| Summary: | A student engagement model is proposed to provide a conceptual framework for understanding the bond between student and college. The impetus for developing this model originated from examining the literature on college student attrition; a literature that is diffuse and negative. The present model focuses attention away from attrition per se and toward a broader array of college outcomes. It also provides a rationale and a method for measuring student engagement. The validity of the model is examined in a study that tracks entering students through their first year in college. The model has two components. First, the engagement schema depicts students' psychological attachment to college. Second, the social context denotes social factors that influence psychological attachment. Four dimensions of engagement are described to facilitate measurement. The study employed available data for the 1984 and 1985 entering first-year classes at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The primary source of data was the Cooperative Institutional Research Program's entering student survey--the Student Information Form (SIF). The SIF data were linked to data from administrative records and from the University's yearly Cycles survey of student life. Although the study was limited by the available data, several findings supported the validity of the model. Two contrasting engagement orientations were discovered. Students who were initially more oriented toward college as an educationally enriching experience were more likely to desire making a significant contribution to society and they later performed slightly better academically. Students who were initially more interested in college for increasing their job prospects were more likely to desire personal gain after college and, on the average, they later performed less well academically. Students with the most conventional engagement orientations were less likely to withdraw from college during the first year or to change their majors or living arrangements. However, the more conventional students also tended to perform less well academically than those with more atypical motivations. The student engagement model provides a systematic perspective for examining college student life but comprehensive longitudinal data are needed to fully assess its validity. Further research is suggested to explore changes in engagement over the entire course of a student's years in college.
|
|---|
