Changes in Teachers’ Involvement Versus Rejection and Links with Academic Motivation During the First Year of Secondary Education: A Multilevel Growth Curve Analysis

Abstract

Research consistently shows that the learning environment plays an important role for early adolescents' learning and outcomes and suggests that good teacher-student relationships can serve as a protective factor for maintaining young adolescents' interest and active engagement in learning. However, less is known about the dynamic nature of teacher-student relationships and how they link with academic motivation development. Furthermore, little is known about the nature and the effects of teacher-student relationships in a cross-national context. The present study investigated changes in two components of teacher-student relationships (teachers' involvement vs. rejection) and examined links with students' academic motivation during the first grade of secondary school. Ten Dutch and ten Indonesian teachers (65 % female) from 24 classes were videoed 12 times across the school year, and four videos for each class were selected randomly and coded on teachers' involvement versus rejection. A total of 713 students (52 % girls) completed four-wave measures of their academic motivation after each video observation. Multilevel growth curve modeling revealed that the teacher's involvement changed in a curvilinear way and decreased across the first year of secondary education, while changes in the teacher's rejection did not follow a linear time function. Academic motivation changed in an undesirable way: controlled motivation increased, while autonomous motivation decreased over time. Teachers' involvement had a unique contribution in preventing high levels of controlled motivation in both countries. Findings suggest that teacher-student relationships (teachers' involvement) play an essential role in early adolescents' motivation regardless of the nations and should be a priority for schools.

Autonomous Motivation in the Indonesian Classroom: Relationship with Teacher Support Through the Lens of Self-Determination Theory

“…These findings are consistent with past research regarding the importance of (teacher) competence and relatedness support in the Asian context (Maulana and Opdenakker 2014;Maulana et al 2013, Mesurado et al 2015. Feeling connected to teachers and feeling academically competent appear to be important for students to experience the joy of learning-that is, to experience the intrinsic interest in learning.…”

“…Based on previous research in Asian contexts (e.g. Caleon et al 2016;Hui et al 2011;Maulana et al 2013Maulana et al , 2014Mesurado et al 2015), we expect that (2) teacher competence and relatedness support will explain a substantial amount of variance in students' identified and intrinsic motivation. Following cultural determinists claiming that autonomy support will be less appreciated in non-Western compared to Western contexts (Chirkov 2011), together with some evidence from past Asian-based studies (Hui et al 2011;Mesurado et al 2015) and specific Indonesian cultural factors mentioned earlier, we hypothesize that the relationship between teacher autonomy support and students' autonomous motivation in the Indonesian context will be less salient compared to competence and relatedness support.…”

“…This was done separately for each of the three dimensions of teacher support (relatedness model, competence model, autonomy support model). Based on previous research, personal and contextual variables such as subject teaching, student and teacher gender, grade level, and school type can affect teachers' behaviour and students' motivation (Maulana et al 2013(Maulana et al , 2014a. Hence, those variables were entered as control variables.…”

Dynamic Interactions Between Teacher Involvement And Satisfaction Of Students’ Basic Psychological Needs

“…The effects of teacher involvement were studied cross-sectionally (e.g. Zhang, Solmon, & Gu, 2012) as well as longitudinally (e.g., Koka, 2013, Maulana et al, 2013. It is worth noting that only the latter studies allow to explore the dynamic nature of how teacher involvement shapes students' outcomes.…”

“…It is worth noting that only the latter studies allow to explore the dynamic nature of how teacher involvement shapes students' outcomes. Maulana et al (2013) established that teacher involvement played an important role in prevention of higher levels of controlled motivation. However, the person-oriented methodological approach they used did not allow to determine the direction of these effects.…”