Do Teachers Matter? Students’ Perceptions of Classroom Interactions and Student Engagement

The current study examined the associations between students’ perceptions of classroom interactions and students’emotional and behavioral engagement. Given the nested structure of the data, multilevel analyses were employed to examine these associations. A total of 1769 Norwegian fifth to tenth graders from 100 classes and 10 schools participated in a web-based survey. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel structural equation modeling. The results indicated that students who perceived high-quality classroom interactions were more engaged in school, and teachers’ emotional support showed the strongest association with engagement at both levels. Furthermore, the findings indicated that primary school students were more engaged emotionally than lower secondary school students, and female students were more behaviorally engaged than male students.