The Combined Effects of Parent and Teacher Involvement on the Development of Adolescents\u27 Academic Engagement

The current dissertation includes two related studies designed to examine the combined effects of parent and teacher involvement on the development of adolescents\u27 academic engagement as they transition to middle school. Previous studies have demonstrated the positive, individual effects of parent and teacher warm involvement on adolescents\u27 engagement in school. However, this research is limited in its focus on only one social partner. Adolescent development is embedded within multiple, dynamic systems, necessitating the examination of both parent and teacher influences. The few studies that have examined parents and teachers together suggest that their combined effects are both cumulative (additive) and mediated (one partner exerts its effects via the other partner). However, these studies have largely been cross-sectional in nature, posing limitations with regard to understanding changes in the effects of adult supports and feedback effects of adolescents on their parents and teachers. To address these limitations and contribute to further research on the combined effects of parent and teacher warm involvement, two longitudinal studies were conducted. Study 1 used dynamic path analyses to frame an examination of the combined influence of parent and teacher warm involvement on the development of adolescents\u27 academic engagement and the reciprocal effects of adolescent engagement on adults\u27 continued involvement across a single school year for 5th, 6th, and 7th grade students. Study 2 utilized mediation path analyses to determine if the combined effects of parent and teacher warm involvement on adolescents\u27 engagement were similarly or differentially explained by an engendered sense of relatedness to others across a single school year for 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. In both studies, evidence was found for the cumulative effects of both parents and teachers on students\u27 academic engagement, along with the reciprocal effects of adolescents on their parents and teachers (Study 1), and the importance of a sense of relatedness as a mediator between warn involvement and engagement (Study 2)

Development of a Multidimensional, Multi-Informent Measure of Teacher Mindfulness as Experienced and Expressed in the Middle School Classroom

In response to growing interest in mindfulness as a support for educators, the current study sought to create and test a new multidimensional and multi-informant measure of teacher mindfulness in the classroom. To counter some of the limitations of context-general self-reports, we designed two theoretically based classroom-specific measures that capture the experience and expression of mindful teacher behavior from the perspective of teachers and students. Drawing on emerging consensus from experts on mindfulness in education, the measures incorporated three dimensions of mindfulness, namely, Calm, Clear, and Kind teacher behavior in the classroom, as well as their antitheses, namely, Reactive, Distracted, and Critical teacher behavior. Utilizing data from 78 sixth- to eighth-grade teachers and 550 of their students, teacher- and student-report item sets tapping these dimensions were tested for reliability and validity across three time points. Based on confirmatory factor, reliability, structural invariance, and correlational analyses, subscales generally demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties, cross-year stabilities, convergent and criterion validity with multiple established measures, and some overlap across reporters. In terms of connections to observer ratings from the CLASS-S, teacher subscales showed consistent but modest connections, whereas student subscales showed higher correlations (especially at time 2), suggesting that students and observers converged in their perceptions of teachers’ expressions of mindfulness. Possible improvements to both measures as well as implications for future research on teacher mindfulness are discussed

Teacher Mindfulness in the Middle School Classroom: Reliability and Validity of a New Scale

Despite significant growth in research examining the effects of mindfulness interventions on teachers (Roeser, 2014), studies have mainly relied on self-reports of teacher mindfulness and have not examined observable behavioral manifestations of teacher mindfulness in the classroom. Due to possible biases in self-report measures (Dotterer & Lowe, 2011), as well as the need for a greater range of assessments of the effects of mindfulness trainings on teachers, the current study sought to create a new measure of teacher mindfulness in the classroom from three sources of information: teacher self-reports of their own behavior in the classroom, student perceptions of their teachers\u27 behavior, and third-person observations of teacher behavior in the classroom. Another aim of this study was to demonstrate the concurrent validity of these new measures with teacher dispositional mindfulness and job stress. It was hypothesized that the newly created measures of teacher mindfulness in the classroom would be internally reliable, share modest inter-correlations across data sources, and would significantly correlate with hypothesized antecedents such as teachers\u27 dispositional mindfulness and ratings of job stress. CFA, correlation, and regression analyses found good internal consistencies for each informant source of teacher calmness, clarity, and kindness; partial support for the convergent validity of each informant source; and partial concurrent validity only for teacher reports of mindfulness in the classroom with teachers\u27 dispositional mindfulness and job stress. Evidence of method effects was suggested from these analyses. The future use, re-configuration, and implications of this suite of measures are discussed

Parent and Teacher Warm Involvement and Student\u27s Academic Engagement: the Mediating Role of Self-System Processes.

Background Parents, teachers, and researchers all share the goal of optimizing students’ academic engagement (Handbook of social influences in school contexts: Social-emotional, motivation, and cognitive outcomes, 2016, Routledge, New York, NY). While separate lines of research have demonstrated the importance of high-quality relationships and support from parents and teachers, few studies have examined the collective contributions of adults’ warm involvement or the processes by which support from both parents and teachers shapes students’ engagement. According to the self-system process model of motivational development, warm involvement from key social partners fosters students’ sense of relatedness, competence, and autonomy, (Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology, Vol. 23: Self processes in development, 1991, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL; Theory and Research in Education, 2009, 7, 133), which subsequently fuels their engagement with academic tasks and challenges (Journal of Educational Psychology, 2003, 95, 148). Aims The current study sought to examine whether a sense of relatedness, competence, or autonomy could explain the relation between parents’ and teachers’ warm involvement and changes in students’ academic engagement across a school year. Sample Data was drawn from 1011 third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Method Students reported on adult warm involvement, self-system processes, and engagement in the fall and spring of a single school year. Results Structural equation␣models demonstrated that parent and teacher warm involvement each uniquely, positively, and indirectly predicted changes in students’ academic engagement through a combination of students’ sense of relatedness, competence, and autonomy, though these patterns differed slightly across adults. Conclusions Implications for optimizing students’ academic engagement are discussed, including the need for intervention efforts focused on both parents and teachers and students’ self-system processes

Parent and Teacher Involvement and the Development of Students\u27 Academic Engagement: A Growth Curve Analysis over Four Time Points

Introduction: This study sought to examine how warm involvement from parents and teachers contributes to the development of students\u27 academic engagement, and whether the relative contributions of adults differ as students begin the transition to middle school. Methods: Trivariate latent growth curve modeling was used to examine 1011 third-sixth graders\u27 (95% White, 52.7% female) reports of parent and teacher involvement and engagement across fall and spring of 2 consecutive school years in the United States. Results: Even though engagement showed different patterns of normative change across grades, parents\u27 and teachers\u27 initial levels and changes in involvement uniquely and positively predicted initial levels and changes in student engagement, respectively. However, initial levels of adult involvement made unique negative contributions to engagement trajectories for students in some grade segments, especially those whose engagement was changing most rapidly. Students with higher initial levels of adult involvement were more likely to experience losses in involvement the following school year, making them susceptible to declines in engagement, even though they remained higher in engagement than students with lower levels of adult involvement. Conclusions: These findings suggest that to maintain or promote engagement over late elementary and early middle school, students need continuity of caregiving, in which involvement from both adults is sustained or augmented over the time that engagement trajectories are unfolding

Mental Health Symptoms Predicting American College Students’ Academic Performance: The Moderating Role of Peer Support

For the current study, we examined the effects of anxiety and depressive symptoms on college students’ academic performance, as moderated by peer support. An online survey was completed by 174 college students (75.3% women, 57.3% White) at a university in the southeast United States, targeting their symptoms of anxiety and depression, perceptions of peer support, and self report GPA. Utilizing multiple regression analyses to test for moderation, it was found that, although anxiety and depression each negatively predicted students’ college GPA, these connections were moderated by perceived peer support. When students perceived having higher levels of peer support, this buffered against the negative effects of anxiety and depression on their GPA. These findings can contribute to our knowledge of how to support college students’ academic performance in the face of mental health experiences

Parent and Teacher Involvement and the Development of Students\u27 Academic Engagement: A Growth Curve Analysis Over Four Time Points

This study sought to examine how warm involvement from parents and teachers contributes to the development of students\u27 academic engagement, and whether the relative contributions of adults differ as students begin the transition to middle school. Trivariate latent growth curve modeling was used to examine 1011 third–sixth graders\u27 (95% White, 52.7% female) reports of parent and teacher involvement and engagement across fall and spring of 2 consecutive school years in the United State Even though engagement showed different patterns of normative change across grades, parents\u27 and teachers\u27 initial levels and changes in involvement uniquely and positively predicted initial levels and changes in student engagement, respectively. However, initial levels of adult involvement made unique negative contributions to engagement trajectories for students in some grade segments, especially those whose engagement was changing most rapidly. Students with higher initial levels of adult involvement were more likely to experience losses in involvement the following school year, making them susceptible to declines in engagement, even though they remained higher in engagement than students with lower levels of adult involvement These findings suggest that to maintain or promote engagement over late elementary and early middle school, students need “continuity of caregiving,” in which involvement from both adults is sustained or augmented over the time that engagement trajectories are unfolding

Parent and Teacher Involvement and Adolescent Academic Engagement: Unique, Mediated, and Transactional Effects

This study explored the dynamics of motivational development across late elementary and early middle school. Using longitudinal data from a cross-section of fifth to seventh-grade students, analyses examined whether parents’ and teachers’ warm involvement shows unique and/or mediated effects on students’ academic engagement and whether engagement feeds back into adults’ continued involvement. Parent and teacher involvement each predicted changes in adolescents’ engagement; parental involvement also played an indirect role via student–teacher relationships; and students who were more engaged reported that adults responded with increasing levels of involvement. These models provide support for a reciprocal dynamic that could lead to virtuous cycles increasing in both involvement and engagement or to vicious cycles amplifying disaffection and withdrawal of involvement over time. Future studies, using time series or observational data, could further unpack these dynamics, examining processes of transmission, mediators, and effects on the longer-term development of academic engagement

Differential Ecologies of Teacher and Parent Warm Involvement: A Pattern-Centered Analysis of Students\u27 Academic Engagement

Students’ academic development is influenced by the differing social ecologies they inhabit, including the supportive interactions they experience with teachers and parents. To gain a more holistic understanding of how social contexts shape academic engagement during third-sixth grade, this study utilized a pattern-centered approach, in which median splits of teacher and parent reports of their involvement were used to create four social ecologies: (1) high teacher/parent support; (2) high teacher/low parent support; (3) low teacher/high parent support; and (4) low teacher/parent support. Results demonstrated that students belonging to ecologies with higher support from both adults had the highest levels of student- and teacher-reported engagement at both timepoints compared to students with high support from just one or neither adult