The stability and internal dynamics of students' emotional engagement was examined in a longitudinal study among primary and secondary school students over three terms. A total of 170 students were surveyed, and the study was conducted using structural equation modelling. The results showed that emotional engagement remained stable over time. Furthermore, the results showed that the students' emotional engagement in teacher-student relationships associated with emotional engagement in peer relations and explained the perceived peer-group relations over time. Surprisingly, the association between teacher-student and peer-group relations was stronger among the secondary school students than among the primary school students, implying that despite the contextual differences, teachers have real opportunities to promote positive peer influences at different phases of the school path.

This study explores the complexity of emotionally engaging schoolwork among students by analysing the interrelation between the affective and the social dimensions of emotional engagement. The data were collected from 78 Finnish sixth-grade (aged 12-13 years) and 89 eighth-grade (aged 14-15 years) students using picture tasks. The results show that the main elements of the affective dimension are the valuing of schoolwork and the enjoyment of learning, and the main element of the social dimension is a sense of belonging in terms of social cohesion and the support experienced by students. Furthermore, the results suggest that emotional engagement has internal dynamics: the affective and social dimension influence each other, regulating the students' sense of emotional engagement. Consequently, neither of the dimensions alone result in strong, balanced emotional engagement. In addition, the results show that the relation between the affective and social dimension was more unbalanced in the peer interaction than in the teacher-student interaction at both grade levels. This suggests that tensions in the peer interaction at school make for a more complicated context in terms of emotional engagement.

This study explored an individual variation in perceived social support from teachers, peers, and guardians and their association with experienced study engagement and study burnout. Two cohorts of students participated in the study: fourth graders from primary school (age 10, n = 2401) and seventh graders from lower secondary school (age 13, n = 1529) in Finland. The analysis was conducted using latent profile analysis. Several equivalent profiles with different configurations of perceived social support from three sources were identified in both age groups. The profiles differed from each other in terms of study engagement and study burnout. Moreover, social support from different sources had somewhat different functions on students’ study wellbeing, although teacher and peer support seemed to play particularly central roles.

This study explores strategies students use to construct their academic engagement in the social environment of school. The study is based on group interview data collected from 161 sixth (78) and eighth (83) grade students. Students reflected both engaging and disengaging episodes. Data were content analysed. The results show that students reported using only confirming strategies in teacher-

Effective social support from teachers, peers, and guardians is a key to promoting students' study wellbeing at school. However, little longitudinal research has examined the implications of distinctive combinations of social support for students' study wellbeing. To address this limitation, we measured multiple dimensions of school-related social support (teacher, peer, and guardian support), study engagement, and study-related burnout in a sample of 1,545 Finnish lower secondary school students in Grades 7, 8, and 9 (age 13, girls 51%). Latent transition analyses identified a six-profile solution for each wave of data and revealed substantial inequality in perceived social support. First, we found four profiles where social support from all three sources was experienced either on high, moderate, low, or very low level labeled as strong support (33%), moderate support (43%), low support (13%), and exceptionally low support (3%), respectively. In addition, two "mixed profiles" were found, where a low level of social support from one source was combined with moderate levels of social support from two other sources. These two profiles were labeled as adult support (5%) and low teacher support (3%) profiles. The social support profiles differed from each other in terms of study engagement and study-related burnout, suggesting that social support from specific sources has a somewhat different effect on features of students' study wellbeing. Moreover, the results showed that the experiences of school-related social support and study wellbeing are prone to change, highlighting the importance of each source of support throughout the students' school path.