Do Teachers Matter? Students’ Perceptions of Classroom Interactions and Student Engagement

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics, Mean (M), Standard Deviation (SD), Skewness (Ske) and Kurtosis (kurt) for the measurements.

	Individual level				Classroom level
	M	SD	Ske	Kurt	M	SD	Ske	Kurt
Emotional support^a	2.15	.65	−.72	.07	2.15	.32	−.06	−.08
Instructional support^b	3.43	.99	−.59	.19	3.43	.44	−.22	.52
Monitoring^a	2.14	.65	−.60	−.15	2.14	.33	.01	−.34
Behavioral engagement^a	2.32	.61	−1.02	1.22	2.32	.19	−.12	−.51
Emotional engagement^a	1.91	.74	−.60	.00	1.91	.35	.19	−.20

^aRating format is 0–3, ranging from 0 (disagree strongly) to 3 (agree very much).

^bRating format is 0–5, ranging from 0 (not at all) to 5 (completely true).

Table 2. Independent sample t-test – gender differences.

		Mean (SD)
Behavioral engagement	Male	2.26(.63)**
	Female	2.39(.59)**
Emotional engagement	Male	1.91(.76)
	Female	1.90(.72)

**significant at .00 level.

Table 3. Independent sample t-test – primary vs lower secondary school level.

		Mean (SD)
Behavioral engagement	Primary	2.54(.49)**
	Lower secondary	2.29(.63)**
Emotional engagement	Primary	2.42(.58)**
	Lower secondary	1.81(.73)**

**significant at .00 level.

Figure 1. The associations between teachers’ monitoring, emotional and instructional support and SE.

Results from confirmatory factor analyses of variables assessing student engagement (pattern matrix)

What do you think about your motivation for the schoolwork?	Factor 1	Factor 2
Behavioral engagement (Factor 1)
I try hard to do well in school	.64
In class, I work as hard as I can	.67
I pay attention in class	.93
When I am in class, I listen very carefully	.93
Emotional engagement (Factor 2)
Class is fun		.82
I enjoy learning new things in class		.78
When we work on something in class, I get involved		.81
I think schoolwork is interesting and useful		.81

Correlation between factor 1 and factor 2 = .64

Results from confirmatory factor analyses of variables assessing classroom interactions (pattern matrix)

	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3
Teachers’ emotional support (Factor 1)
The teachers are like my good friends	−.57
The teachers will help me if I have problems	−.67
I feel the teachers care about me	−.95
I feel the teachers appreciate me	−.83
Teachers’ monitoring (Factor 2)
The teachers makes sure we do our best in class		.62
The teachers makes sure we behave well in class		.84
The teachers makes sure that we behave well during recess		.60
When students are disruptive, the teachers are able to handle this		.69
Teachers’ instructional support (Factor 3)
The teachers describes clear learning targets for the activities and the lessons			.80
The teachers carefully helps us to understand concepts and facts and the relationship between them			.78
The teachers carefully asks us questions that are challenging enough for us to have to work thoroughly with them			.74
The teachers carefully provides feedback on what we do well and what we need to work on			.70
The teachers carefully encourages discussions that extend our knowledge on the subject (for example, through the development of arguments, comparison, exploring or explaining our own thinking)			.71