frequency and intensity of these stressors during actual classroom teaching. The heart rates of 40 teachers were recorded throughout one real-life classroom lesson as a proxy for teacher stress. Heart rate measurements were used to select potentially stressful and non-stressful classroom situations. We transcribed the interactions during these situations and coded the stressors according to the previously mentioned stressor categories. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted to predict teachers' heart rates based on the occurrence of classroom stressors. Students’ low engagement and motivation, as well as teacher-centered activities, significantly predicted an increased heart rate. However, pronounced differences were observed between teachers in what they experienced as stressful. This points to significant individual differences in teacher stress triggers and processes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Prospective teachers’ perceptions of instrumentality,boredom coping strategies,and four aspects of engagement

This study examined the mediating roles of prospective teachers’ boredom coping strategies (i.e. cognitive-approach, behavioral-approach, cognitive-avoidance, and behavioral-avoidance strategies) in the relationships between their perceptions of instrumentality and four aspects of engagement (i.e. agentic engagement, behavioral, engagement, emotional engagement, and cognitive engagement). A total of 521 prospective teachers participated voluntarily in the study. In addition to the latent factor and observed factor correlation analyses, a series of structural equation modeling analyses were conducted in order to examine the mediating roles of boredom coping strategies. The results demonstrated that perceived instrumentality, boredom coping strategies with the exception of cognitive-avoidance orientation, and four aspects of engagement were significantly related to each other. The results also showed that the relationships between perceived instrumentality and agentic engagement, behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and cognitive engagement were slightly, but significantly mediated by cognitive-approach orientation. Implications for teacher education and directions for future studies were also discussed in the present study.     

Autonomy Support as an Interpersonal Motivating Style: Is It Teachable?

Students benefit when teachers support their autonomy. Recognizing this, the present study examined the motivating styles of beginning preservice teachers by asking two questions: (1) Do personality characteristics orient preservice teachers toward either an autonomy-supportive or controlling motivating style? and (2) Is the autonomy-supportive style teachable to preservice teachers? Study 1, which addressed the first question, relied on self-determination theory to identify and confirm causality orientation as one personality characteristic related to motivating style. Study 2, which addressed the second question, randomly assigned preservice teachers to receive training in either autonomy-supportive, controlling, or neutral instructional strategies. Results showed that the autonomy-supportive style was teachable. Autonomy-oriented preservice teachers (as measured by causality orientation) assimilated the information rather easily, while control-oriented preservice teachers accommodated the information only in proportion to the extent that they perceived it to be highly plausible and classroom applicable. The discussion relies on self-determination theory and the conceptual change literature to recommend how teacher certification programs can assist teachers-in-training develop an autonomy-supportive motivating style.     

Stability and Change in Social Goals as Related to Goal Structures and Engagement in School

The current studies explored (a) the extended external validity of social-goal-orientation framework; (b) the mediating role of social goals between classroom goal structures and students' engagement; and (c) whether changes in social goals can be explained by classroom goal structures and engagement. Study 1 was cross-sectional (N = 317), and study 2 included two time points, with a 6-month gap (N = 223), among sixth-grade students. The findings indicated that mastery goal structure was associated with social-development goals and engagement, whereas performance goal structure was associated with demonstration. Cross-lagged analysis revealed that (a) social goals are relatively stable; (b) development goals positively predicted change in emotional engagement, and (3) behavioral engagement positively predicted changes in development goals and negatively predicted changes in demonstration-avoidance goals.     

Determinants of classroom engagement: a prospective test based on self-determination theory

ABSTRACT

This research has a dual purpose: to translate into Spanish and validate a classroom engagement measure and, over a semester, to analyse the effect of students’ perception of autonomy support on the need for autonomy and the effect of autonomy, in turn, on four types of engagement. Data were collected at three time points from 448 undergraduate students via a longitudinal design. The results revealed adequate psychometric properties for the engagement scale, and the hypothesised effects were supported. Autonomy support was a significant predictor of the need for autonomy, which, in turn, predicted changes in four types of classroom engagement. Emotional engagement displayed the strongest relationship with need for autonomy. Moreover, need for autonomy mediated the relationship between perceived autonomy support and each indicator of student engagement. The findings are interpreted as supporting self-determination theory’s motivation mediation model and could be considered in future intervention programmes to improve the teaching–learning process in education.     

The role of family orientation in predicting Korean boys' and girls' achievement motivation to learn mathematics

Informed by achievement goal orientation and self-determination theories, we explored the role of cultural/contextual factors on Korean students' achievement motivation. Specifically, we examined the role of the Korean middle school students' family orientation as a mediator between their perceptions of parent goals or motivating styles and their achievement motivations in learning math, when their perceptions of classroom goal structures were controlled. We also investigated gender differences in the role of the students' family orientation and of their perceptions of their parents and classroom variables in predicting their own achievement motivations. Multi-sample path analyses indicated that both Korean boys' and girls' family orientation mediated between their perceptions of parent variables and their own achievement motivations. Korean students' family orientation predicted mainly controlled forms of motivation and ego-focused goals. In addition, the relationships between students' perceptions of parent variables and their achievement motivations statistically varied across gender.