Are student engagement and disaffection important for teacher well-being? A longitudinal examination of between- and within-person effects

Although a lot is known about how teachers influence student motivation, evidence on the importance of student engagement for teacher well-being is lacking. In addition, studies investigating the effects of student behavior on teachers have mostly focused on the between-person perspective while neglecting the within-person processes. Thus, in the present study, we examined longitudinal associations between perceived student behavioral and emotional engagement and disaffection and teacher well-being (i.e., job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion) by acknowledging their fluctuating nature and investigating the associations at both the between- and within-person levels. Specifically, we conducted a full-panel four-wave longitudinal study involving 1141 secondary school teachers and employed a random-intercept cross lagged panel modeling approach to analyze the data. At the between-person level, teachers who perceived their students as being more emotionally and behaviorally engaged, but less emotionally and behaviorally disaffected, tended to have higher levels of job satisfaction and lower levels of emotional exhaustion. At the within-person level, higher than usual levels of student emotional engagement were concurrently associated with higher than usual levels of job satisfaction and lower than usual levels of emotional exhaustion, whereas the associations concerning disaffection showed the opposite pattern. Regarding the longitudinal spill-over effects at the within-person level, behavioral and emotional engagement positively predicted job satisfaction whereas behavioral disaffection negatively predicted job satisfaction and positively predicted emotional exhaustion. Our results highlight the importance of student motivation for shaping teacher occupational well-being and indicate that efforts aimed at increasing student motivation could also be beneficial to teachers.

Teachers' Emotions and Self-Efficacy: A Test of Reciprocal Relations

Previous research has suggested that higher levels of teachers’ self-efficacy (TSE) tend to be positively related to positive teachers’ emotions (e.g., joy, pride) and negatively to negative teachers” emotions (e.g., anger, anxiety). However, these studies predominately relied on cross-sectional design and therefore were unable to test the reciprocal relations between the two constructs. Based on the propositions of social-cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997), TSE may be viewed as an antecedent or as a consequence of emotions. More specifically, TSE may shape emotions since it directs teachers’ attentional, appraisal, and regulatory processes, while emotions may shape TSE since they act as a source of information about teachers’ performance in a given task (i.e., emotions can serve as a filter that determines which efficacy information is seen as salient and how it is interpreted). To test these assumptions, an initial sample of 3010 Croatian teachers (82% female) participated in a longitudinal study based on a full panel design with three measurement points and time lags of approximately 6 months. Teachers taught at different educational levels (i.e., elementary, middle, and secondary schools) and had on average 15.30 years (SD = 10.50) of teaching experience. They completed self-report measures that assessed their self-efficacy beliefs and six discrete emotions experienced in relation to teaching and students – joy, pride, love, anger, hopelessness, and exhaustion. An autoregressive cross-lagged analysis showed that teachers’ emotions and TSE are indeed related to each other. However, the direction of this association is not bidirectional as was suggested by theoretical assumptions; instead, it is asymmetrical – higher levels of TSE beliefs predicted higher levels of positive emotions of joy and pride, while higher levels of teachers’ negative emotions of anger, exhaustion, and hopelessness predicted lower levels of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs.

The relations between Principal support and work engagement and burnout: Testing the role of teachers' emotions and educational level

BACKGROUND

One of the resources that may prevent burnout and foster the work engagement of teachers is Principal support. In this study we aimed to further explore the links between Principal support and work engagement and burnout, by testing the role of the teachers' emotions and the educational levels of primary schools.

OBJECTIVES

Testing 1) the mediating role of teachers' emotions in explaining the relationship between perceived Principal support and work engagement and burnout, 2) differences in tested constructs, and the structural equivalence of the proposed relationship among constructs, between teachers from two educational levels of primary schools.

METHODS

The study included subsamples of 868 class teachers (lower grades) and 1057 subject teachers (upper grades) employed at 104 primary schools in Croatia. Teachers filled out self-report scales measuring burnout, work engagement, perceived Principal support and the positive and negative emotions experienced in relation to students.

RESULTS

Emotions partially mediate the relationship between perceived Principal support and work engagement and burnout among teachers. Although class teachers experience higher levels of positive emotions and work engagement compared to subject teachers, the results confirmed the structural equivalence of the hypothesized model across two education levels of primary school.

CONSLUSION

The Principal support predicts work engagement and burnout in teachers both directly and indirectly via emotions.

Regulatory Styles, Causal Attributions and Academic Achievement

In the past few decades a growing research interest in internal and external factors that contribute to a student’s motivation to learn has yielded numerous models and theories. Despite their similarities, these theories have tended to be developed and tested independently of each other, although some connections have been made between them. The aim of this study is to investigate connections between key aspects of two theoretical approaches: the attributional theory (Weiner, 1985, 1992) and self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 2000). Specifically, this study investigates the relationship between four types of regulatory styles of learning and students’ causal attributions of their attained academic achievement. The participants were 127 elementary school students (Mage= 13.71) in Croatia. First, students assessed their final mid-term grades either as success or failure (subjective appraisal of successfulness), after which the Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire of Ryan and Connell (1989) and the Causal Attribution Scale of Sorić (1998) were applied. The results showed that intrinsically motivated successful students, who feel autonomous and self-determined rather than controlled by others, attributed their success to more internal and controllable causes. But associations between other regulatory styles and causal dimensions still remain unclear, especially in the case of failure situations.

ANXIETY AND COPING IN THE CONTEXT OF A SCHOOL EXAMINATION

Cognitive appraisal and state anxiety of 137 high school students were examined immediately before school examination, immediately after the examination and immediately after the announcement of grades (one week later). Situational coping responses were assessed immediately after the examination. Social evaluation trait anxiety was measured two weeks before the examination in an unstressful (neutral) situation. The results show that the social evaluation trait anxiety predicts state anxiety both before and after the school examination and, in addition to this, an important role is played by the perception of threat and uncontrollability in this situation. The use of specific strategies of coping was also determined by both the personality and the perception of the examination situation, wherein the different strategies were determined by different sets of variables. Success in the examination was best predicted by the social evaluation trait anxiety, by problem focused coping and by coping through imagination-rumination (negative relation). In general, the results of the present study provide additional support for the interactional model of stress and anxiety.