Introduction
Students’ role in initiating effective and motivating instruction has been receiving growing attention, as students are increasingly considered active co-creators of the educational process. Indeed, students provide their teachers with feedback and input on their goals and interests, ask for clarification and additional learning materials, thus assisting their teachers in providing the best possible instruction (Reeve, 2013; Reeve & Tseng, 2011). All of these behaviours are encompassed in the construct of agentic engagement, which can be defined as students’ constructive contributions to the flow of the class (Reeve, 2013; Reeve & Tseng, 2011). While the construct has been gaining more traction, many important questions remain unanswered. Specifically, the majority of research has focused on the association between teachers’ teaching styles and students’ agentic engagement, disregarding important questions about the construct’s conceptualisation (Mameli & Passini, 2018; Reeve, 2013; Zambrano et al., 2021), antecedents (Reeve, 2013; Zambrano et al., 2021) and impact (Patall et al., 2022). Thus, the aim of this study is to examine students’ perspectives on the concept of agentic engagement and the factors that determine its likelihood and success.
Conceptualisation of agentic engagement
Agentic engagement was proposed by Reeve and Tseng (2011) as a new component of student engagement, in addition to behavioural, cognitive and emotional engagement (Reschly & Christenson, 2012). Behavioural engagement refers to students’ involvement in learning (e.g., attention, effort), cognitive engagement relates to students’ use of deeper learning strategies, while emotional engagement reflects the prevalence of positive over negative emotions when students are learning (Reeve, 2013). Compared to these three components of engagement, the authors highlight the unique transactional and constructive nature of agentic engagement (Matos et al., 2018; Reeve, 2013). Unlike the other components, which primarily represent a path to better student academic outcomes, agentic engagement mainly serves as a path to greater teacher support (Reeve, 2013). Specifically, by providing the teacher with information about their interests, goals and preferences, students steer the teacher to better support those needs (Jang et al., 2024; Matos et al., 2018). The authors presume that these attempts to recruit teacher support are individual classroom behaviours focused on support for learning. This is clear from the items of the Agentic Engagement Scale (AES), the operationalisation of agentic engagement proposed by the authors (Reeve, 2013; Reeve & Tseng, 2011). For instance, an item from the AES states, “During class, I ask questions to help me learn.” Hence, this item and other items from the AES describe behaviours enacted by individual students who are asking for individual help in learning during class.
However, some previous studies emphasise that such a description does not capture students’ approaches well. These mainly qualitative studies show that students describe agentic engagement as group behaviour (Petričević et al., 2022; Zambrano et al., 2021, 2022). Moreover, not only do students often approach teachers in groups, but their requests do not necessarily take place during classes; rather, they may be made before or after classes, or by using e-mail or anonymous notes (Zambrano et al., 2021). Additionally, some Croatian findings suggest that students might use agentic engagement as a way to avoid learning rather than learn more, as agentic engagement is positively associated with surface-level learning strategies (Rovan, 2024). Hence, the current conceptualisation of agentic engagement may disregard some key aspects of agentic behaviour (Mameli & Passini, 2018), so further studies are needed.
Factors determining the likelihood and success of agentic engagement
The majority of previous research on agentic engagement has focused on its relationship with teaching styles, i.e., teachers’ approaches and behaviours towards students. When teachers are open to students’ perspectives, give them choices and attune their teaching to students’ needs, in other words, when teachers are autonomy supportive (Reeve & Cheon, 2021), this creates a context that makes it possible for students to ask questions and enact their engagement agentically (Jang et al., 2024). At the same time, when students proactively voice their interests and needs in the classroom, this gives teachers the opportunity to take them into consideration and be more autonomy supportive (Jang et al., 2024). So far, there is strong support for this positive reciprocal relationship between agentic engagement and autonomy-supportive teaching (Jang et al., 2024; Matos et al., 2018).
However, in comparison to the attention that this reciprocal relationship has drawn in research so far, other potential predictors of agentic engagement have been disregarded. There has been a lot of speculation that personality, student background factors (Jang et al., 2024; Patall et al., 2019; Reeve & Tseng, 2011) and class dynamics (Reeve et al., 2025) could play a significant role in agentically engaged behaviour. However, only a few studies have examined these factors, showing that students’ proactive personality, autonomous motivation and higher GPA also shape their levels of agentic engagement (Michou et al., 2021; Patall et al., 2022). Therefore, there is a need for a more comprehensive investigation of student- and class-related antecedents of agentic engagement (Zambrano et al., 2021).
Additionally, some research suggests that students’ agentic engagement will not always result in more support from the teacher. For instance, Patall and colleagues (2022) found that there was a significant positive correlation between agentic engagement and autonomy-supportive teaching only for students with a high GPA and a White racial background. Hence, it is plausible that the success of an agentic request depends heavily on both student and teacher characteristics (Zambrano et al., 2021). Similarly, a recent study showed that this success will also depend on the characteristics of the request, such as the style in which students communicate their requests (Flamant et al., in preparation). Thus, there is a need to investigate the factors that affect the effectiveness of students’ agentic engagement (Patall et al., 2022).
Present study
The overview of the literature clearly demonstrates the need to further investigate agentic engagement. Specifically, based on our review, the aim of this study is to examine students’ perspectives on the concept of agentic engagement and what they believe are the factors that determine its likelihood and success. In order to further operationalise the aim, we formulated three main research questions, with the first question additionally nuanced through four subthemes:
1. What behaviours do students perceive as agentic engagement in classrooms?
1.1. What is the content of students’ agentic requests?
1.2. Which students usually initiate requests?
1.3. By whom are the requests conveyed?
1.4. How are they conveyed?
2. What factors impact the likelihood of students becoming agentically engaged?
3. What factors make their agentic requests successful?
Currently, the majority of studies use quantitative methods and almost exclusively rely on the AES as a measure of agentic engagement (Reeve et al., 2025). Such methods do not enable researchers to answer certain research questions (Lynch et al., 2020), especially when it comes to the definition of agentic engagement and students’ broader views on it. Hence, to answer our research questions, we utilised a phenomenological design, as it is an appropriate method to gain deeper insights into the meaning of agentic engagement (Zambrano et al., 2021).
Participants
The participants in the study were 17 psychology students (3 men) from the [removed for purposes of review]. The average age of the participants was 19.29 (SD = 0.85). As the participants were asked about their high school experiences, we recruited only first-year university students to ensure that the topic was still salient to them. All participants completed high school education in Croatia, with 14 students graduating from a gymnasium programme and 3 students graduating from a vocational programme.
Procedure
We conducted two focus groups (Nfg1 = 11; Nfg2 = 6) in February 2025. Participants were recruited through the Department of Psychology [removed for purposes of review]. First-year students received an invitation to participate in the study, with a detailed explanation of the study aim and procedure. Those who were interested were assigned to one of the two focus groups based on the time that suited them best.
We took care to abide by the ethical research principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Before the start of the focus groups, participants were given additional information about the aim of the study, the procedure and their rights. Participants signed informed consent forms. The focus groups lasted between one hour and an hour and a half. Participants received course credit for their participation, as part of their faculty’s requirement to participate in studies.
Both authors were present during both focus groups, one as a moderator and the other as a scribe. The focus groups were also recorded to facilitate the transcription process. A set of questions was prepared for the group interview (Appendix A). We first asked students what engagement generally meant to them and then steered the discussion toward agentic engagement by asking about their efforts to influence the flow of instruction, assessment or other school-related activities to better align with their preferences. We emphasised that our primary interest was in their experiences with this particular form of engagement. After establishing the main focus of the discussion, one subset of questions focused on contextual characteristics that led students to request something from their teachers, as well as on which teacher and student characteristics made such requests easier. Another subset of questions focused on teacher reactions to student requests and the conditions under which agentic requests were (un)successful. At the end, we asked for their opinions on what facilitates students’ agentic engagement and what obstacles they see to such student behaviour. After each focus group, the moderator made analytic notes.
Analytical strategy
The analysis followed the steps of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In the first step, both authors read through the transcripts to familiarise themselves with the content and identify all the statements that answered a particular research question. In the second step, using a mix of inductive and deductive approaches, we grouped the statements into specific codes and provided a name and description for each code. The codes were organised into themes and subthemes, and these were discussed by both authors until the final version was reached. In the final step, we determined the frequency of each code.
Results and discussion
The results of the analysis for each research question can be found in Tables 1–3. The tables contain information on all codes that were mentioned at least three times. The findings for each research question are discussed alongside the results.
Research question 1: What behaviours do students perceive as agentic engagement in classrooms?
The first research question was analysed through four subthemes (Table 1). The first subtheme addressed the content of students’ agentic requests. The analysis revealed that the types of content most often discussed were changes to exam dates, oral exams or other assignments. This code appeared more than twice as frequently as the next most common code, which involved students requesting changes to teaching methods (e.g., asking for more interaction, quizzes, etc.). Other types of agentic requests included making decisions related to school events—graduation trips, excursions, prom nights, Christmas fairs and similar activities; requests for changes in teacher behaviour that students found unpleasant or unfair; and seeking additional learning opportunities, typically through asking questions or requesting revision classes. A slightly less frequent code referred to teachers themselves creating opportunities for agentic engagement by seeking feedback on some aspect of their teaching.
The second subtheme explored typical initiators of agentic behaviour. Students most frequently discussed agentic engagement initiated by the whole class and, less frequently, by a smaller group or individuals. Students reported that decisions about whether to engage were usually made democratically, typically via polls in class WhatsApp groups, as noted by P6FG2: “Usually, we first did a poll in a class group, like on Messenger, to see if the majority was even in favour”. However, they acknowledged that such decision-making is not without difficulties. In particular, “louder” students – generally described as academically weaker – were said to pressure the rest of the class to agree to changes that suited them or to act independently of the wishes of the rest of the class, as P4FG2 highlighted: “Mainly, it was always the same people insisting on moving [exams] or changing something, while others simply stayed on the sidelines. In the end, the louder ones prevailed because the others wouldn't say anything”.
The third subtheme focused on the communication channels through which agentic requests are made. Students reported approaching teachers both during class and outside class through online channels—mostly via e-mail, Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp.
Finally, the fourth subtheme concerned the people conveying agentic requests to the teacher. Students emphasised that choosing the right representative was considered a strategic decision, often discussed in detail among peers. They reported that this role was often taken by the class president or another student whom the class considered likely to succeed in convincing the teacher. These were usually students seen as exemplary in the subject, as emphasised by P11FG1: “We would choose someone who participated the most and for whom we saw that the teacher gave good feedback”. Alternatively, P10FG1 noted, socially skilled students – often extroverted boys described as “charming” – were selected: “...we always had a group of guys who were so charming that no one could refuse them or get mad at them. So, it was always that same group that went to ask.” Furthermore, in some cases, students would rely on an adult to approach the teacher with their request. Usually, they would enlist the help of their homeroom teacher or school counsellors. Students used this strategy more often when dealing with more serious requests, such as addressing a teacher’s behaviour, or when they assessed the teacher as less flexible and approachable, as P2FG2 explained: “...when the teacher was the problem, like the one who took it out on us, then we would go to the homeroom teacher or the school counsellor...”.
Our results confirm the current conceptualisation of agentic engagement (Reeve, 2013; Reeve & Tseng, 2011). Voicing their learning preferences and asking for more guidance from teachers were among the wide range of agentic requests described by our participants.
At the same time, our participants reported a broader range of agentically engaged behaviours than those captured by the current conceptualisation and the AES (Reeve, 2013; Reeve & Tseng, 2011). Specifically, students highlighted the collective nature of agentic engagement and the important role of classroom dynamics in shaping these behaviours. This finding is in line with studies that have speculated on the importance of classroom-level processes (Reeve et al., 2025; Zambrano et al., 2021).
Students’ academic success and grades, as well as charisma, seem to have a considerable influence on both their decision to initiate an agentic request and their choice of who should communicate it on behalf of the group. Additionally, many requests focused on non-learning matters (e.g., graduation trips) or aimed to reduce workload. Although non-learning matters may not strictly fall under agentic engagement since they do not concern the flow of instruction (Reeve, 2013), future research should examine them, especially since teachers tend to be more receptive to suggestions not associated with teaching (Klepić, 2021). This type of engagement may therefore offer rare and important opportunities for students to exercise agency and voice in school. Moreover, our findings on agentic requests aimed at reducing workload align with previous studies in Croatia suggesting that agentic engagement is associated with a surface approach to learning (Petričević et al., 2022; Rovan, 2024). While Reeve (2013) defines agentic engagement as a means to enhance learning, it is worth considering that avoiding or delaying schoolwork – especially in a system that significantly burdens students – might represent both an expression of students’ agency and a constructive approach to learning. Specifically, having more time to learn or deciding to take a deep approach to only a few subjects could be considered a more productive way to learn overall. Therefore, future studies should investigate whether these behaviours also represent a form of agentic engagement.
Table 1
Results of the analysis for the first research question: What behaviours do students perceive as agentic engagement in classrooms?
Research question 2: What factors impact the likelihood of students becoming agentically engaged?
In examining the factors contributing to the likelihood of students voicing their agentic requests, we identified a range of teacher-, student- and system-level influences (Table 2). The frequency analysis indicated that teachers are key to facilitating or deterring agentic engagement. When students perceived a teacher as receptive to feedback, they were encouraged to engage. Conversely, when they perceived a teacher as likely to reject a request, they would be less inclined to approach them. Interestingly, their perceptions were based not only on the class’s experience but also on advice passed down from previous generations of students, as P6FG2 explained: “We hear from older students. They tell us: with that teacher you can't arrange anything, you can try, but you probably won't achieve anything.”
In addition to teacher characteristics, students cited student personality traits and academic motivation as factors influencing agentic engagement. They described more extroverted and self-confident students as more likely to engage than more introverted and less confident peers. Students associated these personality characteristics to some extent with academic success. Specifically, they claimed that “louder” individuals were often the ones with lower academic success, while the “quieter” ones tended to achieve better grades. This observation mainly stemmed from the nature of a typical agentic request, which concerned the postponement of examinations. Hence, among others, P7FG1 explained that academically weaker students had a stronger interest in postponing assessments and were therefore more motivated to speak up: “I think that often the ones who would skip classes and postpone [exams] were the types who didn’t put in much effort.” Beyond extraversion and grades, another student characteristic mentioned was a lack of interest and apathy. Students cited a sense of helplessness as a reason for not engaging agentically.
Related to this, students identified beliefs about the education system as a factor reducing agentic engagement. They viewed the education system in Croatia as rigid and resistant to change, which made them feel that even if they voiced requests, little could be achieved, further increasing their apathy.
To conclude, our findings are consistent with both theory and empirical evidence that emphasise teachers as the main facilitators of agentic engagement (Jang et al., 2024). However, consistent with earlier qualitative studies (Petričević et al., 2023; Zambrano et al., 2021, 2022), student factors such as personality traits, academic performance and motivation also play an important role. Contrary to previous research (e.g., Petričević et al., 2023; Reeve, 2013; Zambrano et al., 2021), our results suggest that less motivated and lower-achieving students may be more likely to engage agentically – likely due to their greater interest in postponing exams, a dominant form of agentic behaviour observed in this study. Additionally, our findings emphasise the importance of contextual factors, such as characteristics of the educational system, in shaping agentic engagement. As previous studies suggest, when teachers are constrained by institutional demands, they have less time and flexibility to respond to students’ needs (Pelletier et al., 2002). Thus, increasing teacher autonomy may be a crucial step in fostering students’ agentic engagement.
Table 2
Results of the analysis for the second research question: What factors impact the likelihood of students becoming agentically engaged?
Research question 3: What factors make their agentic requests successful?
When considering the factors that determine whether an agentic request would be accepted, students identified a number of key teacher-, student- and request-related factors (Table 3). They again emphasised the crucial role of teachers, in particular their flexibility, accessibility and openness to feedback. They identified teachers’ tendency to react negatively, teachers’ disinterest and a history of negative experiences as factors associated with lower success.
In addition to teacher traits and behaviours, students also indicated that their own characteristics influenced the likelihood of a positive response to their agentic requests. The most commonly mentioned personal characteristics were effort, extroversion and self-confidence, as well as politeness. Students also reported that teachers were more inclined to accept requests from students they favoured or students who performed better academically. Thus, although students who frequently made agentic requests – particularly those aimed at postponing assessments – were often described as less academically motivated or less academically successful, teachers appeared more receptive to suggestions from motivated and high-achieving students.
Beyond individual characteristics, the nature of the request itself emerged as a determinant of the success of agentic requests, primarily in terms of its content. Students agreed that teachers were more likely to accept their input regarding school events, such as a graduation trip or dance, as P6FG2 emphasised: “Our homeroom teacher left all the choices to us and even said […] that she didn't want to decide where we would go—it's our trip, after all”. They also consistently reported that teachers were unlikely to accept requests about their behaviour, as reflected in P1FG1’s quote: “I think in our case, it was even worse because even when teachers insulted or humiliated students, nobody really reacted much—especially after a while”. Thus, when addressing a teacher’s behaviour, students usually sought the intervention of the homeroom teacher or a school counsellor. Their opinions varied when it came to the likelihood of a teacher accepting input on their teaching methods or changes to exam dates:
“From the beginning, you know you can't change a teacher. That’s a fixed position. In interacting with teachers, you realise very quickly that you can't really change anything. The most you can do is ask to move an exam date.” (P1FG1)
“They were more willing to accept requests to introduce something interactive into lessons—like quizzes or workshops—than other types of changes.” (P9FG1)
Overall, the content of students’ agentic requests reflected their perceptions of what types of requests were realistically likely to be accepted. This is supported by the overlap between the most frequently mentioned types of requests (Table 1) and those that students believed teachers were most willing to consider. Students also noted that teachers were more likely to accept requests that they considered legitimate, timely and direct.
In conclusion, autonomy-supportive teaching seems to be a crucial determinant of agentic engagement success, as suggested by previous empirical studies (Jang et al., 2024; Michou et al., 2021; Patall et al., 2022). Nevertheless, students reported that teacher behaviours indicative of a neglecting or controlling style might also play an important role. In line with previous studies, we also found that teachers are more receptive to agentic requests from academically successful students and from those who communicate in a more acceptable style, that is, in a polite and autonomy-supportive manner (Flamant et al., in preparation; Patall et al., 2022; Zambrano et al., 2021). One area that has received relatively little attention in the literature but emerged as important in this study is the role of the request topic and its perceived legitimacy and timeliness. Flamant and colleagues (in preparation) suggest that when teachers perceive the topic of the request as being within a domain appropriate for students to offer input, they are more likely to accept the request and perceive it as legitimate. Hence, teachers might believe that extracurricular activities are the students’ domain, while teaching methods, class organisation and teacher behaviour should not be commented on by students. This is in line with a study focusing on teachers’ beliefs about student participation rights, which showed the same (Klepić, 2021). However, this hypothesis should be further researched in the context of agentic engagement.
Table 3
Results of the analysis for the third research question: What factors make their agentic requests successful?
General discussion
Overall, this study confirms and extends the current understanding of agentic engagement by revealing forms and strategies not previously captured by the existing framework. It seems that students often engage collectively and by voicing non-learning-enhancing requests, such as rescheduling exams or organising events. While autonomy-supportive teaching remains key, student characteristics (e.g., academic success, motivation) and contextual elements (e.g., institutional constraints, request topic) also significantly influence both the level of engagement and its success.
However, when interpreting these findings, several limitations of the study must be considered. Primarily, the research was conducted on a homogeneous sample of psychology students, the majority of whom were academically successful during their high school years. As a result, their perspectives may not reflect those of a more diverse student population. Additionally, as first-year university students, participants may have been subject to recall bias when reflecting on their high school experiences. It is also important to note that these participants attended high school during the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition to online learning may have affected both their opportunities for agentic engagement and the forms that such engagement could take, potentially limiting the generalisability of the results.
Despite these limitations, our study offers several directions for future research. The current conceptualisation of agentic engagement may require revision in light of findings from recent qualitative studies (e.g., Petričević et al., 2022, 2023; Zambrano et al., 2021, 2022). Behaviours that are collective in nature, take place outside the classroom or are not directly focused on learning have been largely overlooked, yet may constitute meaningful forms of agentic engagement. Second, future research on the antecedents and moderators of agentic engagement should adopt a broader perspective, examining a wider range of teacher-, student- and context-related variables such as personality traits, academic motivation, classroom dynamics, characteristics of the education system and characteristics of the requests themselves. Finally, future research should diversify the methods used to investigate agentic engagement, with an emphasis on more studies that use qualitative methods, as such methods offer new and deeper insights into the concept of agentic engagement.
Our findings also have practical implications. First, teachers and schools should attend to collective agentic actions as meaningful expressions of student agency and could create more formalised channels (e.g., structured feedback systems, a greater role for student councils, student-led school campaigns) that legitimise and productively harness collective agentic engagement. In addition, our results indicate that not all students are equally successful in their agentic requests, with academically successful or highly motivated students being more likely to initiate agentic contributions and to do so effectively. If teachers are to create equal opportunities for all students, they need to proactively include less confident or lower-achieving students. This can be achieved through modelling appropriate forms of requests, explicitly teaching how to voice concerns constructively and normalising student input as part of classroom culture. Such practices may help prevent agentic engagement from becoming an opportunity accessible only to already advantaged students. Furthermore, schools should examine policies and administrative practices that unintentionally limit responsiveness to student agency (e.g., rigid regulations). As part of their professional development, teachers could be trained to respond to both learning-focused and non-learning-focused agentic requests. Such teacher practices would foster a climate in which agentic engagement is not only encouraged but also meaningfully integrated into both instructional and school-level decision-making.
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