چكيده لاتين :
Introduction
Over the the last few decades, researchers in general, and psychologists in
particular have become interested in the concept of academic engagement
as a way to reduce student boredom and enhance their motivation and
academic achievement. Fredricks (2004) described academic engagement
as a malleable, developing, and multidimensional construct that consists
of three broad dimensions: behavioral, cognitive, and emotional. The
dimensions, according to the author, are not isolated but interrelate with
each other .Behavioral engagement is a directly observable dimension of
engagement, and the salient indicators of this dimension include truancy,
preparation for school, attendance, participation in curricular and
extracurricular tasks, and discipline referrals. The cognitive engagement
dimension refers to the students’ investment in learning and encompasses
aspects such as willingness and thoughtfulness to expend the effort
required to understand and master difficult tasks. Finally, emotional
engagement refers to the same features of emotional engagement, which
describe the students’ positive and negative emotional index towards their
teachers, classmates, academic tasks, and school in general (Fredricks et
al., 2004). Presence of interest and happiness and the lack of boredom,
anxiety, and sadness are indices of emotional engagement. It is known that
contextual factors, including perception of the classroom, is the strongest
variable to influence academic engagement. In this regard, research
suggests that such dimensions of the students’ perception of the classroom
as their belonging to the classroom, support from the teacher, cooperation,
investigation, equality, and task orientation are important factors that can
positively predict the students’ academic engagement and success.
In addition, research findings suggest that self-determination, especially
intrinsic motivation, is an important variable affecting academic
engagement. Regarding motivation, studies of self-determination suggest
that people have different motivations for being involved in the workplace,
school, and other places. Review of the literature about motivation
indicates that humans have four different kinds of motivation that can be
considered along a continuum. External motivation is about involvement
in activities associated with rewards and punishment when the situation
dictates it. A type of motivation has also been characterized as the
motivation in which people are involved in an activity due to its
significance or even the value they attach to their own goals. Intrinsic
motivation, which is more autonomous, refers to involvement in behavior
for the sake of pleasure. In the end, amotivation, or absence of motivation,
applies to a condition under which one fails to act because they do not find
it significant. Many researchers have suggested that classroom context can
affect the learners’ motivation, leading to positive outcomes such as
persistence, academic engagement and academic success. Although the
previous studies have confirmed the positive relationships between
perception of classroom, academic motivation, and academic engagement,
they did not clearly mention the mechanism of these relationships.
Therefore, the main objective of the present study was to explore the effect
of classroom perception on academic engagement, while considering the
mediating role of academic motivation in this regard. Therefore, based on
our research purpose, three research hypotheses were generated:
1-There is a relationship between perception of classroom and academic
engagement.
2- There is a relationship between perception of classroom and academic
motivation.
3- Academic motivation plays a mediation role in the relationship
between perception of classroom and academic engagement.
Method
The research was a correlation study, using structural equation
modeling (SEQ) as the data analysis technique. The population included
all high school students in Ghaemieh. Of this population, a sample was
selected of 300 high school students (100 males, 200 females) through
random multistage cluster sampling. Having been informed of the purpose
of the study, investigating their classroom perception, academic
motivation, and academic engagement, the participants signed an informed
consent form. Subsequently, they completed three questionnaires
including classroom perception from, academic engagement inventory,
and the situational motivational scale. SEQ was run as the statistical
technique for analyzing the data.
Results
The results of SEQ showed that in the measurement model the indicator
variables could measure the latent variables appropriately. In addition, the
results suggested that the components of classroom perception (i.e.
belonging to classroom, receiving support from the teacher, cooperation,
equality, and task orientation) could affect academic engagement and
academic motivation. It was further found that academic motivation could
have a mediating role in the relationship between classroom perception
and academic engagement. To evaluate the model, multiple indexes of
fitness were used which corroborated the fitness of the models for the data.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of
academic motivation in the relationship between classroom perception and
academic engagement. The results of SEQ suggested that the proposed
model fits the research data quite well. The findings also showed that
Academic motivation depends on the classroom environment and affects
academic engagement. The components of classroom perception, namely
belonging to the classroom, receiving support from the teacher,
cooperation, equality, and task orientation, affected academic Motivation.
In sum, the findings corroborated the appropriateness of the presumed
model in accounting for the impact of the classroom environment on
academic engagement .The results of the research could be insightful for
teachers and educators, trying to enhance the learners’ academic
engagement. The teachers should orient the learners to the tasks and teach
them discovery methods to strengthen their intrinsic motivation and
thereby improve the learners’ academic engagement. It is recommended
that the teachers encourage cooperation, investigation, equality, and task
orientation in the classroom and support the learners’ autonomy so as to
enhance their intrinsic motivation and active engagement in their academic
studies.
