Students embracing change towards more powerful learning environments in vocational education

Students’ educational engagement is both an important predictor of study success and a key preventive factor for dropout. Vocational tracks in secondary education show high dropout rates. There is strong evidence that the solution to educational disengagement lies in student‐centred, powerful learning environments (PLEs). This study investigates characteristics of PLEs from the perspective of students in vocational secondary education. Students’ perspectives on a learning environment are crucial for their satisfaction and learning engagement. Therefore, we investigated whether the perceived learning environment meets the requirements of PLEs, and to what extent it meets students’ preferences. Additionally, it was investigated whether students who perceive their learning environment as more powerful, are also more engaged for school. Survey data of 532 students showed that student perceptions of their current learning environment were largely discrepant from the characteristics of PLEs. Students strongly asked for more challenging learning pathways, in combination with adaptive learning support. Students who perceived the characteristics of PLEs as being present, reported higher satisfaction and stronger engagement than students who perceived their education to be a less powerful environment. There is a need to redesign curricula in vocational education in such a way that these more intensely implement characteristics of PLEs.     

Engagement,conduct of life and dropouts in the Danish vocational education and training (VET) system

This study provides support for the idea that school engagement is a central concept when trying to understand the dropout process. One of the strengths of this concept is that it involves understanding dropping out as a process, rather than as an event. However, the concept of school engagement also presents a number of problems. It tends to be functionalistic in nature: Processes of students’ school engagement and disengagement are partly the consequences of institutional initiatives – for example, how teachers act or how the school environment is organised. Furthermore, mainstream dropout researchers formulate the concept of engagement both simplistically and mechanistically by seeing engagement as something that the students possess to varying degrees. Inspired by critical psychology, this study includes a different concept of student engagement: We must take the students’ life conduct as the point of departure when approaching their school engagement and decision to drop out. The theoretical claims in the paper are substantiated by empirical results from 160 interviews with vocational educational and training (VET) students in the Danish VET system, and this paper will show how school engagement is closely related to the events in the other contextual settings of students’ lives.     

Making the connection: The role of social and academic school experiences in students' emotional engagement with school in post-secondary vocational education

This study examines the emotional engagement with school of a diverse sample of 909 students in post-secondary vocational education in the Netherlands. Using multilevel regression analysis, we assess the role of students' background characteristics and school experiences, and their interaction, in students' emotional engagement with school. At-risk students do not report lower levels of emotional engagement, except for students using (soft)drugs. While Dutch dropout prevention focuses on fostering a sense of belonging through enhancing teacher–student relationships, we do not find a significant role of perceived support from school staff in students' sense of belonging. A good relationship with classmates is more important to engage students in post-secondary vocational education. Perceiving an academic fit is most prominently related to the emotional engagement of vocational students, indicating that a sense of belonging should not only be defined in social, but also in academic terms.     

Self‐determined motivation and social achievement goals in children’s emotions

In this cross‐sectional study we investigated to what extent autonomous and controlled motivation and social achievement goals are associated with students’ emotional experiences at school. We found in a sample of 426 elementary school students, aged from 10 to 12 years, autonomous motivation (i.e. students’ engagement in class activities because they find such activities enjoying or personally important) and social development goals (i.e. students’ focus on developing meaningful social relationships) to be positively associated with positive emotions. In contrast, controlled motivation (i.e. students’ engagement in class activities because they feel coerced to do so) and social demonstration‐approach goals (i.e. students’ focus on demonstrating popularity) were positively associated with negative emotions. These associations remained significant even after controlling for perceived competence. Cluster analysis further showed that students high in autonomous motivation and social development goals and low in controlled motivation and social demonstration‐approach goals exhibited a better motivational profile compared to students high or low in all the above motivational variables. Results are discussed within the self‐determination theory and the social achievement goal perspective.     

Student engagement and mathematics achievement: Unraveling main and interactive effects

The present study explored the relationships between student engagement and mathematics achievement for 295,416 15‐year‐old students from 11,767 secondary schools in 34 countries who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012. Affective engagement was measured by students’ mathematics interest (InterestMath) and perceived usefulness of schooling (PerceptionSch), behavioral engagement by behaviors facilitating mathematics learning (BehaviorMath) and participation in mathematics learning activities (ActivitiesMath), and cognitive engagement by openness (Openness) and perseverance (Perseverance) in problem‐solving. Results showed that students who were more engaged had higher levels of academic achievement, with cognitive engagement having the strongest association with achievement. Results also showed that students who were highly engaged in two domains had higher achievement levels than peers who were engaged in only one domain in six pairwise comparisons (InterestMath‐BehaviorMath, InterestMath‐Openness, InterestMath‐Perseverance, PerceptionSch‐BehaviorMath, PerceptionSch‐Openness, PerceptionSch‐Perseverance). These results highlighted the importance of a whole‐school based approach in enhancing student achievement.     

Narratives of Student Engagement in an Alternative Learning Context

The concept of student engagement is critical in the discussion of school reform. This issue is particularly important in dropout prevention programs such as the alternative high school, although little empirical work guides intervention efforts. In this qualitative research, ethnographic observations were combined with interviews with 24 students and 12 teachers to examine how the offerings of the learning environment interact with the processes of engagement through the perspective of students in a high-functioning alternative high school. Youth narratives provide an account of the development of engagement in the context of supportive relationships and a caring school community. Findings suggest that affective engagement precedes school identification and behavioral commitments to learning. Their narratives aid in understanding how students construct stories of transition in the schooling process, and help to contextualize current theories that describe engagement in learning for youth placed at risk.     

Daily interest,engagement, and autonomy support in the high school science classroom

The current investigation examined relations between high school students’ daily and cumulative situational interest in science class and their engagement, as well as their perceptions of the motivational climate of the classroom. Two-hundred and eighteen high school students in 43 science classes participated in a diary study in which students provided reports of their classroom experiences after each class session for a six-week instructional unit. Multilevel modeling results suggested that interest during science class and behavioral engagement declined over the course of the unit. Daily and cumulative interest during science class predicted behavioral engagement (working hard, participating, and paying attention), cognitive engagement, and agentic engagement. Students’ interest during science class also predicted perceptions that teachers engaged in the motivationally supportive practice of emphasizing student choice during the same and the following class day. Results suggested that the links between interest with working hard and perceptions of choice provision were stronger early in the instructional unit compared to later in the unit. Moreover, some variation was found in these relations depending on students’ gender and ethnicity, as well as depending on the course content and level. Implications for practice, theory, and future research are discussed.     

The effects of autonomy support on student engagement in peer assessment

Although peer assessment is widely implemented in higher education, not all students are highly engaged in it. To enhance student engagement in peer assessment, we designed and developed a web-based tool, autonomy-supportive peer assessment (ASPA), to support students’ need for autonomy when they conducted peer assessment. Students’ sense of autonomy, and their behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement in peer assessment were examined via interviews and surveys. We also examined students’ academic performances, including their improvement from initial to revised essays and the quality of feedback they provided. Survey results indicated that the ASPA group (1) experienced a slightly higher sense of autonomy than the non-ASPA group, and (2) spent much more time on each evaluation criterion than the non-ASPA group. Interviews suggested that both the ASPA and non-ASPA groups were engaged in peer assessment. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in behavioral, emotional, cognitive engagement, and academic performances.     

Does school context moderate longitudinal relations between teacher-reported self-efficacy and value for student engagement and teacher-student relationships from early until midcareer?

Teachers’ self-efficacy and value represent two central components of their motivation. However, there is a scarcity of knowledge regarding the relevance of value for teaching quality and student outcomes, as well as the extent to which interrelations depend on contextual resources and demands. Engaging students in their learning is an essential aspect of teachers’ work which should promote warm and positive relationships between them and their students. Not only teachers’ self-efficacy for student engagement, but also the value they attach to being able to engage students, should be important for teacher-student relationship quality. Using longitudinal structural equation models, we analyzed relations between self-efficacy and value for student engagement, reported teacher-student relationships, and the potential moderating roles of perceived excessive work demands and the resource of school belonging. Data from 395 Australian teachers in primary and secondary schools encompassed 3 timepoints from the end of teacher education, during teachers’ early career (average 3 years teaching), and midcareer (average 10 years teaching). Informed by social cognitive, expectancy-value and job demands-resources theories, key findings revealed that teachers’ reported relationships with their students at midcareer were predicted only at low levels of perceived excessive demands, by early career self-efficacy and early career value in interaction with self-efficacy. At midcareer, value associated with teacher-reported relationships with students only at low levels of excessive demands, and school belonging. Conversely, perceived teacher-student relationship in early career predicted teachers’ value for student engagement at midcareer. Implications for theory, teacher education and teachers’ professional practice are discussed.     

Students' achievement goal orientations and their behavioral and emotional engagement: Co-examining the role of perceived school goal structures and parent goals during adolescence

The role of perceived school goal structures and parent goals in predicting adolescents' goal orientations and their behavioral and emotional engagement in the classroom was examined in the present study. Surveys were given to a sample of 271 seventh- and ninth-grade students. Path analyses showed that (a) perceived school mastery goal structures and parent mastery goals predicted student mastery goal orientation, perceived school and parent performance goals predicted student performance-avoidance goal orientation, whereas performance-approach orientation was only predicted by perceived parent performance goals; (b) perceived school and parent mastery goals predicted behavioral but not emotional engagement directly as well as indirectly through the mediation of student mastery goal orientation; (c) behavioral and emotional engagement were predicted by student mastery goal orientation. Results are discussed in relation to current theory and their implications for promoting adaptive patterns of learning in the school and the family context.     

SCHOOL RACIAL CLIMATE AND THE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT

This investigation utilized an integrative model of development for ethnic minority children and a process model of engagement to explore whether three dimensions of school engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) mediated relationships between school racial climate, academic performance, and educational aspirations. A total of 139 African American students were recruited from a high school in the southeastern United States. Findings revealed an indirect association between perceptions of racial fairness and academic achievement indicators through behavioral and cognitive engagement. Behavioral and cognitive engagement also mediated relationships between youths’ perceived peer discrimination and academic achievement indicators. No significant indirect associations between teacher discrimination and academic achievement through school engagement dimensions were found. Study limitations, future directions, and implications are discussed.     

Track choice,school engagement and feelings of perceived control at the transition from primary to secondary school

The transition from primary to secondary education is regarded as a crucial phase in pupils’ school careers. Changes in the school environment have a negative influence on pupils’ perceived control and engagement. However, until now little attention has been devoted to the role of the onset of ability grouping therein, which often coincides with the start of secondary education. Research has shown that students in non-academic tracks display lower levels of perceived control and engagement. In this study we examine the relation between pupils’ prospective track choice and feelings of perceived control and behavioural and cognitive engagement before the transition to secondary education. Stepwise multilevel regression models were run on data collected from pupils in their last year of primary education in 36 schools in the cities of Antwerp and Ghent (Flanders, Belgium) in May–June 2016. The results show that pupils who indicated that they would start secondary education in non-academic tracks displayed lower levels of perceived control and behavioural and cognitive engagement than pupils who indicated that they would start in an academic track. Further analyses suggest that teacher assessments of pupils’ competence play an important role in explaining these differences according to prospective track choice—with regard to perceived control and behavioural disengagement, this effect is established net of students’ actual competence. This study demonstrates that differences in perceived control and engagement according to track originate in primary education, and that primary school teachers play a vital part in labelling students according to their future careers.     

A person‐in‐context approach to student engagement in science: Examining learning activities and choice

Science education reform efforts in the Unites States call for a dramatic shift in the way students are expected to engage with scientific concepts, core ideas, and practices in the classroom. This new vision of science learning demands a more complex conceptual understanding of student engagement and research models that capture both the multidimensionality and contextual specificity of student engagement in science. In a unique application of person‐oriented analysis of experience sampling data, we employ cluster analysis to identify six distinct momentary engagement profiles representing different combinations of the behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions of student engagement in high school science classrooms. Students spend a majority of their classroom time in one of several engagement profiles characterized by high engagement on one dimension, but low levels on the others. Students exhibited low engagement across all three dimensions of engagement in about 22% of our observations. Full engagement, or high levels across all three dimensions, is the least frequent profile, occurring in only 11% of the observations. Students’ momentary engagement profiles are related in meaningful ways to both the learning activity in which students are engaged and the types of choices they are afforded. Laboratory activities provided especially polarized engagement experiences, producing full engagement, universally low engagement, and pleasurable engagement in which students are affectively engaged but are not engaged cognitively or behaviorally. Student choice is generally associated with more optimal engagement profiles and the specific type of choice matters in important ways. Choices about how to frame the learning activity have the most positive effects relative to other types of choices, such as choosing whom to work with or how much time to take. Results are discussed in terms of implications for practice and the utility of the methodological approach for evaluating the complexities of student engagement in science classrooms. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 88: 19–43, 2018     

Understanding students’ engagement in MOOCs: An integration of self-determination theory and theory of relationship quality

Although Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) attract millions of people to enroll in their courses, the completion rate for most courses is very low. A majority of MOOCs students are not fully engaged in MOOCs, thus leading them to quit in the early stage of the courses. Therefore, it is important to investigate students’ engagement in MOOCs. Drawing on self-determination theory and the theory of relationship quality, this study proposes a model that conceptualizes the MOOCs engagement as consisting of psychological engagement and behavioral engagement and explores the antecedents of students’ engagement in MOOCs. The research model is tested using data collected from 374 students of Chinese University MOOC. The results show that fulfillment of three basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness have significant positive effects on intrinsic motivation, increasing students’ psychological engagement in MOOCs. Relationship quality significantly predicts students’ psychological engagement, and psychological engagement promotes behavioral engagement in MOOCs. Implications for research and practice as well as limitations of this study are discussed finally.     

The effects of classroom and school environments on student engagement: the case of high school students in Abu Dhabi public schools

Drawing on data from a merged data set from a student survey and a parent survey that were conducted in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in 2013, this article uses a multilevel framework to investigate the effects of individual characteristics and the classroom and school environments on high school students’ school engagement in a modernising education system that is different from Western ones. The results of the three-level model revealed that while students’ attributes remained strong predictors of their school engagement, the social and organisational environment of classrooms and school also greatly shaped the extent to which students emotionally and cognitively engaged with their school and learning. This study provided evidence to support the interactive nature of the impact of multilevel environments on student engagement. The policy and research implications were also discussed in the empirical context of Abu Dhabi.     

Testing a developmental–ecological model of student engagement: a multilevel latent growth curve analysis

US schools fail to engage a significant proportion of adolescent students. Although student engagement is significantly related to academic achievement, there is a dearth of longitudinal research simultaneously examining the impact of personal and contextual factors on student engagement at both individual and school levels. Using a nationally‐representative sample, multilevel growth curve analyses found significant factors related to adolescents’ student engagement both in initial status and rate of growth. Significant factors at the student level were students’ locus of control, self‐esteem, peer academic value, parental expectation and parent–child communication along with the students’ socio‐economic status, previous grades and friend dropout history. Significant factors at the school level were teacher rules on homework, teacher support, and school safety. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Elementary-age children’s conceptions about mathematics utility and their home-based mathematics engagement

Integrating multiple theoretical frameworks, the authors examined rising first- to fourth-grade students’ mathematics utility conceptions—their knowledge and beliefs about the usefulness of mathematics, home-based mathematics engagement, and grade-level differences in mathematics utility conceptions and home engagement. Most children viewed mathematics as heavily focused on low-level mathematics operations and as learned and used primarily in school. Older children showed more awareness of mathematics as part of daily living, but still viewed mathematics as mostly school-based—more so than their younger counterparts. Results suggest that awareness of mathematics in daily life may be associated with children’s mathematics utility value (perceived usefulness of mathematics). Although children engaged in activities at home with the potential to foster mathematics development, the frequency of engagement was not related to their awareness of mathematics in daily activities. Thus, there may be untapped opportunities for young children to connect the mathematics they learn in school to their daily life.     

Personal and collective perceptions of social support: Implications for classroom engagement in early adolescence

The present study uses multilevel modeling to understand early adolescents’ individual and class-level perceptions of social support in relation to their behavioral and emotional engagement in math and science. To capture individual relationships, we examined students’ self-perceptions of classroom social satisfaction, best friend quality, and teacher-student relatedness. Between classrooms, we considered collective perceptions of peer and teacher support. Participants were 761 fifth (n = 412) and sixth grade (n = 349) students nested within 44 classrooms who were 52% female and ethnically diverse. Results indicated that both peer and teacher relationships are important for early adolescents’ behavioral engagement, but teachers play a primary role in shaping emotional engagement toward subject-area content. Moreover, both individual and classroom-level indicators of perceived support explained variation in children’s engagement outcomes, highlighting the complex nature of classroom social relationships that necessitate teachers’ consideration.     

Salient Predictors of School Dropout among Secondary Students with Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to identify the unique contributions of a comprehensive set of predictors and the most salient predictors of school dropout among a nationally representative sample of students with learning disabilities (LD). A comprehensive set of theoretically and empirically relevant factors was selected for examination. Analyses were conducted to explore the unique contribution and relative importance of these factors in predicting dropout. Results indicated that the most salient predictors of school dropout included a set of malleable individual (grades, and engagement in high‐risk behaviors), family (parent expectations), and school (quality of students’ relationship with teachers and peers) factors. The findings validate multicomponent dropout prevention and intervention models for this population while at the same time illuminating specific key components that appear to be of particular importance in school dropout among students with LD.     

Middle School Engagement with Mathematics Software and Later Interest and Self-Efficacy for STEM Careers

Research suggests that trajectories toward careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) emerge early and are influenced by multiple factors. This paper presents a longitudinal study, which uses data from 76 high school students to explore how a student’s vocational self-efficacy and interest are related to his or her middle school behavioral and affective engagement. Measures of vocational self-efficacy and interest are drawn from STEM-related scales in CAPAExplore, while measures of middle school performance and engagement in mathematics are drawn from several previously validated automated indicators extracted from logs of student interaction with ASSISTments, an online learning platform. Results indicate that vocational self-efficacy correlates negatively with confusion, but positively with engaged concentration and carelessness. Interest, which also correlates negatively with confusion, correlates positively with correctness and carelessness. Other disengaged behaviors, such as gaming the system, were not correlated with vocational self-efficacy or interest, despite previous studies indicating that they are associated with future college attendance. We discuss implications for these findings, which have the potential to assist educators or counselors in developing strategies to sustain students’ interest in STEM-related careers.