The role of teachers’ autonomy support, involvement, and structure support on students’ collective engagement in science classes: An observational study

This study aims to reveal the need-support profiles of science teachers by using the variables of teachers’ autonomy support, involvement and structure support as well as the role of the teachers with such profiles in students’ collective engagement. Within the scope of the study, first of all, the observation form developed by Reeve, Jang, Carrell, Jeon, and Barch (2004) was adapted into Turkish and then, 41 science lessons taught by different teachers were observed by using the form during a class hour. Descriptive statistics, cluster analysis and independent samples t-test were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20 to analyse the variables of the study. The cluster analysis showed that teachers in most classes (n= 35) were highly need-supportive, while a few teachers (n= 6) were moderately need-supportive. The independent samples t-test analysis demonstrated that the collective engagement of the students in the classrooms where the teachers were highly need-supportive was more than those of the students in the classrooms where the teachers were moderately need-supportive. Students’ collective engagement varied according to the teachers’ need-supportive profiles. In other words,, it can be assumed that teacher behaviours play a crucial role in students’ collective engagement.