MA Pihla Rautanen's doctoral dissertation indicates that teachers make a difference. Acknowledgement, encouragement, care and constructive feedback from teachers facilitates students study engagement, i.e. dedication, absorption and energy towards studying. Teacher support was also related to students tendency to help esch other in their studies.
“If we want to promote students’ study engagement, we should invest time and effort to the way teachers engage with their students in the everyday life at schools,” Rautanen elaborates.
However, also guardians’ appreciation towards their child’s schoolwork was related to the child’s study engagement and participation in peer support for studies.
“Teachers are not alone responsible for promoting students’ study engagement. Also guardians attitude make a difference,” Rautanen ponders.
Rautanen used statistical methods, structural equation modelling, to analyze survey data where students and their teachers were followed from 4th to 6th grade during years 2017-2019. 2 401 students and 114 teachers particiapted in the study.
“This longitudinal data enabled me to explore the interrelations and development of social support and study engagement over time. Also, the data from students and their teachers were collected simultaneously. Combining them enabled me to study how teachers’ and their students’ experiences relate to each other,” Rautanen explains.
Engaged student perceived more support from peers and teachers
The results indicate that particularly sharing social support for studies among peers requires that students find their studies sufficiently meaningful and fluent.
Rautanen tells that on the other hand study engagement promoted also students’ experiences of encouragement, care and constructive feedback from teachers. The relationship between study engagement and teacher support appears to be reciprocal. Engaged student perceives more support from teacher which, in turn, facilitates their engagement further. This is a new finding compared to most previous literature on the field.
“Providing well-fitting support for less engaged students appears to be an especially important and simultaneously demanding task for teachers,” Rautanen ponders.
The teacher with high occupational wellbeing provides best support
The results also indicate that teachers’ occupational wellbeing makes a difference. In the study teacher’s higher levels of work-related stress predicted the students’ perceived support from the teacher to decline during the following three years. However, teacher’s perceived support from colleagues facilitated students’ perceived support from the teacher.
The results highlight the importance of teachers’ occupational wellbeing and professional community for teacher, but also for their student’s wellbeing and learning at school.
“Working conditions that do not predispose teachers to excessive work-related stress enable teachers to support their students sufficiently,” Rautanen tells
She explains that working practices in which difficult situations emerging in the everyday pedagogical work are faced together as a community that supports its members are crucial.
“Time and opportunities for teachers’ collegial support embedded in the everyday working life at schools enable teachers to collaborate in ways that facilitate the support students perceive from their teachers,” Rautanen ponders.
Public defence on Saturday 10 May
Master of Education Pihla Rautanen’s doctoral dissertation in the field of educational studies titled The relational social support system and study engagement in primary schools will be publicly examined in the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University 10 May 2025 at 12.00 at City centre campus, Päätalo, auditorium D11 (Kalevantie 4). The Opponent will be Professor Jennifer Symonds (University College London, UK). The Custos will be Research Director, Docent Tiina Soini (Tampere University, Faculty of Education and Culture).
The doctoral dissertation is available online.
The public defence can be followed via remote connection.