Introduction: This article aims to show the contribution of mixed methods research (Creswell 2015;Smith and McGannon 2018) to a study conducted within the Course-of-Action Research Programme (Theureau 2006(Theureau , 2015. It analyses the experience of French vocational high-school students in physical education over a school year to identify and understand the social support of the teacher in engaging the students. This enabled us to describe and understand the typical supports experienced by students to engage with the work.
Results:The quantitative results showed a global perception of frequent and important class-wide teacher social support via the CASS-S questionnaire. Furthermore, a more in-depth analysis shows variations over the year. This overall analysis is complemented by qualitative findings that provide insight into the significance that students attach to teacher support in their engagement with school tasks. The analysis of students' experience shows different kinds of typical-support paired with: the valorisation of students' progress, the students' concerns, the game action of the teacher, and teacher knowledge, promoting their engagement.