One of the challenges with research on student engagement is the large variation in the measurement of this construct, which has made it challenging to compare fi ndings across studies. This chapter contributes to our understanding of the measurement of student in engagement in three ways. First, we describe strengths and limitations of different methods for assessing student engagement (i.e., self-report measures, experience sampling techniques, teacher ratings, interviews, and observations). Second, we compare and contrast 11 self-report survey measures of student engagement that have been used in prior research. Across these 11 measures, we describe what is measured (scale name and items), use of measure, samples, and the extent of reliability and validity information available on each measure. Finally, we outline limitations with current approaches to measurement and promising future directions.

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McMunn suggest that school and district leaders engage their teachers in conversations about this article, and they pose some questions that might be useful discussion-starters.

Secondary school principals in Ohio were surveyed regarding their reliance on formal and informal information for decisionmaking and potential predictors of such reliance. The two types of reliance were treated as criterion variates in separate canonical analyses. In each case the predictor variate consisted of data from the following four variables: (a) perceptions of oneself as an instructional leader; (b) autonomy in decisionmaking; (c) open-mindedness; and (dj prior research experience. Moderately high canonical correlations and a consistent pattern of predictor variate structure coefficients were observed in both analyses. The findings are important for understanding the use and non-use of evaluation results by principals.

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