Student engagement, context, and adjustment: Addressing definitional, measurement, and methodological issues

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe goal of this special issue is to examine relationships among context, student engagement, and adjustment. We begin by describing the reasons for the increased popularity of student engagement in research, policy, and practice, and then describe how researchers in the field define and study this construct. Next, we outline some of the issues and challenges around the definitions, measurement, and analytic techniques that have been used in prior research. Finally, we provide a short overview of the papers in this special issue highlighting their theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and analytical techniques by which many of the challenges outlined in this introduction are addressed. The overall findings of these papers come from samples in Finland, Korea, and the United States.

Perceptions of the Persistent: Engagement and Learning Community in Underrepresented Populations

“…Although factor analysis showed engagement and learning community to be separate ideas (Appendix A), the questions from the DETA engagement survey encompassed primarily emotional and cognitive engagement prompts and the one question that had social elements (#9) crossed over to learning community in the factor analysis. The significance of the three aspects of engagement-emotional, cognitive, and behavioral-has been strongly supported in K-12 environments (Appleton, et al, 2006(Appleton, et al, , 2008Fredricks, et al, 2004Fredricks, et al, , 2016. This study summed student perception of engagement and learning community scores into a multidimensional independent variable called total engagement and, when regressed against grades (after controlling for demographic variability), provided strong statistical support for Hypothesis 1, which stated perceptions of engagement and learning community positively contributed to student success (grades).…”

“…Engagement and learning community perceptions were strongly correlated, thus supporting the importance of social connections within the engagement construct (Fredricks, 2004(Fredricks, , 2016Kuh, 2001Kuh, , 2008Tinto, 1997Tinto, , 2006. Although factor analysis showed engagement and learning community to be separate ideas (Appendix A), the questions from the DETA engagement survey encompassed primarily emotional and cognitive engagement prompts and the one question that had social elements (#9) crossed over to learning community in the factor analysis.…”

“…Drawing from the K-12 literature, engagement has been deemed a multidimensional construct including behaviors, emotions, and cognitions (Appleton, Christenson, & Furlong, 2008;Fredricks, et. al., 2004Fredricks, et. al., , 2016 Wang & Holcombe, 2010).…”

“…Model 2 controlled for demographic factors in Tier 1 and entered engagement and learning community scores in Tier 2, which allowed for testing of the effects of engagement and learning community scores on grades above and beyond the variability due to demographic factors. Because there was a theoretical basis for learning community to be incorporated into the engagement term as the "social" aspect of engagement (Fredricks, et al, 2004(Fredricks, et al, , 2016, Model 3 placed the sum of engagement and learning community in Tier 2 (relabeled "Total Engagement"). Model 3 omitted the concern of collinearity between engagement and learning community by creating one measure.…”

A Learning Patterns Perspective on Student Learning in Higher Education: State of the Art and Moving Forward

“…An important connection can be made in here with the research literature and models of student engagement (e.g. Fredricks et al 2004;Fredricks et al 2016), in which behavioural measures of engagement are put central besides aspects of cognitive and emotional engagement (e.g. Krause and Coates 2008).…”