Cultural universality and specificity of student engagement in school: The results of an international study from 12 countries

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Cultural universality and specificity of student engagement in school: The results of an international study from 12 countries

Background: A comprehensive understanding of the contextual factors that are linked to student engagement requires research that includes cross-cultural perspectives. Aims: This study investigated how student engagement in school is associated with grade, gender, and contextual factors across 12 countries. It also investigated whether these associations vary across countries with different levels of individualism and socio-economic development. Samples: The participants were 3,420 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students from Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Methods: The participants completed a questionnaire to report their engagement in school, the instructional practices they experienced, and the support they received from teachers, peers, and parents. Hierarchical linear modelling was used to examine the effects at both student and country levels. Results: The results across countries revealed a decline in student engagement from Grade 7 to Grade 9, with girls reporting higher engagement than boys. These trends did not vary across the 12 countries according to the Human Development Index and Hofstede's Individualism Index. Most of the contextual factors (instructional practices, teacher support, and parent support) were positively associated with student engagement. With the exception that parent support had a stronger association with student engagement in countries with higher collectivism, most of the associations between the contextual factors and student engagement did not vary across countries. Conclusions: The results indicate both cultural universality and specificity regarding contextual factors associated with student engagement in school. They illustrate the advantages of integrating etic and emic approaches in cross-cultural investigations. © 2016 The British Psychological Society

Understanding and measuring student engagement in School: The results of an international study from 12 countries

The objective of the present study was to develop a scale that is appropriate for use internationally to measure affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions of student engagement. Psychometric properties of this scale were examined with data of 3,420 students (7th, 8th, and 9th grade) from 12 countries (Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The intraclass correlation of the full-scale scores of student engagement between countries revealed that it was appropriate to aggregate the data from the 12 countries for further analyses. Coefficient alphas revealed good internal consistency. Test-retest reliability coefficients were also acceptable. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the data fit well to a second-order model with affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement as the first-order factors and student engagement as the second-order factor. The results support the use of this scale to measure student engagement as a metaconstruct. Furthermore, the significant correlations of the scale with instructional practices, teacher support, peer support, parent support, emotions, academic performance, and school conduct indicated good concurrent validity of the scale. Considerations and implications regarding the international use of this student engagement in school measure are discussed

Exploring student engagement in schools internationally: the results from 12 countries

Symposium (Sym6F)Proceedings of the 31st Annual Colloquium of the International School Psychology Association, p. 104-105This paper will present an overview of the project of Student Engagement in Schools, an international research project under the auspices of the ISPA. The data from 12 countries (Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, South Korea, Malta, Portugal, Romania, U.K. and the U.S.A.) will be analyzed to identify the antecedents and consequences of student affective, behavioural, and cognitive engagement in schools. The antecedents under investigation include instructional and social contextual factors as well as personal factors such as goal orientations and self-efficacy. The consequences being studied include students’ emotional functioning, academic performance, and conduct. Comparison will be made across the 12 countries to test the stability of relationships among these antecedents, consequences, and student engagement in schools.The 31st Annual Colloquium of the International School Psychology Association (ISPA), Valetta, Malta, 7-11 July 2009