A contextually adapted model of school engagement in Kazakhstan

Abstract

This study introduces a culturally adapted 17-item scale of school engagement. It offers an important contribution to the international literature by seeking to measure the school engagement of young people in a society undergoing transition from a collectivist to individualist mind-set alongside an education system focused on improving performance in international benchmarks such as those from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, PISA) and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA Trends In International Mathematics And Science Study, TIMSS). To date, little has been written on how intra-individual and interindividual factors contribute to young people's engagement in education as societal and systemic educational reform occurs. The school engagement scale is validated by testing the empirical fit of a second-order multidimensional factor model of school engagement taken from the Western literature to large-scale data in Kazakhstan. Culturally relevant features are added such as the strong influence of 'important others'. The model tested was formed from 1) an individual's cognitions and behaviours associated with school and 2) the social influences of parents, peers, and teachers. 1767 secondary education students in Kazakhstan participated in the study. Confirmatory analyses supported the hypothesized additional contributory factors to school engagement. Use of the overall model indicated differences in means across gender, grade, school-type, and geographic location to show: (1) higher cognitive engagement for young women; (2) rural students with higher levels of behavioural engagement; and (3) substantial differences in social support by grade and rurality.

On Being Gifted at University: Academic, Social, Emotional, and Institutional Adjustment in Kazakhstan

“…Another specific feature of gifted students’ adjustment experiences at the university level is a habit of comparing their performance with other students, stemmed from their school background, sense of perfectionism, and high personal expectations developed in highly demanding competitive atmosphere in their selective schools (Speirs Neumeister, 2004; Winter et al, 2020). Those students who entered the highly selective programs at university were most likely to be the top performers from their schools, and it was particularly challenging for them to realize that someone might have superior ability and performance.…”

The relationship between preservice science teachers' perceived role modeling and self‐regulation skills in science

“…Although many cross‐sectional and longitudinal studies are found to have examined the concepts of self‐regulation and role model separately (Abdollahi et al, 2018; Han, 2022; Khodarahmi & Zarrinabadi, 2016; Pell et al, 2022; Truskauskaitė‐Kunevičienė et al, 2020; Winter et al, 2020), less information is available about the relationship between these two concepts. However, the perception of role modeling is an important predictor regarding the development of self‐regulation skills (Karaca & Bektas, 2021).…”

Measuring Social Desirability in Collectivist Countries: A Psychometric Study in a Representative Sample From Kazakhstan

“…Kazakhstan is in fact a diverse country with more than 120 ethnic groups that have different social values and norms ( The Agency on Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2011 ). Second, as a former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan maintains a strong national collectivist tradition ( Winter et al, 2020 ). This is relevant as collectivist cultures tend to demonstrate stronger and more consistent magnitudes and patterns of SDB ( Bernardi, 2006 ; Kim and Kim, 2016 ).…”