Academic Engagement as a Moderated Mediator on Reading Achievement for Adolescents Who Have Experienced Adversity
Open Access
- Author:
- Mullins, Casey
- Graduate Program:
- Educational Psychology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- September 27, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Carlomagno Del Carmen Panlilio, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Matthew T Mc Crudden, Committee Member
Pui-Wa Lei, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- ACEs
adversity
academic engagement
adolescents
reading achievement
early childhood adversity
LONGSCAN
parent-child relationships
teacher-student relationships - Abstract:
- Students who have experienced early childhood adversity, such as maltreatment or witnessing violence, tend to have lower academic achievement compared to their peers (Bethell et al., 2014; Crozier & Barth, 2005). However, the underlying mechanisms driving these differential outcomes are largely unexplored. Academic engagement, a multidimensional construct that is associated with positive academic outcomes (Fredricks et al., 2004), maybe one such mechanism. Academic engagement is thought to be malleable and to develop through student-context interactions (Fredricks et al., 2004; Skinner et al., 2009). The purpose of the present study is to examine the potential mediation effect of academic engagement on the relationship between experiencing childhood adversity and academic outcomes for adolescents. The present study also explored the potential effects of parent-child and teacher-student relationship quality on the development of academic engagement. Results indicated that academic engagement did not mediate the relationship between experiencing adversity and reading achievement and that parent-child relationship quality and teacher-student relationship quality did not moderate the effect of adversity on academic engagement. However, teacher-student relationship quality did significantly predict academic engagement. These results suggest that teacher-student relationships are especially important in the development of engagement for students who have experienced early childhood adversity. Previous research on engagement in this population focuses largely on engagement as an outcome. The present study contributes to the literature because it examined engagement as a process, offering future researchers an opportunity to better understand the antecedents and consequences of these students’ engagement. This understanding could further inform the development of effective interventions for these students.