The longitudinal associations among student externalizing behaviors, teacher-student relationships, and classroom engagement.

Personal characteristics and classroom environment features both play important roles in predicting students' levels of classroom engagement. The present study took a person-environment transaction perspective to investigate how factors at both the personal (i.e., student externalizing behaviors) and relational (i.e., teacher-student relationships) levels jointly predict the development of classroom engagement behaviors in a sample of 784 elementary school students. Using a longitudinal cross-lagged model spanning across Grade 3 to Grade 5, we found a negative reciprocal association between teacher-student relationships and externalizing behaviors, such that a more positive teacher-student relationship predicted fewer externalizing behaviors in the subsequent academic year, and fewer externalizing behaviors predicted a more positive teacher-student relationship 1 year later. In addition, externalizing behaviors directly negatively predicted subsequent classroom engagement, whereas teacher-student relationships indirectly predicted subsequent classroom engagement by way of externalizing behaviors. Overall, students with more externalizing behaviors experienced more conflicts with and received less support from their teachers, which predicted the development of more externalizing behaviors and lower subsequent classroom engagement.

When anxiety becomes my propeller: Mental toughness moderates the relation between academic anxiety and academic avoidance.

BACKGROUND: High academic anxiety is associated with poor academic performance. One proposed mechanism of this association is that academic anxiety promotes learning avoidance behaviours, which in turn hinders students' opportunities to learn and grow. However, this proposition has not been thoroughly examined, particularly in afterschool learning settings. The present study aimed to address this gap. AIMS: First, we investigated whether individual differences in academic anxiety across three domains (mathematics, native language or L1, and second language learning or L2) predicted students' academic avoidance in the corresponding domain in high school. Second, given that individual differences in personality may result in employing different coping strategies to deal with academic anxiety, we examined how mental toughness (MT) moderated the relation between academic anxiety and academic avoidance. SAMPLE: Two waves of longitudinal data that were one semester apart were available for four hundred and forty-four high school students. METHODS: Students self-reported their MT, academic anxiety, and academic avoidance (i.e., time spent on studying a subject afterschool) in mathematics, L1, and L2. RESULTS: For students with higher MT, higher mathematics, L1, and L2 anxiety in the first semester predicted more time spent on learning the corresponding subject in the following semester, even after controlling for general anxiety, academic achievement, and initial academic avoidance. CONCLUSIONS: These results challenge the proposition that all students with higher domain-specific anxiety are more likely to avoid learning altogether in that domain. Rather, among students from the general school population who generally exhibit low to moderate levels of academic anxiety, higher academic anxiety is associated with more time investment in afterschool learning in mentally tough students.