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

Maaike C Engels,Jantine Spilt,Katrijn Denies,Karine Verschueren

doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2021.101485

Abstract

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 (Mage.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.

Highlights

Affective teacher-student relationships have been found to promote students’ engagement and achievement in school (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Hughes, 2011; Roorda, Jak, Zee, Oort, & Koomen, 2017; Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011)
Relatively few empirical studies have examined trajectories of school engagement and achievement, while taking the role of affective teacher-student relationships into ac count (Hughes & Cao, 2018). This study addresses this gap by investi gating (a) the role of teacher-student closeness and conflict as simultaneous precursors of adolescents’ school engagement trajectories, and (b) whether school engagement trajectories predict the develop ment of students’ math achievement
Our results revealed that boys had more positive trajectories in math achievement than girls, prior research found that girls outperform boys in other domains, such as languages (Voyer & Voyer, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

Affective teacher-student relationships have been found to promote students’ engagement and achievement in school (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Hughes, 2011; Roorda, Jak, Zee, Oort, & Koomen, 2017; Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011). Relatively few empirical studies have examined trajectories of school engagement and achievement, while taking the role of affective teacher-student relationships into ac count (Hughes & Cao, 2018) This study addresses this gap by investi gating (a) the role of teacher-student closeness and conflict as simultaneous precursors of adolescents’ school engagement trajectories, and (b) whether school engagement trajectories predict the develop ment of students’ math achievement. Extending prior research by taking a different perspective, we used teacher reports on teacher-student re lationships in secondary education to investigate their relation with student reported engagement and students’ performance on a stan dardized achievement test We examined these longitudinal associations during adolescence, which is an important developmental period char acterized by many contextual changes and is a relatively understudied period in the field of affective teacher-student relationships

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion