Carrie J. Furrer

Bio: Carrie J. Furrer is an academic researcher from Portland State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Student engagement & Early Head Start. The author has an hindex of 16, co-authored 27 publications receiving 4978 citations.

Sense of Relatedness as a Factor in Children's Academic Engagement and Performance.

Abstract: Children’s sense of relatedness is vital to their academic motivation from 3rd to 6th grade. Children’s (n 641) reports of relatedness predicted changes in classroom engagement over the school year and contributed over and above the effects of perceived control. Regression and cumulative risk analyses revealed that relatedness to parents, teachers, and peers each uniquely contributed to students’ engagement, especially emotional engagement. Girls reported higher relatedness than boys, but relatedness to teachers was a more salient predictor of engagement for boys. Feelings of relatedness to teachers dropped from 5th to 6th grade, but the effects of relatedness on engagement were stronger for 6th graders. Discussion examines theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of relatedness as a key predictor of children’s academic motivation and performance. When explaining motivational dynamics in school, psychologists frequently point to differences in children’s underlying beliefs and capacities. Decades of research show that children’s self-perceptions, such as self-efficacy, goal orientations, or autonomy, are robust predictors of motivation and performance in school, both concurrently and over many years (for reviews, see Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Stipek, 2002). At the same time, however, researchers note the centrality of social factors in children’s motivation (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Eccles et al., 1998; Goldstein, 1999; Juvonen & Wentzel, 1996; Resnick et al., 1997; Weiner, 1990). Research from multiple traditions demonstrates the impact on children’s motivation and learning of relationships with parents (Steinberg, Darling, & Fletcher, 1995), teachers (Stipek, 2002), and peers (Hymel, Comfort, Schonert-Reichl, & McDougall, 1996). Recently, these two general lines of thinking, one about selfperceptions and one about interpersonal relationships, have converged in the study of the motivational consequences of children’s sense of self in relationships. Studied under a variety of labels, such as social cognitive views of motivation (Weiner, 1990), internal working models (Bretherton, 1985), relationship representations (Ryan, Stiller, & Lynch, 1994), classroom climate (Anderson, 1982), and perceived social support (Wentzel, 1999), the core notion is that a history of interactions with specific social partners leads children to construct generalized expectations about the nature of the self in relationships. Also referred to as a sense of relatedness (Connell, 1990), connectedness (Weiner, 1990), or belonging (Goodenow, 1993), these organized self-system processes include views about the self as lovable (or unworthy of love) and about the social world as trustworthy (or hostile). Children rely on these beliefs when predicting, interpreting, and responding to social exchanges, and these exchanges can in turn be used to confirm or revise children’s beliefs. A sense of relatedness may function as a motivational resource when children are faced with challenge or difficulties. In times of stress, children who experience trusted others as “backing them up” respond with more vigor, flexibility, and constructive actions. A sense of relatedness is the focus of the present study. Building on the growing body of work on the role of relationship representations, we attempted to explore the effects of a sense of relatedness, both generally and toward specific social partners, on children’s academic motivation and performance during middle childhood.

Engagement and Disaffection in the Classroom: Part of a Larger Motivational Dynamic?

Abstract: A study of 805 4th through 7th graders used a model of motivational development to guide the investigation of the internal dynamics of 4 indicators of behavioral and emotional engagement and disaffection and the facilitative effects of teacher support and 3 student self-perceptions (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) on changes in these indicators over the school year. In terms of internal dynamics, emotional components of engagement contributed significantly to changes in their behavioral counterparts; feedback from behavior to changes in emotion were not as consistent. Teacher support and students' self-perceptions (especially autonomy) contributed to changes in behavioral components: Each predicted increases in engagement and decreases in disaffection. Tests of process models revealed that the effects of teacher context were mediated by children's self-perceptions. Taken together, these findings suggest a clear distinction between indicators and facilitators of engagement and begin to articulate the dynamics between emotion and behavior that take place inside engagement and the motivational dynamics that take place outside of engagement, involving the social context, self-systems, and engagement itself.

A Motivational Perspective on Engagement and Disaffection: Conceptualization and Assessment of Children's Behavioral and Emotional Participation in Academic Activities in the Classroom

Abstract: This article presents a motivational conceptualization of engagement and disaffection: First, it emphasizes children’s constructive, focused, enthusiastic participation in the activities of classroom learning; second, it distinguishes engagement from disaffection, as well as behavioral features from emotional features. Psychometric properties of scores from teacher and student reports of behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, behavioral disaffection, and emotional disaffection were examined using data from 1,018 third through sixth graders. Structural analyses of the four indicators confirm that a multidimensional structure fits the data better than do bipolar or unidimensional models. Validity of scores is supported by findings that teacher reports are correlated with student reports, with in vivo observations in the classroom, and with markers of self-system and social contextual processes. As such, these measures capture important features of engagement and disaffection in the classroom, and any comprehensive assessment should include markers of each. Additional dimensions are identified, pointing the way to future research.

The Influence of Teacher and Peer Relationships on Students' Classroom Engagement and Everyday Motivational Resilience

Abstract: The quality of students’ relationships with teachers and peers is a fundamental substrate for the development of academic engagement and achievement. This chapter offers teachers and researchers a ...

How do relationships support parenting? Effects of attachment style and social support on parenting behavior in an at-risk population.

Abstract: The importance of supportive relationships for new parents has been the focus of both research and parenting interventions. Attachment style, typically viewed as a relatively stable trait reflecting one’s comfort in social relationships, as well as social support, or one’s perception of the social context, have both been found to be important for fostering engaged, involved parenting. Less is known, however, about how these variables work together to influence parenting behavior, especially in families at higher risk for negative child outcomes. Data were collected from 152 urban, predominantly African American, low-income parents when their children were 14 and 36 months of age. Results suggest that parents with more social support show greater increases in the frequency of positive parent–child activities over time, but that this effect is mediated by mothers’ attachment style, specifically, their level of anxious/ambivalent attachment. Mothers with more social support tended to be less anxious/ambivalent about close relationships, and this in turn led to increases over time in the frequency of parent–child interactions. Mothers’ tendency to avoid close relationships, however, while correlated with social support, was unrelated to changes in parenting behavior. Implications of these findings for program development, parenting, and the malleability of attachment style based on social context are discussed.

School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence

Abstract: The concept of school engagement has attracted increasing attention as representing a possible antidote to declining academic motivation and achievement. Engagement is presumed to be malleable, responsive to contextual features, and amenable to environmental change. Researchers describe behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement and recommend studying engagement as a multifaceted construct. This article reviews definitions, measures, precursors, and outcomes of engagement; discusses limitations in the existing research; and suggests improvements. The authors conclude that, although much has been learned, the potential contribution of the concept of school engagement to research on student experience has yet to be realized. They call for richer characterizations of how students behave, feel, and think—research that could aid in the development of finely tuned interventions

The Influence of Affective Teacher–Student Relationships on Students’ School Engagement and Achievement A Meta-Analytic Approach

Abstract: A meta-analytic approach was used to investigate the associations between affective qualities of teacher–student relationships (TSRs) and students’ school engagement and achievement. Results were based on 99 studies, including students from preschool to high school. Separate analyses were conducted for positive relationships and engagement (k = 61 studies, N = 88,417 students), negative relationships and engagement (k = 18, N = 5,847), positive relationships and achievement (k = 61, N = 52,718), and negative relationships and achievement (k = 28, N = 18,944). Overall, associations of both positive and negative relationships with engagement were medium to large, whereas associations with achievement were small to medium. Some of these associations were weaker, but still statistically significant, after correction for methodological biases. Overall, stronger effects were found in the higher grades. Nevertheless, the effects of negative relationships were stronger in primary than in secondary school.

A critique of the cross-lagged panel model.

Abstract: The cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) is believed by many to overcome the problems associated with the use of cross-lagged correlations as a way to study causal influences in longitudinal panel data. The current article, however, shows that if stability of constructs is to some extent of a trait-like, time-invariant nature, the autoregressive relationships of the CLPM fail to adequately account for this. As a result, the lagged parameters that are obtained with the CLPM do not represent the actual within-person relationships over time, and this may lead to erroneous conclusions regarding the presence, predominance, and sign of causal influences. In this article we present an alternative model that separates the within-person process from stable between-person differences through the inclusion of random intercepts, and we discuss how this model is related to existing structural equation models that include cross-lagged relationships. We derive the analytical relationship between the cross-lagged parameters from the CLPM and the alternative model, and use simulations to demonstrate the spurious results that may arise when using the CLPM to analyze data that include stable, trait-like individual differences. We also present a modeling strategy to avoid this pitfall and illustrate this using an empirical data set. The implications for both existing and future cross-lagged panel research are discussed.

Can Instructional and Emotional Support in the First‐Grade Classroom Make a Difference for Children at Risk of School Failure?

Abstract: This study examined ways in which children's risk of school failure may be moderated by support from teachers. Participants were 910 children in a national prospective study. Children were identified as at risk at ages 5-6 years on the basis of demographic characteristics and the display of multiple functional (behavioral, attention, academic, social) problems reported by their kindergarten teachers. By the end of first grade, at-risk students placed in first-grade classrooms offering strong instructional and emotional support had achievement scores and student-teacher relationships commensurate with their low-risk peers; at-risk students placed in less supportive classrooms had lower achievement and more conflict with teachers. These findings have implications for understanding the role that classroom experience may play in pathways to positive adaptation.