Measuring Aspirations, Belonging, and Productivity in Secondary Students: Validation of the Student School Engagement Measure

Abstract

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.

School engagement among LGBTQ high school students: The roles of safe adults and gay–straight alliance characteristics

“…School engagement has been demonstrated to relate to academic achievement (Fredricks et al, 2004), and this finding has held in an international study of students in grades 7-9 across 12 different countries (Lam et al, 2014). Student school engagement has previously been shown to correlate with better attendance, lower likelihood of failing math or language arts, and lower risk of suspension among 8 th graders (Hazel et al, 2013). In a study using latent profile analysis (Wang & Peck, 2013), high school students classified as either "highly engaged" or "emotionally disengaged" (had high cognitive engagement and moderate behavioral engagement, but low emotional engagement) had the highest GPAs.…”

“…Although there are a number of different approaches and conceptualizations of the construct known as student engagement or school engagement (see Fredricks et al, 2004), we are using an understanding of student school engagement based on the work of Hazel and colleagues (Hazel et al, 2013;Hazel et al, 2014) that defines this concept as a student's assessment of the person-environment fit between oneself and one's school. In this conceptualization, student school engagement encompasses three domains-aspirations, belonging, and productivity.…”

“…Finally, productivity is one's demonstration of pro-school behaviors, such as doing schoolwork, engaging in tasks that make learning most effective, and connecting with family and other resources to help one achieve success at school (Hazel et al, 2014). Student school engagement is something that is modifiable (Fredricks et al, 2004;Hazel et al, 2013)-that is, the person-environment fit can be affected by various factors in the student's ecological systems. Lam et al (2014) have described student engagement as "a psychological process that mediates the effects of the contextual antecedents on student outcomes" (p. 215).…”

“…Student school engagement, or the person-environment fit between a student and the student's school, is a construct that has received increasing attention in the school psychology literature in recent years (Hazel, Vazirabadi, Albanes, & Gallagher, 2014;Hazel, Vazirabadi, & Gallagher, 2013). Student school engagement is a modifiable factor that can predict student academic outcomes such as grades, truancy, and dropping out, as well as nonacademic outcomes such as depression, substance abuse, and delinquency (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, Paris, 2004;Hazel et al, 2013;Lam et al, 2014;Li et al, 2011;Wang & Fredricks, 2014;Wang & Peck, 2013).…”

“…Student school engagement is a modifiable factor that can predict student academic outcomes such as grades, truancy, and dropping out, as well as nonacademic outcomes such as depression, substance abuse, and delinquency (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, Paris, 2004;Hazel et al, 2013;Lam et al, 2014;Li et al, 2011;Wang & Fredricks, 2014;Wang & Peck, 2013). Engagement is theorized to act as a link between school contextual factors and school performance for youth and young adults (Lam et al, 2014).…”