Measuring Teacher Practices That Support Student Motivation: Examining the Factor Structure of the Teacher as Social Context Questionnaire Using Multilevel Factor Analyses

Abstract

We used multilevel factor analyses to investigate the structure of the Teacher as Social Context Questionnaire (TASCQ)-short form—a prominent measure of teacher practices that promote student motivation to learn. Based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the TASCQ contains three scales: Autonomy Support, Structure, and Involvement. Few studies have tested the construct validities of these three scales together. Furthermore, the few studies using factor analyses with these constructs’ scales showed mixed results. Moreover, none of those studies properly modeled the clustered nature of data with a multilevel analysis. We examined the structure of TASCQ scores from 697 fifth and sixth graders in 35 classes by conducting multilevel exploratory and multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, each with half the sample. Results indicated that students did not distinguish among Autonomy Support, Structure, and Involvement items; the best fit was a single factor.

An Evaluation of an Intervention Programme in Teacher Training for Geography and History: A Reliability and Validity Analysis

“…Also worthy of note is the idea that the pupils considered that they were able to contribute their own opinions and, above all, to carry out projects in groups. These results are in line with other work that has concluded that support for autonomy, class structure, and active participation contribute to improved student motivation [47,48].…”

Why students feel competent in the classroom: A qualitative content analysis of students’ views

“…However, in line with past SDT research ( Ahn et al, 2019 ; Vasconcellos et al, 2020 ), our category system indicated overlaps between relatedness support and the other need support variables from the interviewed students’ perspective. For example, the category Participation possibilities and autonomy-supportive interaction might be discussed both from a relatedness support perspective and an autonomy support perspective.…”

“…As discussed for Tables 2 and 3, the interviewed students' perspectives additionally indicate that, based on the analyzed teaching factors, it might be fruitful as well as feasible for future research to elaborate integrative recommendations for practitioners with regard to students' competence satisfaction (Anderman, 2020). However, in line with past SDT research (Ahn et al, 2019;Vasconcellos et al, 2020), our category system indicated overlaps between relatedness support and the other need support variables from the interviewed students' perspective. For example, the category Participation possibilities and autonomy-supportive interaction might be discussed both from a relatedness support perspective and an autonomy support perspective.…”

Teacher-student relationship and academic achievement in China: Evidence from a three-level meta-analysis

“…As past studies did not use multilevel factor analyses of the four possible factor structures (single, multiple, hierarchical, nested [bifactor]) of TSR (Ahn et al, 2019), they showed conflicting results (one factor: Adams & Turner, 2014; Ingels et al, 2004; two factors: Drugli & Hjemdal, 2013; three factors: Ang et al, 2008, 2020), so our meta-analysis tested whether different TSR measures showed significantly different links to SAA. The non-significant moderation effect of TSR measure showed that its different measures do not significantly affect its estimated link with SAA.…”

“…Study limitations unrelated to the underlying phenomena (TSR measure, SAA measure, publication type, publication year) might also affect the results (and omitting significant study limitation effects can bias the overall effect size, omitted variable bias; Cinelli & Hazlett, 2020). No published study has used an appropriate multilevel factor analysis of the four possible factor structures (single, multiple, hierarchical, nested [bifactor]) of TSR (see full procedure and details in Ahn et al, 2019), and past studies have shown one TSR factor (Adams & Turner, 2014;Ingels et al, 2004), 2 TSR factors (Drugli & Hjemdal, 2013), or 3 TSR factors (Ang et al, 2008(Ang et al, , 2020, so our meta-analysis tested whether different TSR measures yielded significant differences in their links to SAA.…”