Teaching in complex settings: issues of diversity and support

Abstract

[Excerpt] This issue includes seven papers from different parts of the world which address, in one way or another, key dimensions of teaching in a multicultural and complex reality. The papers focus upon issues of learning about and dealing with diversity, organisational and collegial support, conditions for teacher leadership, autonomy support and student engagement. In the first paper, ‘Determinants of classroom engagement: A prospective test based on self-determination Theory’, Juan L. Núñez and Jaime León, from Spain, report on a validation of a classroom engagement measure to the Spanish context, investigating the effect of students’ perception of support for learner autonomy provided by their teachers. Data were collected from 448 undergraduate students by using a longitudinal design. The results indicated adequate psychometric properties for the engagement scale. The authors concluded that autonomy support was a significant predictor of the autonomy, which, in turn, led to likely changes in four types of classroom engagement. Emotional engagement displayed the strongest relationship with students’ need for autonomy. In addition, the need for autonomy mediated the relationship between perceived autonomy support and each indicator of student engagement. Núñez and León’s interpret their findings as supporting self-determination theory’s motivation mediation model that perceived autonomy support longitudinally predicts student engagement because it nurtured changes in autonomy. [...]