Students’ situational engagement in lower secondary school: Association with overall engagement and contextual factors

Abstract

The present thesis was designed to contribute to the field of student engagement by examining the manifestations and correlates of students’ situational engagement. The central focus in each of the three published sub-studies of this dissertation was on students’ situational engagement and its variation. The data for the sub-studies were drawn from the First Steps follow-up study in Spring 2014 when the participating students were in Grade 7 (13–14 years of age). The subsamples used in the analyses of the present thesis were drawn from students (Study 1: n = 57; Study 2: n = 709; Study 3: n = 301), who were asked to assess their lesson-specific situational engagement using the InSituations (InSitu) Instrument at the end of their lessons. The data in Study 2 also consisted of 155 lessons that were observed using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System– Secondary (CLASS–S) observation tool (51 teachers). The data were analyzed using multilevel modeling with variable-oriented and person-oriented approaches. The results led to three main findings. First, the results provided evidence of the importance of examining student engagement at its situational level. Second, the findings enhanced the understanding of the student characteristics and contextual factors related to students’ situational engagement and its variation. Particularly salient were the findings concerning the role that teacher–student interactions play in shaping students’ situational engagement. Third, the results revealed associations between overall and situational engagement. Overall, the findings contributed to the research on student engagement by increasing the understanding of situational engagement, which is still a relatively understudied area within the research field. The findings of the thesis corroborate the literature on finding meaningful individual variation in student engagement, which needs to be acknowledged in both the research field and the school settings. Keywords: student engagement, situational engagement, lower secondary school, teacher–student interaction, classroom observations