This article proposes a model of student school engagement, comprising aspirations, belonging, and productivity. From this model, items for the Student School Engagement Measure (SSEM) were developed. The SSEM was validated with data from 396 eighth graders in an urban school district. Utilizing structural equation modeling, the second-order empirical model of the SSEM was found to fit the data well, to have good reliability for the three factors, and to be predictive of district-identified risk factors and state standardized academic assessment results. These results suggest that the Student School Engagement Model and the SSEM may be useful tools for understanding which students might be at increased risk for school dropout and how to intervene to support school completion. Recommendations for practitioners and future research are given. C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the convergent and discriminant validity of the Student School Engagement Measure (SSEM) with 3 other measures of student well-being: (a) the School Engagement Scale, (b) the Student Engagement Instrument, and (c) the Student Life Satisfaction Survey. The data were analyzed from 370 8th-grade students from 3 middle schools in an urban school district. As hypothesized, strong and significant positive correlations (.80) were found between the SSEM and the 2 measures of engagement (the School Engagement Measure and the Student Engagement Instrument). Also as hypothesized, a weak but significant positive correlation (.35) was found between the SSEM and a measure of life satisfaction (the Student Life Satisfaction Survey). These findings provide additional support for using the SSEM as a valid measure of adolescents' engagement with school.