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

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

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

“I Get Knocked Down but I Get up Again”: Integrative Frameworks for Studying the Development of Motivational Resilience in School

Many subareas share a common interest in students’ motivational resilience, defined broadly as patterns of action that allow students to constructively deal with, overcome, recover, and learn from encounters with academic obstacles and failures. However, research in each of these areas often progresses in relative isolation, and studies rarely utilize developmental or social-contextual approaches. As a result, we do not yet have a clear understanding of how to help children and adolescents develop a rich and flexible repertoire of tools to deal productively with everyday academic challenges and difficulties. In this article, we knit together these disparate areas of work to create an integrated developmental and social-contextual framework that can guide the future study of these processes. First, we summarize nine areas of work that focus on students’ actions on the ground when they encounter academic difficulties: academic resilience, mastery versus helplessness, engagement and re-engagement, academic coping, self-regulated learning, adaptive help seeking, emotion regulation, and buoyancy as well as tenacity, perseverance, and productive persistence. In each area, we highlight work that is explicitly developmental and that depicts key social-contextual factors that shape motivational resilience. Second, we sketch an overarching social-contextual and developmental framework that holds a place for each of these processes. Third, we identify multiple areas where cross-fertilization among researchers can contribute to improved educational practice and study of the development of motivational resilience. An overarching goal of this article (and the special section more generally) is to take first steps toward “field building” on this crucial topic

Development of a Multidimensional, Multi-informant 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

Daily School Context of Adolescents\u27 Single Best Friendship and Adjustment

Research on adolescent best friendships typically focuses on school-based friendships, ignoring important differences between classroom-based and out-of-school friendships. With data from 156 ninth-grade students, many of whom named more than 1 best friend across the 14-day period, the authors examined associations between the daily school context of one\u27s best friendship and adjustment. Benefits of in-grade best friendships were found in academic engagement when a composite was assessed across the 2-week period. Daily findings were more complex and were different between weekends and school days. Out-of-grade best friends were named more frequently on weekends, and on weekend days in which they named an out-of-school best friend participants spent more time with that friend but felt like less of a good student. Implications for our understanding of friendship context and for the measurement of friendship itself are discussed