Promoting an agentic orientation: An intervention in university psychology and physical science courses.

Abstract

Agentic engagement, or attempts to proactively influence instruction, predicts positive classroom climate and students' motivation. As such, it is a potentially effective target for intervention, though causal evidence is limited. This investigation explored whether an agentic orientation could be cultivated through a brief, online intervention for university students and the potential benefits of such an intervention. Three randomized field experiments with college students in psychology (Study 1 and Study 2) or introductory physics and chemistry courses (Study 3) tested the effects of an agentic orientation intervention compared with an alternative study skills intervention or an inactive control condition. The intervention encouraged students to view their motivational experiences in class as malleable and responsive to agentic behaviors they were encouraged to use. Relative to the alternative intervention (Studies 1 and 3) and inactive control (Studies 1, 2, and 3), students exposed to the target intervention at the beginning of the semester later reported a more agentic mindset. Indirect effects indicated that the intervention predicted greater student-reported in-class agentic and other forms of engagement, instructor autonomy support, need satisfaction, domain personal interest, and intention to persist in the field at the end of the semester via an enhanced agentic mindset. Multigroup comparisons suggested that the intervention worked similarly for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in science compared with their counterparts, with limited evidence of variation on certain outcomes. The investigation provides preliminary causal evidence regarding the benefits of intervening on an agentic orientation. Educational Impact and Implications StatementThree randomized field experiments were conducted with college students in psychology, physics, and chemistry courses to examine whether an agentic orientation (that is, an orientation for proactively and constructively influencing the flow of instruction and motivational experiences in the classroom) could be cultivated through a brief, online intervention, as well as the benefits of such an intervention. Results suggested that students exposed to the intervention at the beginning of the semester later viewed their classroom motivational experiences as malleable and responsive to agentic behavior more so than students in an alternative intervention or an inactive control condition. In turn, this agentic mindset predicted more engagement, including agentic engagement, as well as more need satisfaction, personal interest in the domain, intention to persist in the field, and instructor autonomy support, according to student reports at the end of the semester. Results point to the potential power of targeting students' agentic orientation as a lever for changing motivation and the classroom climate.

Longitudinal reciprocal effects of agentic engagement and autonomy support: Between- and within-person perspectives.

“…Similarly, students who perceived higher autonomy-supportive teaching at one point in the flow of instruction subsequently reported greater agentic engagement at a later point in the flow of instruction, compared to other students who perceived a lower level of autonomy-supportive teaching. This result replicated and confirmed existing findings from twowave longitudinal studies, experimental studies, and an overall group of studies testing the unidirectionality of the teacherfacilitating path or the student-facilitating path (Bordbar, 2019(Bordbar, , 2021Jiang & Zhang, 2021;Matos et al, 2018;Michou et al, 2023;Patall et al, 2019Patall et al, , 2021Reeve, 2013;Reeve et al, , 2022. This reciprocal interplay was invariant over the four time waves.…”

“…Through their acts of agentic engagement, students help teachers become aware of what students want, need, and are interested in doing, and this awareness may change how the teacher interacts with students during instruction. Accordingly, such student agency tends to longitudinally increase the teacher’s autonomy-supportive instructional behavior (Matos et al, 2018; Patall et al, 2021; Reeve et al, 2020). Students’ agentic engagement is educationally important not only because such acts of agency help students create a more supportive learning environment for themselves but also because they enable greater academic motivation, learning, and achievement (Patall et al, 2021; Reeve, 2013; Reeve et al, 2020, 2022; Reeve & Tseng, 2011).…”

Students’ beliefs about agentic engagement: A phenomenological study in urban high school physical science and engineering classes.

“…Beyond these teacher and student factors, the literature suggests that students who agentically engage may do so because of an underlying belief that such behavior will actually change their learning experiences. In a randomized controlled trial, Patall and colleagues (2021) randomly assigned undergraduate college students in chemistry and physics courses to a web-based agentic engagement orientation intervention or one of two control conditions. They found that students who received the target (agentic) intervention reported a more agentic mindset (an orientation toward viewing their motivation and instructor practice as malleable and responsive to agentic behaviors), which in turn, predicted greater student-reported in-class engagement, instructor autonomy support, and need satisfaction.…”

John Henryism, psychological labor, and control-value theory: Race, ethnicity, and situational coping for student success

“…Specifically, depending on the direction, i.e., positive or negative, and valence, i.e., activating or deactivating, cognitive engagement will vary (Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012;Pekrun and Marsh, 2022). For example, it is reasonable to predict that students who show more excitement and greater levels of activity during a task (positive activating emotions), along with more agency, will also have greater levels of cognitive engagement, e.g., greater skill use, and sense of control over their engagement and learning (Patall et al, 2022). Alternatively, it is reasonable to predict that students who show greater levels of stress and anxiety during a task (negative activating emotions) will have lower levels of cognitive engagement because they will be attending to their stress and anxiety.…”

“…Based on our prior research (Torsney et al, 2022) and the theoretical underpinning of John Henryism as a precursor for engagement, we hypothesize that John Henryism will activate the CVT and momentary engagement system. That is, John Henryism will mediate relationships among specific demographics by increasing control (Brody et al, 2020;Patall et al, 2022) and value, increasing positive emotions and lowering negative emotions (Gaydosh et al, 2018;Robinson and Thomas Tobin, 2021), and increasing cognitive engagement (Torsney et al, 2022).…”