Joint implications of teachers and classroom peers for adolescents' aggression and engagement

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Abstract

This study investigated the mediation and moderation roles of classroom peer norms (CPNs) on the associations of teacher support with student aggression and academic engagement across the first year of middle school (fall and spring of sixth grade). Students (N = 312; 49% females) were from 32 classrooms in three schools. Data included peer-nominated aggression (overt, relational) and self-reported engagement (involved, disruptive behavior) and teacher support. Multilevel modeling analyses indicated a mediation model for disruptive behavior and trends of mediation for aggression, as the negative associations of fall classroom level teacher support with spring disruptive behavior and aggression were mediated by the corresponding CPN. Findings indicated a moderation model for involved behavior; students reported higher levels of involved behavior in the spring if they perceived more teacher support than their classmates and if the involved behavior CPN was high in the fall. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Section snippets

Aggression and academic engagement during early adolescence

Research indicates there is often an increased salience in aggression (Pellegrini & Long, 2002) and decline in academic engagement (Lamote et al., 2013; Li & Lerner, 2011) during early adolescence. Despite bringing benefits in certain conditions such as high peer status (Bellmore, Villarreal, & Ho, 2011), aggression is more likely to cause negative consequences including peer rejection, impaired teacher-student relationships, and academic failure (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995; Stipek & Miles, 2008).

Mediation of CPNs on the relation of teacher support with aggression and engagement

Teachers and classroom peer norms (CPNs) are influential contextual factors for student aggression and academic engagement during early adolescence. Mediation is one potential mechanism how teacher support and CPNs may jointly influence student adjustment (see Fig. 1; Farmer et al., 2011). However, no such models have been explicitly examined. In this section, we review literature that supports the three paths which lead to the examination of a mediation model, namely the relation of teacher

Moderation of CPNs on the relation of teacher support with aggression and engagement

The classroom is a mini “society”, in which the teacher and students contribute to the construction of its culture (Farmer et al., 2019). Recent research indicates teacher support moderates the relation of CPNs with student disruptive behavior in middle schools (Müller et al., 2018; Shin & Ryan, 2017). However, it is unclear whether or not CPNs moderate the relation of teacher support with student adjustment. This is important to know, as teachers' contribution to the classroom culture goes

The present study

Guided by ecological theory, this study investigated the joint implications of teacher support and classroom peer norms (CPNs) for student aggression and engagement across the first year of middle school. The study examined a mediation and moderation model separately for each of the four aspects of student adjustment: overt and relational aggression, as well as involved and disruptive behavior. In each model, only the CPN for the corresponding outcome was included. For instance, overt

Procedure

Data were collected in the fall and spring of sixth grade with approximately six months apart as part of a larger longitudinal study that investigated motivation and peer relations across the middle school transition. Three middle schools were recruited, which served a large, ethnically diverse, urban community in the southeastern United States. The average rate of free or reduced-fee lunch was 31% across three schools. The average mobility rate was 20% across schools, including students who

Preliminary analyses

Means, standard deviations, skewness, kurtosis, and correlations are reported in Table 1. Gender was categorical (0 = boy, 1 = girl); all other variables were continuous. The mean was relatively high for fall class average (Level 2) teacher support (M = 4.11; SD = 0.27), as well as fall involved behavior CPN (M = 4.18, SD = 0.32) and spring involved behavior (M = 3.92, SD = 0.99), and relatively low for fall disruptive behavior CPN (M = 2.13, SD = 0.32) and spring disruptive behavior (M = 2.36,

Discussion

Aligning with ecological theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1970), this study advances prior research by examining mediation and moderation as two potential mechanisms how teachers and classroom peers may jointly influence students' social and academic adjustment (Farmer et al., 2011; Müller et al., 2018; Neal & Neal, 2013; Shin & Ryan, 2017). The findings indicated a mediation model on the relation of teacher support with student disruptive behavior via CPN, a trend for mediation models for overt and

Conclusion

This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence of potential mechanisms (i.e., mediation and moderation) regarding how teachers and classroom peers jointly influence student aggression and academic engagement during the first year of middle school. Specifically, the classroom average perception of teacher support was negatively associated with disruptive behavior, and possibly overt and relational aggression, through the corresponding classroom peer norm (i.e.,

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Joy Huanhuan Wang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Sarah M. Kiefer: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Resources, Supervision, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing

Declaration of Competing Interest

We have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Acknowledgement

This paper and the research behind it would not have been possible without the exceptional support of our families.

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