Influence of The Teacher-student Relationship and School Participation on the Engagement of Adolescent Students with and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

The teacher-student relationships, school participation, and student engagement strongly influence adolescent well-being and learning. However, these factors often represent barriers for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to their typically developing (TD) peers. A non-experimental, correlational, cross-sectional design was used to assess the teacher-student relationship and school engagement of adolescents with ASD compared to their typically developing peers and to examine their impact on school engagement. A total of 102 adolescents between 5th grade and 12th grade (M = 13.29; SD = 1.75) participated, 51 of whom had ASD. The Teacher Student Relationship subscale of the Student Engagement Instrument (Appleton et al., 2006), the School Engagement Scale (SPS; John-Akinola & Nic-Gabhainn, 2014), and the Multidimensional Scale of School Engagement (MSSE; Wang et al., 2019) were applied. Results indicate that teacher-student relationship and school engagement are high in both groups, but adolescents with ASD show lower overall school engagement. A significant positive association was found between teacher-student relationships, school participation, and school engagement in both groups.