Relationships

The quality of relationships within a school is one of the most consistent predictors of student engagement. 

This collection examines how student-teacher relationships, peer connectedness, sense of belonging and family involvement shape whether students feel safe, valued and motivated to participate.

 It pays particular attention to autonomy support, perspective-taking and behaviour management — not as a disciplinary function, but through its relational impact on the conditions for engagement.

How teachers can support students’ agentic engagement

This study makes the case for change by highlighting how teacher motivating styles (autonomy supportive, indifferent, controlling) impact student motivation...

A Multidimensional and Multilevel Examination of Student Engagement and Secondary School Teachers’ Use of Classroom Management Practices

This large-scale quantitative study investigated how secondary school teachers' classroom management practices relate to multiple dimensions of student...

Learning how to become an autonomy-supportive teacher begins with perspective taking: A RCT and model test

This randomised controlled trial tests whether teachers can be trained to become more autonomy-supportive — and whether the key mechanism is their capacity...

School engagement trajectories in adolescence: The role of peer likeability and popularity

Following over 1,000 students from Grades 7 to 11, this Belgian longitudinal study draws an important distinction between being liked and being popular. Students who were well-liked by peers tended to show higher behavioural and emotional engagement at the start of secondary school, while those who were perceived as popular showed lower behavioural engagement and higher disaffection