Abstract
Teachers’ conditional positive and negative regard are widely endorsed teaching practices aimed to enhance students’ involvement and achievement in school. Previous research has mostly tapped the need frustration and harmful psychological well-being implications of these practices. Yet knowledge of their specific effects on school engagement is scant. This study investigated the association between students’ perceptions of homeroom teachers’ conditional positive and negative regard and their behavioral engagement, while considering the levels at which these practices are conceptualized and operate (a teacher characteristic and a student characteristic). Participants were n = 2533 students from 107 classes in the 7th to 10th grades. Multilevel analysis found conditional positive regard was positively associated with school engagement while conditional negative regard was inversely related. These findings were obtained at both the within- and between-class levels. Based on the findings, we argue conditional regard is a double-edged sword. Consistent with previous research, we suggest conditional negative regard has an undermining effect, and we point to conditional positive regard’s potential to enhance engagement. Lastly, we discuss the importance of the level of analysis and the alignment of theory with measurement.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in PsychologyReceived: 24 October 2020 Accepted: 05 July 2021 Published: 28 July 2021Citation: Kanat-Maymon Y, Shoshani A and Roth G (2021) Conditional Regard in the Classroom: A Double-Edged Sword
At the withinclass level, perceived conditional positive regard and perceived conditional negative regard were positively associated with engagement
At the between-class level, perceived conditional positive regard was positively associated with engagement but perceived conditional negative regard was not
Summary
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology. Conditional regard may affect each student differently Based on these considerations, we differentiated between teachers’ positive and negative conditional regard and examined their unique associations with student behavioral engagement at both the individual and class levels. According to SDT, conditional regard is a need-thwarting practice and, as such, is expected to undermine engagement (Garn et al, 2018; Moller et al, 2019) To examine these relations, Assor et al (2004) asked university students to recall maternal and paternal use of conditional regard in the academic domain during adolescence. The study examined two distinct aspects of teaching style, namely conditional negative regard and conditional positive regard, to determine their potential association with and relative contribution to students’ behavioral engagement at the class and student levels. Classes who perceived their teacher as using conditional negative regard (aggregated score) would be inversely linked with class-level behavioral engagement, whereas classes who perceived their teacher as using conditional positive regard would be positively linked with class-level behavioral engagement
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
