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The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent student-perceived parental involvement predicted academic motivation in vocational education and training (VET) students. The sample comprised 2108 young adults participating in a VET institute. Thirty-three items were developed to measure student-perceived parental involvement in VET, as no appropriate questionnaire was available for this educational setting. This questionnaire was analysed with factor analyses which resulted in a new, short, and valid questionnaire with 10 items to measure parental involvement on five indicators. Consistent with prior research, parental involvement significantly predicted motivation in VET students. Three out of five parental involvement indicators were found related to motivation. Specifically, two indicators were positively related to motivation: (1) parent-child educational discussions, and (2) parental aspirations and expectations. The indicator 'reinforcement of learning at home' was negatively related to motivation. These findings provide additional evidence for the significance of parental involvement based upon its link with students' motivation in a VET context.

The present study researched teachers' emotions related to their pedagogical work with disengaged students. The aim of the study was to investigate teachers' emotions experienced during classroom practice and how emotions were related to their perceived well-being. Based on the literature, we assumed that teachers' perceived well-being was affected by the emotions in their classroom practice through their feelings of autonomy, competence and relatedness. Data were collected using qualitative methods. In our results, we reported that teachers experienced mixed emotions elicited by interactions with students, student learning, colleagues and the programme. We determined the characteristics of classroom practices that contribute positively to teachers' perceived well-being as well as characteristics that diminish teachers' perceived well-being. Implications for practice are discussed.

Student engagement is an important condition for positive outcomes at school. This study examined whether teachers' motives for being a teacher, their ratings of the relative importance of different teacher competences, their self-efficacy for teaching, and ratings of their own interpersonal teacher behavior could predict teacher perceptions of student engagement. Relations between perceived student engagement and teacher beliefs were explored using data from a survey of 195 teachers in prevocational and vocational education in the Netherlands. Teachers rating themselves higher on dimensions of interpersonal teacher behavior, importance of didactic and pedagogical competence, and self-efficacy perceived their students as more engaged. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)