Student engagement is widely recognized as a protective factor promoting academic success, dropout prevention, and mental health. Its dynamics are closely linked to family, teachers, and classmates. Because research often examines these influences fragmentedly, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of their predictive power and collective mechanisms within elementary education. Following PRISMA guidelines, our meta-analysis (28 studies) uses random-effects models to assess the isolated predictive power of specific microsystem factors: family context, teacher support and relationship quality, and peer status and support (RQ1). We evaluate their temporal stability by comparing findings from cross-sectional and longitudinal designs (RQ2). A complementary systematic review (13 studies) synthesizes the role of coactive, contingent, and sequential mechanisms in these complex microsystem interactions and their impact on engagement (RQ3). While results compare individual microsystems, key findings indicate that although positive family context is a substantial cross-sectional predictor (ES=0.38), its longitudinal effect weakens markedly (ES=0.10). Conversely, teacher support emerges as a significant, stable predictor across both designs (ES=0.35). Interaction analysis further suggests teacher support acts as a moderator, buffering negative impacts of family instability, classmate rejection, or teacher-student conflict, while amplifying classmates’ positive influence on student engagement. Our findings support the development of inclusive elementary school environments. They demonstrate that teacher support can partially compensate for engagement declines caused by family deficits or classmate rejection, while unlocking peers' positive influence. The teacher thus emerges as a key stabilizing element that continuously protects student engagement, enabling a broad spectrum of children to benefit from education.

Authors:
Patrik Buček, Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Czech Republic

About the Presenter(s)
Mgr. Patrik Buček is currently an Assistant and PhD student at the Faculty of Humanities, Tomas Bata University in Zlin, Czechia. He researches student engagement and the influence of mistake culture on educational environments.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrik-bucek/

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