Motivational climate in mathematics classrooms: teacher self-efficacy for student engagement, student- and teacher-reported emotional support and student interest

Abstract

Mathematics interest is highly relevant for students’ academical and emotional development in the domain of mathematics. Thus, it appears alarming that students’ mathematics interest decreases during the course of secondary school. Teacher self-efficacy is a central facet of teacher motivation and is assumed to be highly relevant for student mathematics interest. However, there is a paucity of research that investigates the longitudinal and indirect relations through which teacher self-efficacy relates to students’ interest through their teaching behaviors in mathematics classrooms. Therefore, in the present longitudinal study we aim to contribute to research by identifying how teacher self-efficacy for student engagement contributes to students’ mathematics interest in secondary classrooms through student- and teacher-reported support. We used a sample of mathematics teachers (n = 50) and their students (n = 959). Longitudinal data of three measurement waves collected from German ninth grade mathematics classrooms were included in the analysis. Results of latent-manifest multi-level analysis showed that teacher self-efficacy for student engagement at Time 1 (beginning of ninth grade) positively predicted student-perceived, but not teacher-perceived, teacher emotional support at Time 2 (beginning of tenth grade), which in turn positively predicted students’ mathematics interest at Time 3 (middle of tenth grade). A possible implication for mathematics teachers’ educational practice involves strengthening mathematics teachers’ self-efficacy for student engagement by means of direct interventions and in-servive training for mathematics teachers.

Influence of Self-Efficacy, Perceived Enjoyment and Ease of Use on Mathematics Learning Satisfaction in Virtual Environments

“…Mathematics proficiency is an indicator of students' good academic and emotional development; its importance allows those who master mathematics to have a good reputation and feel a positive emotional sensation (Hettinger et al, 2022). Despite the relevance in the educational context, the lowest percentage of students actively participate in mathematics classes, so institutions have to support a different perspective regarding this course, taking advantage of virtual content creation.…”

How Distributed Leadership Affects Social and Emotional Competence in Adolescents: The Chain Mediating Role of Student-Centered Instructional Practices and Teacher Self-Efficacy

“…It reflects teachers' confidence in their teaching abilities. Empirical studies indicate a positive correlation between teacher self-efficacy and students' perceived teacher emotional support [50], closely tied to adolescents' social and emotional competence. Moreover, teacher efficacy significantly influences students' perceived social relationships, enhancing their interpersonal skills and social awareness [51].…”

Emotions and motivation in mathematics education: Where we are today and where we need to go

“…The prevalent motivation theory used in the contributions was EVT (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020), which served as the theoretical framework for the contributions by Beswick et al (2022), Böswald and Schukajlow (2022), Gaspard et al (2022), Jenifer et al (2022), Wiezel (2022), andRach (2022). Other important motivational theories considered in the contributions were self-determination theory and Bandura's (2003) social-cognitive theory of self-efficacy, which were used simultaneously or separately in the contributions by Hettinger et al (2022), Rach (2022), Skilling and Stylianides (2022), and Zhang et al (2022). In other papers (Renninger et al, 2022;Seah, 2022;Skilling & Stylianides, 2022), researchers addressed Hidi and Renninger's (2006) theory of interest development, a cognitive engagement framework (Skilling & Stylianides, 2022), or a theory of well-being as value fulfilment (Tiberius, 2018) in the contribution by Seah (2022).…”