Personal and collective perceptions of social support: Implications for classroom engagement in early adolescence

Contemporary Educational Psychology 58 (2019) 163–174

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Contemporary Educational Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cedpsych

Personal and collective perceptions of social support: Implications for classroom engagement in early adolescence

T

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Jessica E. Kilday , Allison M. Ryan University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Classroom engagement Teacher support Peer relations

The present study uses multilevel modeling to understand early adolescents’ individual and class-level perceptions of social support in relation to their behavioral and emotional engagement in math and science. To capture individual relationships, we examined students’ self-perceptions of classroom social satisfaction, best friend quality, and teacher-student relatedness. Between classrooms, we considered collective perceptions of peer and teacher support. Participants were 761 fifth (n = 412) and sixth grade (n = 349) students nested within 44 classrooms who were 52% female and ethnically diverse. Results indicated that both peer and teacher relationships are important for early adolescents’ behavioral engagement, but teachers play a primary role in shaping emotional engagement toward subject-area content. Moreover, both individual and classroom-level indicators of perceived support explained variation in children’s engagement outcomes, highlighting the complex nature of classroom social relationships that necessitate teachers’ consideration.

1. Introduction Early adolescence is a period in youth development when significant individual social, emotional, and physical changes are accompanied by fluctuations in adolescents’ social contexts. During these formative years, it is concerning that students’ motivation and engagement for school generally tend to decline (Martin, Way, Bobis, & Anderson, 2015; Wang & Eccles, 2012). While most research to date has predominately focused on how teachers’ instruction (Pianta & Hamre, 2009) and parents’ involvement (Pomerantz, Kim, & Cheung, 2012) can influence students’ motivation, recent work is beginning to also consider the peer group as an important social context. This context has the potential both to nurture positive beliefs and perpetuate disaffection (Juvonen, Espinoza, & Knifsend, 2012). Self-determination theory points to one way in which peers are consequential to youth’s academic adjustment, that is, peers can fulfill one’s psychological need for relatedness and social support (Ryan & Deci, 2000). A convergent body of work on the need for belonging, acceptance, and relatedness, suggests that when youth form positive relationships with peers, their engagement in school tends to improve (for a review, see Ryan & Shin, 2018). However, there is still much we do not know about how peer relationships are intertwined with classroom social interactions, as well as the subsequent implications for subject-area academic outcomes.

Our aim is to better understand early adolescents’ social satisfaction and dyadic relationships (i.e., their personal relationship with a friend or teacher), which are surrounded and regulated within the classroom social context. Indeed, classrooms are unique in how the overall climate is characterized by shared norms and values (Dijkstra & Gest, 2015), which likely makes a difference for students’ engagement. Yet, extant work that examines the associations between social support and students’ engagement has been operationalized at the individual-level, where differences between classrooms are controlled rather than considered as a potential source of variability (e.g., Weyns, Colpin, Laet, Engels, & Verschueren, 2017). Within a nested social structure, a student may personally experience a low-quality relationship (or conflict) with a teacher or friend that co-occurs in a classroom characterized by high overall levels of social support, which may soften the effect. The interactive or cumulative associations of the classroom context with students’ individual social relationships, as they pertain to early adolescents’ engagement, has not been subject to empirical investigation. Our multilevel approach is an extension toward understanding the full social context that students experience uniquely across classrooms. 1.1. Classroom engagement and social support Engagement is usually recognized as an observable behavior that

⁎ Corresponding author at: University of Michigan, Combined Program in Education and Psychology, 610 East University, Suite 1400, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.E. Kilday).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.03.006

Available online 13 March 2019 0361-476X/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Contemporary Educational Psychology 58 (2019) 163–174

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are derived from network-level rejection (i.e., not feeling well-liked or accepted among a group of peers in the school or classroom) whereas emotional isolation occurs when someone does not form close dyadic friendships. The present study is focused on early adolescents’ self-perceived relatedness, and we therefore use self-reported classroom social satisfaction to capture the social dimension of perceived relatedness and best friend quality as indicative of their emotional relatedness with a specific classroom peer. Most of the empirical work that links adolescents’ social status (i.e. acceptance or rejection) to their engagement outcomes uses sociometric peer nomination procedures to identify which students are the most and least-liked by classmates or grade-mates (e.g., De Laet et al., 2015; Kingery, Erdley, & Marshall, 2011; Ladd, 1990; Weyns et al., 2017). In this manner, peer acceptance has been concurrently linked with students’ behavioral school involvement (Kingery et al., 2011) and affective school liking (Boulton, Don, & Boulton, 2011). Conversely, peer exclusion has negative consequences for their academic self-concept, classroom participation, and achievement (Buhs, 2005). Although no studies have directly examined the associations between self-perceptions of social satisfaction and engagement, they are moderately correlated with children’s sociometric status (Asher, Hymel, & Renshaw, 1984; Asher & Wheeler, 1985). Likewise, we expect there to be positive associations between social satisfaction and students’ classroom engagement. At the dyadic-level, friendship quality and closeness have also been examined in relation to youth’s engagement outcomes. Simply having a reciprocated best friendship can facilitate children’s affect toward school (Boulton et al., 2011; Ladd, 1990) and self-esteem (Kingery et al., 2011). Across the school year, friendship closeness in the fall has been positively associated with elementary children’s end of year behavioral and emotional engagement (Hosan & Hoglund, 2017). Similarly, among adolescents, those reporting higher levels of friendship quality (i.e., help, closeness, and security) also experienced higher levels of adaptive motivation (Nelson & DeBacker, 2008). Friendship conflict, in contrast, is particularly detrimental for boys’ behavioral engagement (Ladd, Kochenderfer, & Coleman, 1996). Overall, studies which consider friendship quality in relation to students’ academic outcomes generally support the hypothesis that high quality dyadic relationships provide a safe emotional space to facilitate positive academic and social adjustment in school (Wentzel, Jablansky, & Scalise, 2018). While there seems to be consistent evidence that both networklevel social satisfaction and close friendships are each linked to students’ school engagement, their relative implications within classroomspecific contexts is less known. Teacher relatedness. Next, we turn to the dyadic teacher-student relationship, wherein students develop personal perceptions of their teacher’s caring, warmth, affection, and desire to help, which has been widely studied among a number of education outcomes (Pianta, Hamre, & Stuhlman, 2003). Several meta-analyses affirm that teacher-student relationship quality consistently has a medium to large effect on students’ engagement and achievement in school (see Cornelius-White, 2007; Quin, 2016; Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011). In qualitative work, adolescents also cite disingenuous and impersonal relationships with teachers as a source of emotional disaffection, particularly after the transition to middle school (Symonds & Hargreaves, 2016). Furthermore, this work is particularly robust when examining concurrent associations between teacher-student relationships and academic outcomes (Quin, 2016). Consistent with prior studies, we expect to replicate these positive associations with students’ behavioral and emotional classroom engagement within our multilevel investigation. Integrating peer and teacher relationships. Although the findings that relate teacher-student relationship quality and students’ academic engagement are robust (Quin, 2016; Roorda et al., 2011), much of the work fails to consider the full social context that students experience in their classrooms. That is, by examining the relative associations of peer and teacher relationships to adolescents’ school engagement. This

reflects one’s internal motivation toward school or classwork (Wang & Degol, 2014). Further, it is an important academic adjustment outcome because students’ levels of engagement are malleable to the social context (Fredricks, 2011) and are linked to improved comprehension (Barber et al., 2015), lower rates of school dropout (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004), as well as stronger intentions to pursue content-relevant coursework and careers (Wang, Fredricks, Ye, Hofkens, & Linn, 2016) and academic achievement (Connell & Wellborn, 1991). Engagement has multiple distinct, yet related dimensions, including behavioral and emotional indicators that describe youth’s involvement at school (Fredricks et al., 2004). Specifically, behavioral engagement is defined as students’ self-reported participation and effort in class, while emotional engagement reflects their level of interest, enjoyment, and general affective experiences regarding classwork (Fredricks et al., 2004). Given our focus on classroom-level processes, we situate engagement within math and science classroom contexts. This specification is important for matching classroom-level social support with classroomlevel outcomes. Moreover, engagement outcomes in math and science are often of interest because student’s personal motivation and attitudes are socialized, such that boy’s success and value for math and science is prescribed as normative, whereas girls generally have a higher academic self-concept for verbal reasoning and reading skills (Menon & Perry, 2016). Thus, there are salient gender and stereotype barriers in math and science that must be overcome to improve students’ long-term engagement trajectories (Leaper, 2013). A significant body of theoretical and empirical work explicates the importance of perceived social support for human motivation and engagement. According to self-determination theorists, relatedness is one of three fundamental psychological needs that must be met by one’s social context in order to enhance intrinsic motivation and engagement (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Fostering perceptions of relatedness and belonging requires the development of close interpersonal connections that are reciprocated and characterized by positive interactions (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Connell and Wellborn (1991) further emphasize the importance of individual’s self-perceived relatedness as a motivational catalyst, whereby self-perceptions of relatedness facilitate engaged behavior. Accordingly, students’ perceptions of relatedness with peers, teachers, and parents has consistent empirical associations with their school engagement, as well as attitudes and values toward math and science (e.g., Furrer & Skinner, 2003; Rice et al., 2013; Wang & Eccles, 2012; Wentzel, 2017). Yet, as children enter early adolescence, their relationships in the school social context are complicated by interactions with a larger peer group, shifting social priorities, and the need to establish positive rapport with multiple teachers across classrooms (Juvonen, 2007). In the following sections, we consider the multifaceted nature of early adolescents’ perceived relatedness, including their experience of satisfaction within the overall classroom peer group, dyadic friendships, and dyadic relationship with their teacher. Peer relatedness. Early research on the role of peer relations for adolescents’ school adjustment is centered on maladaptive and risky behaviors that are propagated through peer pressure or peer contagion (Sandstrom, 2014). However, considering peers as a source of social support for student’s academic and psychological needs provides a more positive outlook on peer influence. There is consistent evidence that individual-level peer relationships matter for students’ engagement. When adolescents are accepted and well-liked by peers at school, they are more likely to have positive social interactions, collaborate productively, and report higher levels of social satisfaction, which results in improved academic functioning and participation in class (Flook, Repetti, & Ullman, 2005; Ladd, Herald-Brown, & Reiser, 2008). At the individual-level, peer relations researchers have also distinguished between multiple facets of social satisfaction. Hoza, Bukowski, and Beery (2000) indicate that social and emotional isolation are empirically distinct, where student’s perceptions of social isolation 164

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Ryan, & Kaplan, 2007). Similarly, perceived teacher support facilitates students’ academic effort (Wentzel, 2017), self-regulation (Patrick et al., 2007), and academic values (Wentzel et al., 2016), while mitigating youth’s problem and disruptive behaviors (Brewster & Bowen, 2004; Patrick et al., 2007). Not surprisingly, when peer and teacher support are measured as indicators of the social context, the intraclass correlations indicate that there is a significant portion of variability that exists at the class level (ranging between 11% and 26%; e.g., Danielsen et al., 2010; Fraser, 1989; Goh, Young, & Fraser, 1995; Rucinski, Brown, & Downer, 2017; Ryan & Patrick, 2001). Thus, there is reason to examine the associations of peer and teacher support with students’ engagement at both the individual and classroom-levels. While research that considers social support as a higher-level classroom characteristic is limited, a few such studies exist. Hughes, Im, and Wehrly (2014) used peer nomination procedures to examine the implications of centralized teacher support (where higher centrality indicated fewer students in the class were nominated as receiving support) on students’ peer relatedness, motivation, and engagement. In this manner, no associations were found with students’ behavioral engagement or academic self-efficacy. Additionally, Danielsen et al. (2010) aggregated both teacher and peer support to examine differences in students’ academic initiative, while Wentzel, Muenks, McNeish, and Russell (2017) investigated the multilevel associations of perceived social supports (peers and teachers) on students’ motivational goals and effort. Collectively, these studies depict the prospect that class-level teacher support matters more for students’ engagement outcomes, whereas perceived peer support has a stronger impact at the individual-level. However, given the limited number of studies that examine the multilevel nature of perceived support, as well as differences in measurement (including peer nominations, mean aggregates, and measures of deviance as class-level indicators), it is important to continue developing more comprehensive models that incorporate individual and classroom characteristics to clarify their relative associations with students’ classroom engagement. Additionally, a unique affordance to the examination of peer and teacher support in a multilevel context is the opportunity to explore the cross-level associations, where the social context may be an important moderator on how students’ individual relationships affect their academic adjustment. Hendrickx, Mainhard, Boor-Klip, and Brekelmans (2017) found that when students perceive that a teacher likes or has a positive relationship with a child, then this can improve the child’s status among peers in the classroom. This interdependence is particularly important for youth who display aggressive behavior and are at risk for rejection. Additionally, teachers’ instruction has been found to moderate student’s perceptions of peer behavior and foster cohesion in the classroom social network (Cappella, Kim, Neal, & Jackson, 2013). Teachers’ provision of emotional support in particular has been linked to higher levels of adolescents’ perceived relatedness with peers (Ruzek et al., 2016) and reduced social isolation (Cappella & Neal, 2012). Thus, the teachers’ role in shaping students’ peer experiences can occur both in the climate that students perceive as well as the individual peer-topeer and teacher-student relationships that develop. Given that our present understanding of peer and teacher support as measures of the classroom social context has primarily been developed at the individual-level, it is unclear how these classroom characteristics relate to adolescents’ individual relationships and engagement outcomes.

juxtaposition is particularly important in early adolescence, when peer relationships take on heightened significance, while perceived relatedness with teachers declines (Juvonen, 2007). To that end, there is some work that is beginning to examine the interdependence between teacher and student relationships (e.g., Weyns et al., 2017), others that examine the additive effects of students’ relationships with multiple social partners (e.g., De Laet et al., 2015), and those that take a patterncentered approach to understand different configurations of perceived social support (e.g., Furrer & Skinner, 2003). Collectively, these studies substantiate a more complex understanding on the nature and consequences of youth’s need for relatedness within the classroom social ecology. In our study, we focus on the additive effects of peer and teacher relationships for early adolescents’ school adjustment. Several studies converge on the finding that positive peer relationships and teacher involvement both explain unique variance in students’ behavioral (De Laet et al., 2015; Vollet, Kindermann, & Skinner, 2017) and emotional engagement (Hosan & Hoglund, 2017). However, the relative strength of these associations is less consistent. For example, in multilevel SEM analyses Danielsen, Wiium, Wilhelmsen, and Wold (2010) found that perceived support from both teachers and peers maintained relatively equal and positive associations with middle school students’ academic initiative. In contrast, multiple regression analyses associating peer and teacher support with middle school students’ intrinsic value and effort suggested that teacher caring was more strongly associated than adolescents’ relationship with peers (Wentzel, Russell, & Baker, 2016). Similarly, Wentzel, Battle, Russell, and Looney (2010) found that teacher support, but not peer support, was positively associated with students’ interest in class. In contrast, when students self-report on the sources of their motivation, middle school students are likely to identify with stronger peer-oriented motivation (Raufelder, Jagenow, Drury, & Hoferichter, 2013) and when peer relationships are considered independently from teachers, peers have been found to have a stronger impact on students’ self-reported emotional engagement as they get older (Li, Doyle Lynch, Kalvin, Liu, & Lerner, 2011). Thus, there is evidence that peers and teachers have positive, but in some cases differential effects on students’ academic adjustment outcomes. 1.2. Social support in the classroom context To this point, our review has focused primarily on students’ individual perceived relationships with teachers and peers. Surprisingly, very little research that explores the nature of classroom social relationships and students’ engagement has considered classroom-level constructs. Yet, we know from studies on motivational climates that variability in students’ shared classroom experiences has implications for individual outcomes, such as their behavioral engagement, mastery motivation (Ruzek et al., 2016), help-seeking tendencies (Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, 1998; Shim, Kiefer, & Wang, 2013), as well as their affect and achievement in school (Urdan & Midgley, 2003). Within the classroom social context, peer and teacher support are distinct from perceived relatedness in that these constructs characterize students’ collective perceptions of the classroom. For example, measures of peer support ask students to think about the interactions between all other students in the class (e.g., “Most students in our class are kind and helpful;” Danielsen et al., 2010) rather than the individual, self-referent, alternative (e.g., “In this class, I have some good friends;” Asher et al., 1984). Most often, measures of peer and teacher support are used in individual-level analyses, reflecting students’ personal psychological experience of support (Chan, 1998). This work is consistent with the aforementioned literature, which examines different facets of relationship quality and closeness (explicated above). That is, students’ perceived support from peers has been associated with higher levels of school liking (Boulton et al., 2011), self-efficacy, academic effort (Wentzel, 2017), and self-regulation (King & Ganotice, 2014; Patrick,

1.3. The present study Accordingly, the present study addressed this gap in the literature by examining early adolescents’ perceived relatedness with teachers and peers, at both the individual and classroom-level, to understand variability in students’ math and science engagement. Specifically, the following research questions were investigated: (a) To what extent do early adolescents’ reports of relatedness and social support vary across classrooms? (b) Are students’ self-reports of social satisfaction, best 165

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2.2. Procedure

friend quality, and teacher-student relatedness associated with their behavioral and emotional engagement in math and science? (c) Do class climate indicators of peer and teacher support contribute to students’ engagement outcomes? Further, do these associations occur while students’ individual perceptions of relatedness and perceived support are accounted for? And finally, (d) Do the associations between students’ perceived relatedness and engagement vary by classroom, and if so, does the classroom social climate (i.e., teacher and peer support) moderate this relation? Consistent with prior theory and research, we expected that characterizations of class-level peer and teacher support will reflect moderate variability across classrooms (e.g., Ryan & Patrick, 2001), and that perceived relatedness at the individual-level will be associated with higher levels of engagement (e.g., Weyns et al., 2017). Although teacher and peer support as indicators of the class climate have less often been considered, we expected positive associations between class climate and student engagement to be replicated at the class-level (De Laet et al., 2015; Wentzel et al., 2017). Finally, because there is no literature to guide our hypotheses, we did not make any predictions regarding the moderating role of peer and teacher support on students’ engagement. Although not the focus of the present study, there are also documented gender and grade-related differences in youth’s perceived relatedness with teachers and peers. Girls generally report higher levels of relatedness than boys, yet perceived social support for boys may have a more salient impact on their overall classroom engagement (Furrer & Skinner, 2003). Additionally, perceived relatedness with teachers tends to decline as children enter early adolescence in the transition from elementary to secondary school (Juvonen, 2007; Wentzel, 2017), while peer relationships become prominent (Juvonen et al., 2012; Li et al., 2011). Given these consistent trends, we will explore whether gradelevel and gender play a role in moderating any of the individual-level associations with early adolescents’ classroom engagement.

Letters were sent home to parents that described the project and consent procedures. These were distributed to fifth and sixth grade students in all fifteen cooperating schools. In total, 84% of children’s parents provided consent and students also completed informed assent on the first day of data collection. In accordance with institutional review board procedures, survey administrators explained that participation in the research was voluntary and that the purpose of the project was learn about their classroom experiences in math and science. Students’ survey data were collected in the spring of the academic school year. Trained researchers administered the surveys by reading each question aloud while students read silently and recorded their responses on paper. While completing the survey, students were provided with a coversheet to keep their answers private and were assured confidentiality. The survey items were written to reflect the subjectarea class in which the survey was administered. Of the 761 students in the sample, 60% reflected on their experience in math class while the remaining 40% responded about their science class. 2.3. Measures All student-survey items were rated on a scale of 1–5, with response anchors ranging from Not at all true to Very true, unless otherwise specified. Student-level characteristics and perceived relatedness. Demographics. Items on the survey asked students to report relevant background information, including gender, race, grade-level, and subject (i.e., math or science class). When gender and grade-level measures were included in multilevel analyses, responses were dummy coded such that zeros represented males and fifth grade students, while ones represented females and sixth grade students, respectively. Social satisfaction. Students’ social satisfaction was assessed by 5items adapted from Asher et al. (1984) questionnaire on children’s loneliness and social dissatisfaction (Cronbach’s α = 0.75). Students were asked to think about their math/science classroom when rating their social satisfaction (e.g., “In this class, I have some good friends”) and negative items (e.g., “I am lonely”) were reverse scored before averaging to create the composite scale. Best friendship quality. Students were asked to check from a class list to indicate “Who are your friends in this class?” After marking all classroom friendships, students were asked to write in the name of their best friend from the list, “the person you know the best or talk to the most in this class.” To assess best friendship quality, we used eight items adapted by Rose (2002) that characterize the level of support and closeness that students perceive with his/her best friend (Cronbach’s α = 0.90). Sample statements on this scale included: “Makes me feel good about my ideas,” “We can talk about things that worry us,” and “We help each other with schoolwork.” Teacher-student relatedness. Students responded to eight items that characterized their perceived relatedness with teachers, which centered on a specific personal relationship with either their math or science teacher. The measure was developed by Skinner and Belmont (1993) to understand students’ perceptions of their teacher’s involvement. Sample items included, “My teacher likes me,” “My teacher really cares about me,” and “I can’t depend on my teacher for important things” (reversed). Negative items were reverse scored before averaging to create the composite scale. In our sample, the measure demonstrated acceptable reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.83). Class-level social support. To understand classroom level variations in perceived social support, students responded to items that assessed their perceptions of the social climate, including peer support and teacher support. To create classroom climate measures, students’ individual perceptions were aggregated to create a Level 2 (L2) mean score for each class, while students’ individual ratings (representing their personal psychological climate) were retained at Level 1 (L1). This

2. Methods 2.1. Participants The sample for this study included students who participated in the first year of a larger project aimed to understand early adolescents’ social and academic adjustment. Participants were recruited from three public school districts in the Midwestern United States with comparable achievement levels (with 62–74% of students meeting state standards), whilst serving a sizeable percentage of low-income families (ranging from 50% to 71% eligible for free or reduced lunch). Within these school districts, we collected data from a cross-sectional sample of fifth grade students in elementary schools and sixth graders who attended middle schools. All middle schools in these districts agreed to participate in the project (N = 6) and two elementary schools that were local to each middle school also participated (N = 12). In order to facilitate model comparison, only students who had complete data for all variables of interest in this study were included in analyses, which resulted in a final sample of fifteen schools (elementary school: n = 10; middle school: n = 5). Elementary schools in these districts served students in kindergarten through fifth grade, while middle schools contained students in grades 6–8. In total there were 761 students nested within 44 classrooms (5th grade: n = 412; 6th grade: n = 349). The fifth-grade students in elementary schools were assigned to one primary teacher who taught multiple subjects and generally spent their day among a consistent group of peers. Middle school students were assigned on teams within their grade-level and rotated among several subject-area teachers. Finally, the sample was evenly distributed by gender (Female = 52%; Male = 48%) and was ethnically diverse (47% Caucasian, 36% African American, 6% Hispanic, 6% Asian, and 4% other ethnic groups).

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followed by individual-referent social support in model 2 (i.e. social satisfaction, best friend quality, and teacher-student relatedness). Next, model 3 examined, one at a time, whether the slopes between individual-referent social support and engagement varied by classroom. The purpose of fitting these random slopes is to determine if there are between classroom differences in how social support relates to engagement, which could further be explained by examining classroomlevel characteristics. Finally, at the class-level, model 4 examined between class differences in perceived support by adding both the L1 and L2 values for peer and teacher support. At L1, peer and teacher support represent students’ individual psychological experience of support, while the L2 values were calculated by averaging the level of peer and teacher support as classroom characteristics. If any significant variation in slope was retained from model 3, then cross-level interactions between class-level and individual-level social supports were examined. The multilevel equation representing the full model that was fitted for students’ engagement (both behavioral and emotional) is printed in Appendix A.

procedure is consistent with an additive composition model in multilevel analyses, where individual perceptions are combined to generate an L2 construct (Chan, 1998). Peer support. There were five items assessing classroom peer support, which were adapted from school climate measures that assess peers’ positive and negative interactions (Way, Reddy, & Rhodes, 2007). For example, students rated their level of agreement with the statement, “In this class, students are friendly to each other.” This measure demonstrated an acceptable level of reliability in our sample (Cronbach’s α = 0.82). Teacher support. Additionally, four items were adapted from the Classroom Environment Scale (Fraser & Fisher, 1983) to assess students’ perceptions of teacher support (e.g., “The teacher takes a personal interest in students,” “The teacher goes out of their way to help students.”). The measure was also reliable in our sample (Cronbach’s α = 0.79). Engagement. Students self-reported their levels of behavioral and emotional engagement in math/science by responding to ten items developed by Skinner, Kindermann, and Furrer (2009). Our adapted measure included six items, which tapped into students’ level of behavioral engagement (e.g., “I pay attention in my math/science class;” Cronbach’s α = 0.89), while the remaining four items reflected students’ emotional engagement (e.g., “I enjoy learning new things in math/science class;” Cronbach’s α = 0.92).

3. Results 3.1. Preliminary analyses Prior to interpreting the results from the hierarchical model, our preliminary analyses included the visualization of residual plots to check statistical assumptions and model fit. The Q-Q plots and histograms for both behavioral and emotional engagement suggested that residuals were approximately normally distributed. Additionally, the plots of fitted values with residuals implied that the variance of residuals met the assumption of homoscedasticity, with constant variances and no strong linear patterns detected. Plots of level one predictor variables with residuals were inspected and there was no evidence of non-linearity. Similarly, at level two, the residual estimates on the intercepts and slopes were approximately normally distributed and plots of posterior intercepts and slopes with level two predictor variables did not reveal any strong discernable associations. Multicollinearity was not an issue for either behavioral or emotional engagement as indicated by the variance inflation factors (all values < 2), tolerance calculations (all values > 0.6), and correlations between predictors (see Table 1). Finally, residuals were also examined for outliers and there were six observations between 3 and 4.1 standard deviations below average for students’ behavioral engagement. Data for these six students were examined on all variables and no impossible scores were identified. Thus, these observations were retained in the multilevel analyses because, even though they are below average, they reflect students’ reported experiences.1 There were no residual outliers in the final model estimating students’ emotional engagement. Next, we examined descriptive statistics for all study variables,

2.4. Statistical analysis We conducted multilevel modeling, which was necessary because the observed data are not independent and students were nested within 44 elementary and middle school classrooms. We estimated our twolevel models using the nlme package (version 3.1–137; Pinheiro, Bates, DebRoy, Sarkar, & R Core Team, 2018) in RStudio (version 1.1.442; R Core Team, 2018; RStudio Team, 2016) and built parallel models to examine behavioral and emotional engagement outcomes separately. Our research questions asked about individual and between class differences in perceived support. Therefore, to facilitate orthogonal interpretations of student and class-level predictor variables, all studentlevel variables (L1) were centered at the classroom group mean and class-level variables (L2) at the grand mean. In doing so, the L1 coefficients represent within classroom associations among independent and dependent variables while the L2 coefficients reflect between classroom relations (Enders & Tofighi, 2007). To examine contextual effects, which indicates if the between class associations occur while controlling for students’ individual perceptions, we then tested the contrasts between the L2 and L1 to see if these significantly differed from zero. This contrast is calculated by subtracting the L1 from L2 coefficient and is equivalent to the context effects that would be isolated at level-2 in models where both levels are centered at the grandmean (Enders & Tofighi, 2007). The multilevel models were estimated using restricted maximum likelihood (REML) estimation procedures, which is recommended over full maximum likelihood estimation when the number of level-2 units is less than fifty and random effect parameters are estimated (Snijders & Bosker, 2012). When using REML estimation procedures, the deviance statistics for determining whether there is a statistically significant improvement in model fit are only meaningful when comparing random effects models that share the same fixed effects. Therefore, deviance statistics for model change were used when comparing the addition of random slopes to the fixed effects models. Additionally, models were built using a bottom-up approach, beginning with the null model before adding student characteristics, individual perceived social support, random effects, and then proceeding to L2 main effects and exploring cross-level interactions (Snijders & Bosker, 2012). The first three models examined individual-level associations between the independent and dependent variables, beginning with student characteristics (i.e., gender and grade-level) in model 1,

1 To further probe the influence of these outliers on model estimates, we ran the final model predicting students’ behavioral engagement in two ways. First, we examined Cook’s distance to determine if these outliers represent influential cases. Cook’s distance suggests that values greater than one are cause for concern (Field, Miles, & Field, 2012) and in these data, all values were below 0.05. Corresponding with the two highest values for Cook’s distance, we then ran the model with the two highest outliers removed (standardized residual values of −4.1 and −3.7) and removal of these outliers did not affect the interpretation of results. Second, we tested whether removal of all six outliers affected the model predictions, which revealed one change in the association of studentlevel peer support with behavioral engagement. While the coefficient and standard error remained the same, the relation was marginally significant (p = .053). Given the stability in the value of the model estimates, and concurrent evidence that the most extreme outliers did not affect the interpretation of results, our final model is presented with the inclusion of all six of these observations (i.e., no outliers removed). Results from all preliminary analyses are available from the first author upon request.

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are consistent with intraclass correlations that have been found in the classroom climate literature (e.g., Fraser, 1989). Additionally, the two outcome variables for students’ behavioral and emotional engagement also demonstrated variability across classrooms. The analyses for these outcomes are organized by the level-one and level-two components in the following sections.

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations for all study variables measured at level 1. Variable

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

1. Social Satisfaction 2. Best Friend Quality 3. Teacher-student Relatedness 4. Peer Support 5. Teacher Support 6. Emotional Engagement 7. Behavioral Engagement

4.33 3.98 3.60

0.80 0.97 0.87

.22** .20**

.26**

3.04 3.34 3.41

0.98 1.07 1.18

.32** .09** .09**

.15** .28** .23**

.28** .65** .52**

.17** .21**

.47**

4.07

0.85

.13**

.33**

.50**

.23**

.40**

6

3.3. Level one results: individual perceived social support and engagement The next research question examined the within classroom (L1) associations between students’ individual perceptions of relatedness and their levels of behavioral and emotional engagement. We used each measure of engagement as separate outcomes in parallel hierarchical linear models (see Appendix A). Further, preliminary models included grade-level and gender, as well as interaction terms. No moderation effects were found, but grade-level and gender were retained in each model to account for mean-level differences. The results from each model are presented sequentially in Table 3 (for behavioral engagement) and Table 4 (for emotional engagement). Additionally, within each model throughout the results, we offered comparisons regarding the strength of associations given that all predictors were measured on five-point scales. Behavioral engagement. For behavioral engagement, the first model indicated that both grade-level and gender were significantly associated with students’ self-reported engagement. Students in sixth grade reported lower levels of engagement than fifth grade students (β = −0.20, p < .05). Additionally, gender was associated with higher levels of behavioral engagement for girls (β = 0.20, p < .05). Therefore, these covariates were included in subsequent models. When students’ individual perceptions of classroom social satisfaction, best friend quality, and teacher-student relatedness were added in model 2, the association between engagement and gender dissipated (β = 0.07, p > .05). Teacher-student relatedness demonstrated the strongest relation with students’ behavioral engagement (β = 0.44, p < .01), but best friend quality also had a significant positive association (β = 0.17, p < .01). Social satisfaction was unrelated to students’ behavioral engagement (β = −0.004, p > .05). To calculate changes in variance that these predictors accounted for, we subtracted the unexplained variance in model 2 from the initial null model and divided by the total variance. Together, these social support variables produced a 26% reduction in unexplained variance at level-one after controlling for gender and grade-level. Emotional engagement. For emotional engagement, the first model indicated that grade-level (β = −.17p > .05) and gender (β = 0.06, p > .05) were non-significantly associated with students’ emotional engagement. Similar to the patterns that were found with behavioral engagement, social satisfaction was unrelated to variability in students’ emotional engagement (β = −0.05, p > .05). However, teacher-student relatedness exhibited a strong association with emotional engagement (β = 0.67, p < .01) and best friend quality was also positively related (β = 0.14, p < .01), albeit weaker. Students’ individual perceptions of social support reduced the unexplained variance at level-one by 26% from the null model. Random slopes. The third model examined the fit of slopes relating each L1 social support variable to the engagement outcomes. In order to determine whether allowing the slope to vary randomly exhibited a significant improvement in model fit, each slope was allowed to vary one at a time and compared to the random-intercept only model for both behavioral and emotional engagement. Results indicated that the random slope for best friend quality was the only relation that varied across classrooms for both behavioral (χ2 (2) = 10.15, p < .05) and emotional engagement (χ2 (2) = 7.12, p < .05). This random slope indicates that there are between class differences in the relation between best friend quality with students’ behavioral and emotional engagement, which could be explained by adding L2 variables with the slope as the outcome in later models. Although the variance estimated

.64**

Note. *indicates p < .05; **indicates p < .01. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively.

including means, standard deviations, and correlations at level one (see Table 1). All correlations were in the expected direction and statistically significant (p < .01). The correlations between the three peer relationship variables were small to medium, ranging between r = 0.17 − 0.32. The correlation between teacher support and teacherstudent relatedness was larger, where r = 0.65. The moderate correlations between predictor variables suggest that each measure is a distinct construct. In descending magnitude, the associations between teacherstudent relatedness, teacher support, best friend quality, peer support, and social satisfaction with students’ behavioral engagement were positive. Likewise, the associations relating students’ social support with their emotional engagement demonstrated the same order of magnitude and were positively associated. 3.2. Variance of social support and engagement across classrooms We were first interested in examining how much variability existed in perceived social support and student engagement across classrooms. Therefore, we used each variable as the outcome in fully unconditional hierarchical models in order to partition the variance into within and between classroom components. This is traditionally the first step to assess whether nested models are necessary for understanding variability in the outcome of interest (Snijders & Bosker, 2012). However, because peer relationships are beginning to be examined at the classlevel, the intraclass correlations are important for identifying which factors are more likely to be explained by differences between classrooms in future research. Thus, Table 2 reports the between class variation for all study variables, including their 95% confidence intervals for significance. Excluding the non-significant intraclass correlation for social satisfaction, best friend quality exhibited the lowest variability between classrooms (less than 5%). In contrast, a sizeable proportion of variance occurred at the class-level for teacher-student relatedness, peer support, and teacher support. These percentages (ranged 13–14%) Table 2 Intraclass correlation coefficients for all study variables measured at level-1. Variable

Social Support Social Satisfaction Best Friend Quality Teacher-student Relatedness Peer Support Teacher Support Engagement Outcomes Behavioral Engagement Emotional Engagement

Intraclass Correlation Coefficient

95% Confidence Interval Lower

Upper

< .01 .04 .14

-.02 .01 .08

.03 .09 .23

.13 .15

.08 .09

.22 .24

.05 .08

.02 .04

.11 .15

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Table 3 Multilevel models predicting students’ behavioral engagement from individual and class-level social support.

Fixed Effects Intercept Student Covariates Grade-level Gender Student-level Support Social Satisfaction BFQ TS Relatedness Level 1 Control Peer Support Teacher Support Class-level Support PSM TSM Random Effects Student-level variance Class-level variance BFQ slope Model Fit -2Log likelihood AIC

Null

Student-level

Class-level

Model 0 β (SE)

Model 1 β (SE)

Model 2 β (SE)

Model 3 β (SE)

Model 4 β (SE)

4.07 (.04)***

4.05 (.06)***

4.12 (.06)***

4.13 (.06)***

4.13 (.05)***

−.20 (.08)* .20 (.06)**

−.21 (.08)** .07 (.05)

−.21 (.08)** .07 (.05)

−.19 (.07)* .07 (.05)

−.004 (.03) .17 (.03)*** .44 (.03)***

−.02 (.03) .18 (.04)*** .44 (.03)***

−.03 (.04) .16 (.04)*** .36 (.04)*** .06 (.03)* .09 (.03)* .19 (.08)* .22 (.07)**

.68 .034

.67 .028

.50 .034

.47 .035 .03

.47 .019 .02

−948.34 1902.68

−942.95 1895.90

−840.02 1696.04

−834.94 1689.89

−830.87 1689.74

Note. *indicates p < .05; ** indicates p < .01; *** indicates p < .001. Gender was coded as 0 for male and 1 for female. Grade-level was coded as 0 for fifth grade and 1 for sixth grade. BFQ, TS, TSM, and PSM are used to abbreviate best friend quality, teacher-student; teacher support mean, and peer support mean, respectively. Table 4 Multilevel models predicting students’ emotional engagement from individual and class-level social support.

Fixed Effects Intercept Student Covariates Grade-level Gender Student-level Support Social Satisfaction BFQ TS Relatedness Level 1 Control Peer Support Teacher Support Class-level Support PSM TSM Random Effects Student-level variance Class-level variance BFQ slope Model Fit -2Log likelihood AIC

Null

Student-level

Class-level

Model 0 β (SE)

Model 1 β (SE)

Model 2 β (SE)

Model 3 β (SE)

Model 4 β (SE)

3.41 (.07)***

3.46 (.10)***

3.53 (.06)***

3.55 (.09)***

3.51 (.08)***

−.17 (.13) .06 (.08)

−.17 (.13) −.08 (.07)

−.19 (.13) −.09 (.07)

−.09 (.11) −.08 (.07)

−.05 (.05) .14 (.04)** .67 (.05)***

−.05 (.05) .15 (.05)** .67 (.05)***

−.06 (.05) .10 (.05)* .48 (.06)*** .09 (.05)* .24 (.05)*** .09 (.13) .49 (.11)***

1.27 .11

1.27 .11

.94 .12

.91 .12 .03

.88 .08 .02

−1191.42 2388.85

−1193.08 2396.17

−1090.18 2196.37

−1086.63 2193.25

−1070.02 2168.09

Note. *indicates p < .05; **indicates p < .01; ***indicates p < .001. Gender was coded as 0 for male and 1 for female. Grade-level was coded as 0 for fifth grade and 1 for sixth grade. BFQ, TS, TSM, and PSM are used to abbreviate best friend quality, teacher-student; teacher support mean, and peer support mean, respectively.

in this sample was low (0.03), it nevertheless demonstrated a significantly improved fit for these data. Therefore, the random slope may need to be replicated in a larger or more diverse sample of classrooms, which may have more variance.

incorporating students’ individual (L1) psychological experience of peer and teacher support along with class-level means (L2), we can examine both the main effects associated with between classroom differences in perceived support, as well as contextual effects that occur after all individual perceptions have been accounted for. Therefore, model 4 included peer and teacher support at both levels of analysis. The coefficients for peer (β = 0.06, p < .05) and teacher (β = 0.09, p < .05) support had significant positive associations with behavioral engagement but were weaker than the other social support variables measured

3.4. Level two results: classroom social support and engagement The third research question investigated the between classroom (L2) associations of peer and teacher support with students’ engagement. By 169

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with emotional engagement between classrooms. However, these crosslevel interaction terms were non-significant and thus the final model reports only the main effects of the classroom social climate (i.e., peer and teacher support) on the intercept (i.e., between classroom differences in mean emotional engagement).

at L1 (i.e., best friend quality and teacher-student relatedness). Similarly, for students’ emotional engagement, peer and teacher support were significant and positive, with teacher support (β = 0.24, p < .01) having a stronger association than peer support (β = 0.09, p < .05). Given that peer and teacher support were measured as indicators of classroom-level social support, there was a negligible reduction in variance explained at level-one for both behavioral (4%) and emotional engagement (5%). However, these values at level-one facilitate comparison of the level-two main effects, explicated in the following sections. Behavioral engagement. Results for the class-level model indicated that students’ collective perceptions of classroom peer (β = 0.19, p < .05) and teacher (β = 0.22, p < .01) support were equally associated with positive changes in levels of behavioral engagement. Therefore, the classroom social climate provides a unique contribution that explains variability in students’ behavioral engagement in addition to students’ individual perceived relatedness with teachers and peers that were incorporated into the L1 models. At leveltwo, classroom social support reduced the unexplained variance by 46%. To examine the contextual effect of peer and teacher support, we tested whether the difference between the L2 and L1 coefficients were significantly different from zero (Enders & Tofighi, 2007). The contextual effect for both peer (β = 0.13, p > .05) and teacher support (β = 0.13, p > .05) were non-significant. Thus, although there are positive associations with students’ behavioral engagement when classrooms are characterized by higher levels of perceived support, these do not occur in the context when controlling for students’ individual self-reports. Finally, because model 3 determined that there was significant variability between classrooms in how best friend quality related to students’ behavioral engagement, we examined crosslevel interactions between best-friend quality with the classroom-level peer and teacher support means. However, these were non-significant and thus this variation in slope is likely related to unmeasured variables not considered in these analyses. Emotional engagement. The results for the class-level model suggested that students’ collective experience of teacher support is characterized by strong positive associations with emotional engagement (β = 0.49, p < .001), whereas peer support is weak and non-significant (β = 0.09, p > .05). When class-level indicators of peer and teacher support are included in the model, the relation between students’ best friend quality and emotional engagement at level-one remains significant, but is slightly attenuated (β = 0.10, p < .05). Meanwhile, the highly significant and strong positive associations for both teacher-student relatedness (β = 0.48, p < .001) and teacher support (β = 0.24, p < .001) endure at level-one. These patterns suggest that social support from teachers, both at the individual and classroom levels are consistently linked to levels of students’ emotional engagement, whereas peers’ influence on emotional engagement is more important when students’ relationships with teachers are not considered. Interestingly, peer support at the individual level carries a significant positive relation (β = 0.09, p < .05) with students’ emotional engagement whereas this does not persist for students’ perceptions of the peer climate at level-two (β = 0.09, p > .05). For emotional engagement, students’ perceptions of the social climate produced a 40% reduction in unexplained variance at level-2. Again, we examined the contextual effects by contrasting the L2 and L1 coefficients (Enders & Tofighi, 2007). There was no contextual effect for the associations between peer support and emotional engagement ((β = 0.02, p > .05). However, there was a contextual effect for teacher support (β = 0.24, p < .05). This indicates that if a student who has low perceptions of teacher support moves to a classroom characterized by higher levels of teacher support, then he/she is expected to be more emotionally engaged, even if their personal perception remains stable across classrooms. Finally, as with behavioral engagement, we also explored whether the classroom means for peer and teacher support could explain any of the variability in slope relating best friend quality

4. Discussion For decades, early adolescent scholars and educators have been challenged to counteract the negative trajectory in youth’s school engagement (Eccles et al., 1993). Accordingly, our study examined youth’s perceptions of their individual relationships with classroom peers and teachers, in conjunction with class-level social support, to understand how each relates to students’ classroom engagement. Findings from the current study add to growing evidence that peers are consequential for engagement in school, while also accentuating the continued significance of teacher-student relationships. Quality relationships with both peers and teachers improved the likelihood that adolescents reported higher levels of behavioral engagement in class. However, teacher-student relatedness was the most important for youth’s emotional involvement with subject-area content. Further, when classrooms are characterized by higher-levels of peer and teacher support on average, then this has positive associations students’ engagement. Therefore, interventions aimed at developing teachers’ skills for managing the overall classroom social climate are worthwhile. The lack of support for contextual effects on behavioral engagement, and for peers’ association with emotional engagement, suggests that simply being in a classroom characterized by higher levels of support is not enough to improve students’ engagement when their personal perceptions of support remain low. More individualized interventions would be necessary for these students, even when they are placed within a highly supportive classroom context. 4.1. Teacher and peer relationships First, we discuss these findings as they pertain to each source of classroom social support, teachers and peers. Affirming the robust findings in the literature, when adolescents perceived a high quality dyadic relationship with their teacher, as well as a safe and supportive climate, this benefited both their behavioral (e.g., effort and participation) and emotional (e.g., interest and enjoyment of the subject) engagement in the classroom (Cornelius-White, 2007; Quin, 2016). However, the associations between adolescents’ peer relationships and these dimensions of engagement were less consistent. As expected, close friendships were related to higher levels of behavioral engagement. When relationships with friends make students feel valued and important, their engagement is likely to improve (Furrer & Skinner, 2003). Although, best friend quality was also associated with students’ emotional engagement, there was a greater difference in how teacher and peer relationship quality was related. Prior research has found that the quality of students’ peer relationships is important for different facets of their emotional engagement in school, both when directly self-reported (i.e., Furrer & Skinner, 2003; Hosan & Hoglund, 2017), and among related facets such as school-liking (Boulton et al., 2011) and affect toward school (Ganotice & King, 2014). In our study, peer relationships may have had weaker associations with adolescents’ emotional engagement because of how emotional engagement was operationalized. Our study is distinct in that emotional engagement was domain specific and assessed students’ perceptions related to math and science, rather than their globalized sense of emotional involvement in school. Indeed, Wentzel et al. (2010) found that peer support was non-significantly associated with students interest in class, which more closely aligns with our measure of emotional engagement (albeit, still non-domain specific). We also expected to find a positive association between adolescents’ engagement and their social satisfaction with the classroom peer 170

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characteristics interacted with early adolescents’ perceived individual social relationships. In particular, the variation between classrooms in how best friendship quality related to students’ reported engagement led us to examine the classroom social climate as a moderator. While not hypothesized, this variability can be framed among tangential literature examining the associations between friendship and students’ academic outcomes, such as cognitive skills and group performance (Chung, Lount, Park, & Park, 2018; Kutnick & Kington, 2005; Wentzel et al., 2018). Through this lens, some studies find that there are no differences how friends and classmates collaborate and perform on academic tasks (Berndt, Perry, & Miller, 1988; Swenson & Strough, 2008), yet others do find positive friendship benefits (Azmitia & Montgomery, 1993). Thus, while our study did not affirm peer and teacher support as specific moderators, results do suggest that there may be important classroom-level characteristics that optimize how friendship quality supports students’ behavioral and emotional engagement. Returning to the literature, there are several moderators that warrant future consideration. First, research converges on the notion that friendship is beneficial for students’ academic outcomes depending on specific qualities of the task. When tasks are more challenging or require the production of an outcome in higher quantities, then friendship may prove more beneficial (Chung et al., 2018; Swenson & Strough, 2008) because it provides a supportive environment in which to resolve conflict and discuss disagreement (Wentzel et al., 2018). It follows then, at the classroom-level, that in an environment where students perceive high expectations and challenge, this attribute might also moderate the strength with which friendship quality affects engagement. Qualitative research on teachers’ reported grouping strategies also suggests that it is uncommon to explicitly teach social skills that improve students’ collaboration efforts (Kutnick, Blatchford, & Baines, 2005). Perhaps emerging research on teachers’ instruction that promotes social interaction (Patrick et al., 2007; Ryan & Patrick, 2001) and teachers’ practices to facilitate peer relations (Gest, Madill, Zadzora, Miller, & Rodkin, 2014; Ryan, Kuusinen, & Bedoya-Skoog, 2015), could elucidate classroom-level factors that moderate how friendship relates to students’ engagement across classrooms. These factors go beyond simply characterizing the environment as supportive or not, by identifying strategies that teachers can actively practice (e.g., by creating positive classroom roles, encouraging students to be helpful, or helping students to work out problems or disagreements).

network, yet this was not supported. We consider several possibilities for this unexpected finding. First, the literature suggests that there are multiple experiences of peer rejection, which have contrasting implications for adolescents’ adjustment. Some students may be passively excluded or socially withdrawn whereas other students are overtly victimized (Buhs, Ladd, & Herald, 2006). Wentzel and Asher (1995) examined the academic profiles among several subgroups of early adolescents based on their sociometric status and found that neglected students (those who were neither liked nor disliked by their peers) demonstrated positive academic beliefs and behaviors, such as higher levels of motivation, independence, respectful behavior, and were more liked by their teachers. In contrast, rejected students, who were expressly disliked, displayed higher levels of aggression, had low academic reputations, and were also less liked by teachers. Thus, for adolescents’ who are withdrawn or neglected by their peer group, they may report higher levels of social satisfaction when their personal value for network acceptance is low, thus not relating to their engagement in school. Using variable-centric methods of analyses, we are unable to determine if social satisfaction is more important for some students’ academic engagement than others. Second, in our sample, early adolescents reported higher levels of social satisfaction. Our measure adapted five items from Asher et al. (1984) original 16 item questionnaire. Perhaps including more items would improve the variability. 4.2. Individual and class-level associations Next, we consider the hierarchical nature of these relationships as they are embedded within the classroom social context. Of notable interest – adolescents’ perceptions of peer support were associated with their emotional engagement at the individual-level (i.e., their personal rating of support), but not when the peer climate was characterized positively among all students collectively. Although these associations were weak, it suggests that students’ individual perceived peer climate (e.g., the groups of students with whom adolescents may personally interact) contribute to levels of engagement, regardless of how students in the class collectively characterize their overall peer climate. For emotional engagement, it is possible that adolescents are attuned to their immediate peer group’s interactions surrounding their enjoyment and interest for math and science more than the class-wide peer climate. Due to classroom grouping practices or seating arrangements, adolescents may perceive differing peer cultures within the same class, where some groups of students (more than others) may be respectful, positive, and friendly toward one another. Moreover, this individual experience matters more for their emotional engagement. In contrast, behavioral engagement is associated at both levels, with adolescents’ concentric peer group, as well as the interactions among all other classroom peers. One reason for this could be that behavior is observable, whereas emotion is an internalized experience (for a review of academic emotions, see Pekrun & Stephens, 2012). When students in the class are disruptive, disrespectful, and unfriendly, this has wider consequences for adolescents on task behavior and attention in class, than their feelings about class content. These results are only somewhat consistent with the multilevel work conducted by Wentzel et al. (2017). In their study, they also found significant associations using coefficients of variation for teacher support with students’ effort and values, but not when using class-level variation for peer support. Given the limited body of literature that uses both individual and classroom-level indicators of perceived support, further research is needed to confirm these associations. Additionally, the differences in associations (between peer support and students’ emotional and behavioral engagement) found in the present study suggest that future research may extend these considerations toward other indicators of adolescents’ social and academic adjustment in school. Although peer and teacher support at the classroom-level contributed to mean differences in adolescents’ behavioral and emotional engagement, we did not find evidence that these classroom

4.3. Limitations and strengths Certainly, the findings from the current study must be evaluated within the circumstances of its limitations. First, our data were nested within classrooms and we did not have a strong sample size at level-3 to account for school-level effects in the hierarchical model. Although we did account for grade-level differences that are known to exist between elementary and middle schools, it may be important for future research with larger samples to replicate these findings with more precise nested models that consider students, within classrooms, within schools. Additionally, our cross-sectional design, with data collected at a single point in time, represents a snapshot of students’ classroom experiences. However, given that the purpose of our study was to examine relationships and the classroom social context, we believe that data collected in the spring of the school-year allowed adequate time for students to develop these relationships and report on their cumulative experiences that were representative of the academic school-year. We also only examined positive indicators of students’ relationship qualities, whereas understanding both positive and negative aspects (i.e., conflict with peers or dependency on teachers) of adolescents’ relationships would provide a more complete picture regarding students’ academic adjustment (Birch & Ladd, 1997; Brinkworth, McIntyre, Juraschek, & Gehlbach, 2017; Hosan & Hoglund, 2017). Studies using both positive and negative indicators of students’ relationship qualities 171

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students, along with their communication of support, underscores the continued significance of positive adult relationships even as children enter adolescence. This is especially true for early adolescents’ enjoyment of the subject-matter. Furthermore, our findings suggest that students’ individual experience of peer support makes an independent contribution to their level of behavioral engagement. Therefore, facilitating positive interactions both within naturally occurring peer groups, as well as teacher-selected seating arrangements, is important within the context of the larger peer climate. Although social satisfaction within the classroom was unrelated to early adolescents’ engagement, students did report higher levels of satisfaction overall. This suggests that in the smaller classroom social network, teachers may already be practicing inclusive grouping strategies that mitigate students’ feelings of isolation. With growing interest in the role of teachers as an “invisible hand” in adolescents’ peer world (Farmer, McAuliffe Lines, & Hamm, 2011), this study provides dual insight not only for how the socially supportive climate shapes classroom engagement, but also which facets of peer-to-peer relations are particularly important for teachers to facilitate.

have found that conflict can be more cyclical as it detracts from students’ engagement (e.g., off task behavior can reduce the quality of one’s relationships; Hosan & Hoglund, 2017; Skinner & Belmont, 1993). Finally, our study relied solely on students’ self-report measures. Although research indicates that students and teachers differentially report on their perceptions of the environment and engagement outcomes (Raviv, Raviv, & Reisel, 1990; Skinner et al., 2009), our theoretical framework regarding students’ self-system processes was contingent on students’ self-perceptions. When using others reports (i.e., teachers) or observations of students’ engagement, the associations may be less consistent (Kim & Cappella, 2016). Despite these limitations, there are also notable strengths that add novel contributions to the literature. First, our measures of relationship qualities and students’ engagement were assessed at matching levels of specificity. That is, students were asked to reflect on their classroom social satisfaction, and relationship qualities, along with classroom specific engagement. This specificity is important for future research to delineate how teachers and peers differentially relate to a wider range of engagement outcomes. Further, our multilevel analyses allowed us to investigate, at a finer level, how both individual relationships and early adolescents’ collective experience of the classroom social context simultaneously associate with students’ engagement. Finally, we incorporated multiple social partners (i.e., teachers and peers) to better represent the co-occurrence of these relationships in the classroom social ecology.

Funding source This work was supported, in part, by a grant from the Spencer Foundation awarded to Allison M. Ryan. The funding sponsor had no role in the study design, analysis, interpretation of data, writing of the report, nor the decision to submit the article for publication.

5. Conclusions

Declaration of interest

The present study contributes new knowledge about how teachers, as managers and facilitators of the classroom social context, can improve adolescents’ academic adjustment by attending to various facets of their classroom relationships. Students’ relationships with best friends seems to contribute more to their behavioral engagement, and it is possible that some features of the class climate could improve these associations, though we were not able to specify these in the present study. Not only that, but teachers’ individual relationships with

None. Acknowledgements We appreciate the constructive comments provided by Stuart Karabenick and Kai Cortina during the preparation of this manuscript.

Appendix A Level 1

Engagementij = β0j + β1j (Genderij) + β2j (Social Satisfactionij) + β3j (Best Friend Qualityij) + β4j (Teacher − student Relatedness ij) + β5j (Peer Support ij) + β6j (Teacher Support ij) + rij Level 2

β0j = γ00 + γ01 (Grade − levelij) + γ02 (Peer Support Meanij) + γ03 (Teacher Support Meanij) + u 0j

β1j = γ10 β2j = γ20 + γ22 (Peer Support Meanij) + γ23 (Teacher Support Meanij) + u2j

β3j = γ30 + γ32 (Peer Support Meanij) + γ33 (Teacher Support Meanij) + u3j β4j = γ40 + γ42 (Peer Support Meanij) + γ43 (Teacher Support Meanij) + u4j β5j = γ50

β6j = γ60 Appendix B. Supplementary material Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.03.006.

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