The contribution of teacher structure, involvement, and autonomy support on student engagement in low-income elementary schools
Abstract
Providing high-quality teaching practices is central to promote student engagement in school. High quality teaching is even more important in schools located in low socioeconomic neighborhoods, where a larger proportion of children present more important academic difficulties and lower classroom behavioural, affective, and cognitive engagement. The Self-System Model of Motivational Development posits that learner engagement is favored when teachers structure classroom activity, are involved with students, and support their autonomy. How these dimensions interact to create effective classroom contexts that foster student engagement remains less documented. The goal of the present study was to test additive and combined (interactive) multilevel longitudinal associations between teacher structure, autonomy-support, and involvement on students behavioral, affective, and cognitive engagement across one school year. Based on a sample of 696 low SES elementary school students, results of our path analysis revealed that teacher involvement and autonomy-support contributed to various dimensions of classroom engagement. Besides, structure was not directly to this outcome. Yet, a combined use of autonomy-support and structure or autonomy-support and involvement was associated with higher behavioral engagement among low-SES children. These results suggest that teacher practices cannot be interpreted in isolation as they add up and interact to contribute to elementary school student acade…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Eight studies in the sample found teacher autonomy support and provision of structure negatively correlated.
“Mirroring sparse prior research, eight studies in our sample found teacher autonomy support and provision of structure negatively correlated (e.g., Archambault et al., 2020;Domen et al., 2020;Haerens et al., 2013;Hornstra et al., 2020Hornstra et al., , 2021)).”
From Blending Teacher Autonomy Support and Provision of Structure in the Classroom for Optimal Motivation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2025) · cites this paper as Archambault et al., 2020
Cites
The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000) · Psychological Inquiry · doi:10.1207/s15327965pli1104_01 · Cited by 34,210 · see citing works
School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence
Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004) · Review of Educational Research · doi:10.3102/00346543074001059 · Cited by 12,581 · cited 4× · see citing works
“Students who participate in class, follow teacher instructions and rules, show high attendance, and meet teachers’ expectations are behaviourally engaged in the classroom (Fredricks et al., 2004).”
BackgroundInfluentialSkinner, E. A., & Belmont, M. J. (1993) · Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-0663.85.4.571 · Cited by 3,428 · see citing works
Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis
Ingersoll, R. M. (2001) · American Educational Research Journal · doi:10.3102/00028312038003499 · Cited by 2,989 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Worldwide, schools located in deprived areas are often characterised by a higher proportion of less-experienced teachers and higher teacher turnover rates than schools located in higher income neighbourhoods (Byrd-Blake et al., 2010; Ingersoll, 2001; Lawson & van Veen, 2016a).”
BackgroundREEVE, J. (2009) · Educational Psychologist · doi:10.1080/00461520903028990 · Cited by 1,728 · see citing works
Jang, H., Reeve, J., & Deci, E. L. (2010) · Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0019682 · Cited by 1,650 · cited 5× · see citing works
“cross-sectional, qualitative, or mixed designs (Hospel & Galand, 2016; Jang et al., 2010; Mouratidis et al., 2013; Nie & Lau, 2009; Raphael et al., 2008; Turner et al., 2014; Vansteenkiste et al., 2012; Van Uden et al., 2016), and do not control for prior student engagement (Wang & Eccles, 2013).”
BackgroundInfluentialLa Guardia, J. G., Ryan, R. M., Couchman, C. E., & Deci, E. L. (2000) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.79.3.367 · Cited by 1,571 · see citing works
Sierens, E., Vansteenkiste, M., Goossens, L., Soenens, B., & Dochy, F. (2009) · British Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1348/000709908x304398 · Cited by 618 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Yet, other studies further showed that student engagement is strengthened when teachers combine these different practices (Hospel & Galand, 2016; Nie & Lau, 2009; Sierens et al., 2009).”
BackgroundHospel, V., & Galand, B. (2016) · Learning and Instruction · doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2015.09.001 · Cited by 275 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Patzak, A., & Zhang, X. (2025) · Educational Psychology Review · doi:10.1007/s10648-025-09994-2 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
“For example, informational feedback was also described as “positive” (Behzadnia, 2021; Haerens et al., 2013), “competence-relevant” (Lietaert et al., 2015), “growth-oriented” (Burgueño et al., 2024a, b; Vermote et al., 2020) or “con-crete” feedback (Archambault et al., 2020).”
Influential
- Authors
- Archambault, I., Pascal, S., Tardif-Grenier, K., Dupéré, V., Janosz, M., Parent, S., & Pagani, L. S.
- Affiliations
- Université de Montréal (CA)
- Department of Psychoeducation and Psychology, Université Du Québec En Outaouais, Gatineau, QC, Canada
- Corresponding author
- Archambault, Isabelle
- Venue
- Teachers and Teaching
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2020-08-17
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 5-6
- Pages
- 428-445
- ISSN
- 1354-0602 (ISSN-L)
- 1470-1278
- OpenAlex
- W3114449181
- Cited by
- 43
- References
- 9
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 6.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Teachers and Teaching (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Quebec Fund for Research, Society and Culture (2012-RP-145548)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports
- Keywords
- student engagement, teacher autonomy support, teacher participation, classroom structure, low socioeconomic status, elementary school students, behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, cognitive engagement, teacher practices
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
