What makes a student feel vital? Links between teacher-student relatedness and teachers’ engaging messages

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that teacher messages can affect students’ well-being. Using a multilevel, variable, and person-centred approach, this study aimed to identify profiles of students according to their teachers’ use of engaging messages and analyse the relation among these profiles and teacher-student relatedness and students’ subjective vitality. A total of 1209 students participated in the study. At the student-level, profile analysis indicated the existence of four different profiles: the few messages profile, the autonomous motivational appeals profile, the loss-framed messages profile, and the gain-framed messages profile. At the teacher level, profile analysis indicated the existence of two profiles: the variant and the invariant profiles. Results showed that overall, at both levels of analysis, teachers’ engaging messages related with teacher-student relatedness (either positively or negatively) with clear differences among profiles. Moreover, also at both levels of analysis, teacher-student relatedness related with students’ subjective vitality. Main findings and implications for practice are discussed.

Development of competencies in secondary education through the motivational style of autonomy support

“…Thus, the use of a positive communicative style in class, (e.g. autonomy support), which extols the value of the student's personal progress and is accompanied by explanations, has been shown to positively predict academic performance and task engagement, as these messages satisfy basic psychological needs (Santana-Monagas et al, 2021, 2022a, 2022b.…”