The relations between urban high school science students’ agentic mindset, agentic engagement, and perceived teacher autonomy support and control

Abstract

Students’ agentic engagement and teachers’ autonomy support represent powerful reciprocal factors that can influence academic outcomes. However, little is known about the extent to which students’ agentic mindset reciprocally relates to agentic engagement and teachers’ practice or the parallel role of teacher control, particularly among ethnically diverse urban students. The current investigation examined reciprocal relations between urban U.S. high school science students’ agentic mindset, agentic engagement, and perceived teacher autonomy support and control over time. Cross-lagged structural equation models indicated that agentic mindset, agentic engagement, and perceived teacher practice reciprocally relate. Agentic engagement predicted increases in agentic mindset. Perceived teacher autonomy support predicted increases in agentic mindset and agentic engagement. Agentic mindset predicted decreases in perceived teacher control and vice versa. Moderator analyses suggested that relations varied depending on prior achievement and stereotype vulnerability, but not gender. Specifically, perceived support increased the agentic engagement more for low versus high stereotype vulnerable students. Predicted relations were also stronger and more adaptive for higher achieving compared to lower achieving students, with adaptive relationships from mindset to engagement and from engagement to perceived teacher practice emerging only for high achieving students. Implications for theory, future research, and practice are discussed.