This investigation comprised two studies that sought to identify the role of COVID-related disruptions in Australian university students' academic motivation and engagement. Study 1 involved a dataset of 500 university students and examined the links between COVID-19 pandemic disruptions (remote and hybrid learning modes, lockdown, isolation) and…

Student engagement in mathematics in the early secondary years can be fragile. Engagement in learning fluctuates in response to students' mathematics experiences and is underpinned by numerous adaptive and maladaptive factors. Thirty-seven 11-12 year old students (grades 6-7) responded twice to a questionnaire to measure shifts in their engagement…

There is a well-documented developmental decline in engagement among adolescents throughout secondary school. Given this pattern of engagement poses problems for both student well-being and their academic outcomes, it is important to examine potential strategies to address this decline. As a growth-oriented strategy, personal best (PB) goal…

The present longitudinal study examined the reciprocal relationships among students' academic buoyancy, their perceptions of school support (learning support, teacher relational support, school belonging, and classroom management), and their motivation and engagement (perseverance, perceived competence, valuing of school) across 1 year of school.…

The present investigation examined the role of teachers' instructional support (student reports of relevance, organization and clarity, feedback-feedforward) in predicting students' growth goal setting and, in turn, the roles of instructional support and growth goal setting in predicting students' academic engagement (perseverance, aspirations,…

Among a sample of 2,071 Australian high school students nested within 188 science classrooms, the present study explored the role of science teachers' "load reduction instruction" (LRI; instruction that seeks to reduce cognitive load by appropriately balancing explicit instruction with guided autonomy) in student- and classroom-level…

Teacher-student relationships are an important part of students' interpersonal context at school that impacts their academic development. This study extended prior research into teacher-student relationships by exploring the relative balance of negative and positive teacher-student relationships in high school students' academic lives (in each of…

Using growth modeling, this study examined trajectories of 'switching on' (aspirations) and 'switching off' (disengagement) in mathematics across middle school and high school. In addition, guided by principles under expectancy-value theory, the study sought to determine the extent to which patterns of growth differed by motivation (self-efficacy…

Among a sample of 472 Indigenous high school students, juxtaposed with 15,884 non-Indigenous students from the same 54 schools, we investigated variation in motivation and engagement from school to school, and the role of motivation and engagement in predicting various academic outcomes (aspirations, buoyancy, homework completion, and…

The present study sought to extend prior research in the Chinese context by examining the role of demographic and socioeconomic factors in middle school students' motivation, engagement, academic buoyancy, and adaptability. A total of 2,434 middle school students (aged 11-15 years) in China participated in the study. For demographic factors,…

We started with a classic research question ("How do teachers motivate and engage middle year students in mathematics?") that is solidly underpinned and guided by an integration of two theoretical and multidimensional models. In particular, the current study illustrates how theory is important for guiding qualitative analytical…

Using mobile technology and experience sampling in junior high school, real-time motivation and engagement were explored at four-levels: between lessons (up to 2 lessons per day; Level 1), between days (5 days per week; L2), between weeks (4 weeks; L3), and between students (113 students; L4). Findings for a 'random effects' model revealed…

Museums promote co-learning through the construction of a social community, one that involves personal, physical, and sociocultural contexts. As researchers and museum educators, we report some of our contextual reflections and recommendations that emerged from our collaborative learning experience of conducting research in a medical science…

This study explored the beliefs about student engagement in mathematics of three Year 5 and 6 teachers, focusing on the shifts that occurred during a 10-week intervention. Data obtained from teacher surveys, interviews, video-recorded workshop observations and artefacts from teachers' classrooms reveal variations in their reactions to the…

Background: Prior cross-cultural research with students in different national contexts (Australia and China) has shown consistency in the extent to which individual personal best (PB) goals are associated with engagement at school. Aims: This study extends this work to a multicultural context, assessing perceived PB goal structure in school and…