Development Of Academic Engagement Of Left-behind Children In Primary School And Its Relationship With Teacher-student Relationship

Left-behind children(LBC)are a large group and they have become a vulnerable group in our society that cannot be ignored.Compared with non-left-behind children(NLBC),one or both parents of LBC work outside for a long time,and the absence of parent-child bonding disrupts their normal family structure and function,which makes LBC vulnerable to maladaptation problems and difficult to actively engage in learning.Academic engagement is a continuous,positive affective state that students exhibit in their learning activities.It reflects students’ behavioral,emotional and cognitive engagement in the process of learning activities.Academic engagement provides a visual representation of student learning effort and is not only a major predictor of student academic achievement,but also an important observer of educational quality.For children in elementary school,academic engagement not only affects the acquisition of knowledge and skills,but also the achievement of their initial socialization,which is an important part of their healthy development.Currently,some studies have examined students’ learning engagement,and the subjects have covered different learning stages.However,most of these studies have ignored the differences in behavioral,emotional,and cognitive engagement,and the subjects in these studies have mainly focused on NLBC,ignoring LBC who are at risk for academic achievement.In the context of one or both parents working outside the home,the basic information about the three types of academic engagement of LBC is not yet clear.Teacher-student relationship is one of the important influencing factors on the academic engagement of LBC,but few studies have focused on the dynamic development of the relationship between them.The dynamic influence of teacherstudent relationship on the academic engagement of LBC is not clear.Combining both variable-based and individual-based research ideas,this study intends to examine each of them through three studies from on a longitudinal perspective.Firstly,to understand the current status of academic engagement of LBC,Study 1 analyzed the basic situation of academic engagement of LBC at baseline time(T1)by means of t-test and ANOVA,using non-left-behind children(NLBC)as the control group.In addition,to clarify the longitudinal effect of teacher-student relationship on the academic engagement of LBC,study 1 will construct a structural equation model to test the intertemporal effect of teacher-student relationship on the academic engagement of LBC through three follow-up data to assess whether teacherstudent relationship is a stable predictor of the academic engagement of LBC.Then,in order to examine the development and changes in the academic engagement of LBC over time,study 2 first examined the developmental trajectory of the behavioral,emotional,and cognitive engagement of LBC by constructing an unconditional latent variable growth model,and then examined the effect of the teacher-student relationship on the developmental trajectory of the academic engagement of LBC by constructing a conditional latent variable growth model.Finally,study 3 used an individual-centered approach based on Study 2.First,study 3 examines the types of academic engagement of LBC at the three time points based on the potential profile analysis method.Second,study 3 examined the transformation of the types of academic engagement of LBC between the three time points based on the potential category transformation analysis method.Finally,study 3 examined the role of teacher-student relationship in maintaining stability or transformation of different types of academic engagement of LBC.In this study,by a cluster sampling method,598 LBC from Anhui Province,China completed the Teacher-student Relationship Questionnaire and the Academic Engagement Questionnaire at three time points.The main findings are as follows:1.There were significant differences between LBC and NLBC in the three levels of academic engagement.The LBC were significantly lower than the NLBC in behavioral,emotional and cognitive engagement.There were significant gender differences in the three types of academic engagement among LBC,with girls significantly higher than boys,and there were no gender differences in the three types of academic engagement among NLBC.There were no significant differences in the three types of academic engagement among the different types of children left behind(father working outside the home/mother working outside the home/both parents working outside the home).2.After considering the control variables(gender,age,type of LBC,family economic status,and autoregression of study variables),teacher-student relationship at T1 positively predicted LBC’s three types of academic engagement at T2;teacherstudent relationship at T2 positively predicted LBC’s three types of academic engagement at T3;There were significant differences in the magnitude of the effects of teacher-student relationships on the three types of academic engagement of LBC at the T1-T2 time points.Specifically,the effects of teacher-student relationships on LBC’s cognitive and emotional engagement were bigger than behavioral engagement,and there were no significant differences in the effects of teacher-student relationships on LBC’s cognitive and emotional engagement.There were no significant differences in the effects of teacher-student relationships on LBC’s three types of academic engagement at the T2-T3 time points.3.There were significant individual differences in the initial levels and developmental rates of behavioral,emotional,and cognitive engagement of LBC.All three types of academic engagement of LBC tended to increase over time,and the teacher-student relationship promoted the increase of all three types of academic engagement of LBC.4.The types of academic engagement of LBC can be classified into three categories at all three time points: low level of academic engagement,medium level of academic engagement,and high level of academic engagement.Between the three time points,the types of academic engagement of LBC transformed over time,and the teacher-student relationship was an important influencing factor for the types of academic engagement of LBC to remain stable or to transform into other types,and that teacher-student relationship may facilitate the transformation from low to high level of academic engagement of LBC.Based on the Ecosystem Theory and The Ecological Model of LBC’s Development,this study combined variable-centered and individual-centered approaches to examine the dynamic effects of teacher-student relationships on the three types of academic engagement of LBC.On the one hand,these findings enriches the Ecological Model of LBC’s Development and reveals more clearly the specific characteristics of LBC’s academic engagement;on the other hand,this study also provides a new perspective on the study of LBC’s academic engagement from the perspective of teachers,which provides important guidance for the growth and education of LBC.