Teaching Quality in Math Class: The Development of a Scale and the Analysis of Its Relationship with Engagement and Achievement

Does motivation lead to academic success, or conversely? Reciprocal relations between autonomous and controlled motivation, and mathematics achievement

BACKGROUND

While it's clear that autonomous motivation significantly boosts academic success, there are conflicting findings regarding the opposite relation. Besides, the reciprocal relations among controlled motivation and achievement present mixed results. Adequately distinguishing between variations among individuals and within individuals results key to acknowledge such relations.

AIM

This longitudinal study examines the reciprocal relations between controlled and autonomous forms of motivation and academic achievement using the RI-CLPM methodology.

SAMPLE

Participants were 1042 high school students (M = 16 years, 52% male adolescents) from 16 different high schools in urban and rural areas.

METHODS

A random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) was tested to estimate whether students' autonomous and controlled motivation predicted achievement and/or vice versa. Independent models were estimated for the two types of motivation.

RESULTS

Overall, the RI-CLPM results indicated a unidirectional relationship between autonomous motivation and achievement. As for controlled motivation, the results of RI-CLPM models showed no reciprocal relationship between this type of motivation and achievement.

CONCLUSIONS

These results underline the importance of taking within- and between-person processes into account when analysing reciprocal relations and provide crucial insights for enhancing student motivation and achievement in diverse educational contexts.

Quality of technology integration matters: Positive associations with students' behavioral engagement and digital competencies for learning

Despite extensive research on technology's potential to enhance teaching, large-scale studies often report mixed or negative impacts of technology use at school on student learning achievements. This ambiguity is often attributed to previous large-scale studies focusing more on the frequency rather than the quality of technology integration in the classroom. To further investigate this issue, our study developed the Technology Integration Quality Scale (TIQS) to measure students' perceptions of technology integration across different dimensions of teaching quality: support for learning, classroom management, individualized teaching, and cognitive activation. Using a sample of 2,281 students from 29 upper secondary schools in Switzerland, we validated the TIQS through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. We also employed cluster-robust structural equation modelling to examine how both the frequency and perceived quality of technology integration predict students' self-assessed digital competencies and behavioral engagement for learning. The results show that quality explains considerably more variance than the frequency of technology integration in promoting both students' behavioral engagement and digital competencies for learning. However, for digital competencies, quantity also explains a substantial amount of variance. By simultaneously considering multiple dimensions of teaching quality, the frequency of technology use and two output variables, this study contributes to the existing research by offering a more nuanced perspective on the impact of technology integration. Furthermore, interaction effects between the independent variables highlight the need to further explore the relationships between different dimensions of teaching quality, which could also contribute to the development of the theory of generic teaching quality.

What makes a student feel vital? Links between teacher-student relatedness and teachers’ engaging messages

Recent studies suggest that teacher messages can affect students’ well-being. Using a multilevel, variable, and person-centred approach, this study aimed to identify profiles of students according to their teachers’ use of engaging messages and analyse the relation among these profiles and teacher-student relatedness and students’ subjective vitality. A total of 1209 students participated in the study. At the student-level, profile analysis indicated the existence of four different profiles: the few messages profile, the autonomous motivational appeals profile, the loss-framed messages profile, and the gain-framed messages profile. At the teacher level, profile analysis indicated the existence of two profiles: the variant and the invariant profiles. Results showed that overall, at both levels of analysis, teachers’ engaging messages related with teacher-student relatedness (either positively or negatively) with clear differences among profiles. Moreover, also at both levels of analysis, teacher-student relatedness related with students’ subjective vitality. Main findings and implications for practice are discussed.

Systematic Literature Review on Self-Assessment Inventory for Quality Teaching among Islamic Education Teachers

The impact of teaching behavior towards teaching quality and self-assessment has become an emerging drift in education, providing an option for teachers’ development. However, studies on teaching behavior and self-assessment are still scarce, despite their importance in improving education. Thus, this review thoroughly identifies the aspects of teaching behavior and teaching quality, as well as the instruments of self-assessment in the teaching profession. Initially, 116 articles published on Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus between 2017 to 2021 were identified, and 10 out of 116 articles were retained for review, based on the exclusion and inclusion criteria. The criteria include the significant findings listed the aspects of teaching behavior and teaching quality. Second, the approaches of self-assessment are emphasized in teaching. Third, the reliability of the instruments used for self-assessment mostly achieved the internal consistency criteria. These three criteria imply the importance of self-assessment for quality teaching and teacher development. In general, this review could help teachers cultivate quality teaching behavior and perform reflective practice for their personal development.

Need-Supportive and Need-Thwarting Teacher Behavior: Their Importance to Boys' and Girls' Academic Engagement and Procrastination Behavior

Motivation plays an important role in students’ school behavior, and research has established that students’ learning environment experiences such as teachers’ behavior toward them contribute to their motivation and behavior at school. Self-determination theory (SDT) offers an interesting frame of reference in the study of the relationship between students’ learning experiences at school and their school behavior. Considering three basic psychological needs (the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness), the SDT points to the importance of nutriments and support in the social environment in order to allow growth in motivation, engagement, and (psychological) well-functioning. In addition, thwarting these needs is supposed to contribute to maladaptive functioning. Teachers can play an important role in the fulfillment of students’ basic psychological needs by delivering support (autonomy support, structure, and involvement); however, controlling instructional behavior, chaos in the classroom, and teacher rejection and neglect are supposed to be a treat to the fulfillment of students’ basic psychological needs. In the current innovative longitudinal study, teachers’ need-supportive behavior as well as teachers’ thwarting of these needs are considered and their relationship with students’ academic engagement (adaptive functioning) and procrastination behavior (maladaptive functioning) is studied. In addition, attention is paid to differential effects of teachers’ behavior with regard to boys and girls. Participants were 566 students belonging to 20 mathematics/English grade 1 secondary education classes in the Netherlands. Multilevel analyses revealed evidence for the importance of both teachers’ need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in relation to students’ academic engagement and procrastination behavior. In addition, the findings revealed that teachers’ need-supportive behavior is more important for students’ academic engagement (adaptive functioning), while teachers’ need-thwarting behavior has larger effects on students’ procrastination behavior (maladaptive functioning). Furthermore, evidence was found that boys often seemed to be more sensitive to their teachers’ behavior than girls. The findings highlight the importance of both teachers’ need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in daily classrooms and contribute to deepen our insight into and understanding of factors leading to adaptive and maladaptive functioning of boys and girls in relation to learning tasks at school.