Engaging Middle Schoolers in Social Studies: Teachers’ Structure and Autonomy Support for Reading American History

• In Event: Adolescent Reading Motivation: Building Stronger Interventions

Abstract

Purpose – The current study examined social studies teachers’ structure and autonomy supportive styles, in a literacy intervention, in relation to students’ engagement and reading comprehension in social studies.

Theoretical Framework – To understand how student motivation and engagement occur in classrooms, researchers have investigated the interpersonal styles that teachers adopt to motivate students (Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, & Ryan, 1981; Vallerand, Fortier, & Guay, 1997). Teachers’ motivating styles can be conceptualized along a continuum that ranges from highly controlling to a highly autonomy-supportive style (Reeve & Jang, 2006). Autonomy-supportive teachers engage students by instructional behaviors such as offering choice, using non-controlling language, providing specific praise and providing rationales or explanations. Engagement expresses the behavioral intensity and emotional quality of a students’ active involvement during a learning activity (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Skinner, Furrer, Marchand & Kindermann, 2008). Teacher structure (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Skinner & Belmont, 1993; Skinner et al., 2008) is another instructional style that supports engagement; it refers to the amount and clarity of information that teachers provide to students about expectations to achieve in the classroom (Skinner et al., 1998).Teacher structure and autonomy-supportive style have not been investigated in content-area literacy interventions in middle school with large numbers of language minority students. Given the struggles of this population with reading achievement, understanding reading engagement in relation to instructional practices that support or hinder it becomes a crucial need.

Data Sources and Methods – Participants included 8 sixth-grade social studies teachers with an average of 60 students each. Teachers participated in seven sessions of professional development to support reading comprehension and engagement in the domain of American History followed by seven weeks of reading instruction. Instruction was assessed by coding 16 videotapes on continuums (1-7, Likert Scales) of teacher structure, teacher autonomy support, and students’ collective engagement (from Reeve & Jang, 2006). Literacy complexity tasks, effectiveness of comprehension strategy, and social studies content instruction were also assessed as part of the integrity of instruction. Four raters coded videotapes; interrater reliability was 89%. Teacher instructional styles related to (a) students’ observed collective engagement, (b) student reports of engagement in social studies learning and (c) students’ history reading comprehension.

Results – Preliminary results indicate that teachers with high structure and medium degrees of autonomy supportive style were the ones whose students had average to high levels of engagement in social studies (both observed and self-reported), and history comprehension. Teachers with medium to highly effective comprehension strategy and content instruction also showed strong relations to their students’ history comprehension and reports of engagement in social studies learning.

Scholarly Significance – Several studies describe the benefits of autonomy support and structure. Yet this study examines these motivational supports in relation to engagement and reading achievement in an understudied area such as social studies, and in a middle school context with a majority of language minority students. The study of engagement within all three of these factors will further our understanding of the multidimensionality of engagement.

Authors

• Ana M. Taboada, George Mason University

• Leila Nicole Richey, George Mason University

• Jori S. Beck, Old Dominion University

• Elizabeth G. Sturtevant, George Mason University