Handbook of Student Engagement Interventions

Working with Disengaged Students

Jennifer A. Fredricks, Amy L. Reschly, Sandra L. Christenson

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780128134146
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Handbook of Student Engagement Interventions: Working with Disengaged Students provides an understanding of the factors that contribute to student disengagement, methods for identifying students at risk, and intervention strategies to increase student engagement. With a focus on translating research into best practice, the book pulls together the current research on engagement in schools and empowers readers to craft and implement interventions. Users will find reviews on evidence-based academic, behavioral, social, mental health, and community-based interventions that will help increase all types of engagement.

The book looks at ways of reducing suspensions through alternative disciplinary practices, the role resiliency can play in student engagement, strategies for community and school collaborations in addressing barriers to engagement, and what can be learned from students who struggled in school, but succeeded later in life. It is a hands-on resource for educators, school psychologists, researchers, and students looking to gain insight into the research on this topic and the strategies that can be deployed to promote student engagement.

• Presents practical strategies for engagement intervention and assessment
• Covers early warning signs of disengagement and how to use these signs to promote engagement
• Reviews contextual factors (families, peers, teachers) related to engagement
• Focuses on increasing engagement and school completion for all students
• Emphasizes multidimensional approaches to disengagement

Chapter 1

Interventions for Student Engagement: Overview and State of the Field

Jennifer A. Fredricks¹, Amy L. Reschly² and Sandra L. Christenson³, ¹Union College, Schenectady, NY, United States, ²University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States, ³University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States

Abstract

The purpose of this introductory chapter is to introduce engagement as a multidimensional construct and provide an overview of student-engagement interventions. First, we describe reasons for the growing interest in the construct of engagement in research, policy, and practice. Next, we present demographic and developmental differences in engagement and provide a summary of the theoretical models and conceptual issues related to the engagement construct. We then describe why engagement is a key locus for interventions that aim to reduce dropout rates, increase achievement, and help students to develop the skills that are necessary to compete for the jobs of future. Specifically, we describe variations in the goals, targets, and populations served by current engagement interventions. We then describe some of the challenges around the evaluation of and implementation of these interventions. Finally, we conclude with an overview of the goals and structure of the handbook.

Keywords

Engagement; intervention; evaluation; dropout prevention; implementation

Student engagement has been prominent in research, policy, and practice because of its potential to address problems related to low achievement, high dropout rates and alienation, and lack of interest and motivation among students (Christenson, Reschly, & Wylie, 2012; Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). Engagement with school and learning is a developmental process, beginning before students enter formal schooling and continuing into early adulthood with employment or post–secondary attendance and persistence (Finn, 1989; Reschly & Christenson, 2012). The youth need to be actively engaged in school to develop the skills, competencies, and values that are necessary for school completion and a successful transition into adulthood. In addition, engagement can serve as a protective factor that helps students deal with difficulties and obstacles that they may face daily in school, bounce back from setbacks and failures, and constructively reengage with challenging academic tasks (Skinner & Pitzer, 2012). It is widely agreed that engagement holds tremendous promise as a locus of interventions across academic, behavioral, and social–emotional domains as it is malleable and responsive to changes in contextual factors (Appleton, Christenson, & Furlong, 2008; Christenson et al., 2012; Skinner & Pitzer, 2012).

An overarching goal of this handbook is to review evidence-based interventions designed to increase student engagement. The purpose of this chapter is to provide some background to the construct of engagement and give an overview of student engagement interventions. First, we provide a general definition of engagement, followed by reasons for the increasing interest in the construct of engagement in research, policy, and practice. Next, we describe demographic and developmental differences in student engagement and provide a summary of theoretical models and conceptual issues with the engagement construct. The next section is focused on interventions, including variations in the goals, target of efforts, and populations served as well as challenges related to the evaluation and implementation of student engagement interventions. Finally, we conclude with an overview of the goals and structure of the handbook.

What is Engagement?

One of the appeals of engagement as a construct is that it is multidimensional and can provide a broader portrait of how students think, act, and feel in school than focusing on any one of these dimensions in isolation. The most prevalent conceptualization in the academic literature is that engagement consists of three distinct, yet interrelated dimensions—behavioral, emotional/affective, and cognitive engagement (Fredricks et al., 2004). In general, behavioral engagement encompasses school-related conduct, involvement in learning, attendance, and participation in school-related activities. Emotional/Affective engagement includes students’ positive and negative reactions to class and school, and relationships with teachers, peers, and school belonging or connectedness (Appleton et al., 2008; Fredricks et al., 2004; Reschly & Christenson, 2012). Finally, cognitive engagement consists of self-regulated learning, perceived relevance of schoolwork, use of deep learning strategies, and exerting the necessary cognitive strategies for the comprehension of complex ideas (Fredricks et al., 2004; Wang, Fredricks, Ye, Hofkens, & Schall, 2016). Many scholars have added a fourth component, such as academic (Appleton, Christenson, Kim, & Reschly, 2006; Appleton et al., 2008; Christenson et al., 2008), social engagement (Finn & Zimmer, 2012; Fredricks et al., 2016), or agentic engagement (Reeve, 2013).

Importance of Engagement in Research, Policy, and Practice

There are numerous, varied reasons for the growing interest in engagement. One is a growing body of evidence linking engagement to indicators of academic adjustment and positive youth development. Engagement is predictive of higher grades, achievement test scores, academic aspirations, and school completion (Akey, 2006; Fredricks et al., 2004; Ladd & Dinella, 2009; Wang & Holcombe, 2010) as well as college attendance and persistence (Fraysier, Reschly, & Appleton, 2017). Students’ engagement is also correlated with favorable mental health outcomes including lower levels of depression (Li & Lerner, 2011) and suicidal thoughts and behaviors (Marraccini & Brier, 2017), and higher life satisfaction (Lewis, Huebner, Malone, & Valois, 2011). Furthermore, there is evidence that engagement is a protective factor that can buffer students from risky behaviors, including substance use, delinquency, and problem behaviors (Henry, Knight, & Thornberry, 2012; Li & Lerner, 2011; Wang & Fredricks, 2014). Some researchers suggest that relations between engagement and indicators of adjustment are reciprocal and mutually reinforcing, with initial differences in engagement being magnified with time (Hughes, Luo, Kwok, & Loyd, 2008; Wang & Fredricks, 2014). In other words, engagement is associated with more favorable academic achievement and lower risk behavior. In turn, these more favorable outcomes lead to higher engagement over time. Conversely, disengagement in school leads to higher risky behavior, which may in turn exacerbate students’ alienation from school and eventually can influence the decision to drop out of school (Wang & Fredricks, 2014).

Part of the appeal of engagement is that it is a metaconstruct that unifies different literatures and can provide a richer picture of how students think, act, and feel in school than research on any single dimension can offer. The research using personal-centered analytic approaches has identified students who show varying patterns of behavioral, emotional/affective, and cognitive engagement. For example, Wang and Peck (2013) identified a group of emotionally disengaged students (high on behavioral and cognitive engagement, but low on emotional engagement) who had comparable achievement and dropout rates to students who were high on all three dimensions of engagement but had a greater risk of poor mental health. Another common profile, especially in middle and upper class communities, is students who are high on behavioral engagement, but low on cognitive and emotional/affective engagement (Connor & Pope, 2013; Fredricks, 2014). These students are just going through the motions or “doing school” but are bored, stressed out, more likely to cheat, and report that they don’t actually learn or retain the material (Connor & Pope, 2013; Pope, 2001).

Engagement also has important policy implications. Students will need to be behaviorally, emotionally/affectively, and cognitively engaged to meet the new educational standards which emphasize higher order critical thinking skills, analysis and reasoning, solving real-world problems, and written and oral communication (Common Core Standards Initiative, 2017; National Research Council, 2012). In addition, many districts are using administrative data collected on student disengagement as part of an early warning system to identify students who are struggling earlier in their school career and to use these data to direct students to appropriate interventions (Balfanz, Herzog, & MacIever, 2007; Heppen & Bowles Therriault, 2008); however, early warning signs (EWS) tend to rely on indicators of behavioral engagement and are less likely to include students’ cognitive and affective engagement. Finally, a growing number of states are including data on behavioral engagement and disengagement (i.e., attendance, suspension, and chronic absenteeism) as a measure of the nonacademic indicator as part of their new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) accountability plans (Hammond et al., 2016; Klein, 2017).

Engagement is also compulsory for the practitioners because it is easily understood as being essential to learning and describes the conditions that they see in many of their classrooms and schools (Finn & Zimmer, 2012; Fredricks et al., 2016; National Research Council, 2004). Student disengagement is rated by teachers as one of the biggest stressors they experience in the classroom and one of the factors responsible for high rates of teacher burnout (Chang, 2009; Fredricks, 2014). Addressing disruptive behavior can consume a large amount of instructional time, which limits students’ opportunities to learn and interferes with teachers’ ability to teach effectively (Walker, Ramsey, & Gresham, 2004). On the other hand, having highly engaged students makes teaching easier and has been found to make it more intrinsically rewarding (Frenzel, Goetz, Lüdtke, Pekrun, & Sutton, 2009). It has been suggested that engagement begets greater engagement, with students receiving feedback and support from the environment that promotes greater engagement (Reschly, 2010). In addition, high-quality instruction is assumed to improve educational outcomes in part because of how it influences students to engage in ways that support their learning. In this way, studying engagement can help to identify the features of educational settings that shape student outcomes and help us to understand how to monitor effective implementation.

One of the main reasons for the interest in engagement and focus of this handbook is a body of evidence showing that engagement is malleable and a key cornerstone of many prevention and intervention efforts, especially at the secondary school level (Christenson et al., 2008; Natio...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of Contributors
• Chapter 1. Interventions for Student Engagement: Overview and State of the Field
• Chapter 2. Promoting Student Engagement From Childhood to Adolescence as a Way to Improve Positive Youth Development and School Completion
• Chapter 3. Profiles of School Disengagement: Not All Disengaged Students are Alike
• Chapter 4. Early Warning Indicators and Intervention Systems: State of the Field
• Chapter 5. The Intersection of Student Engagement and Families: A Critical Connection for Achievement and Life Outcomes
• Chapter 6. Peers and Engagement
• Chapter 7. A Teacher-Focused Intervention to Enhance Students’ Classroom Engagement
• Chapter 8. Instructional Interventions That Support Student Engagement: An International Perspective
• Chapter 9. Reducing Suspension and Increasing Equity Through Supportive and Engaging Schools
• Chapter 10. Assessing and Promoting the Choice of Academic Engaged Time During Reading Instruction
• Chapter 11. Student–Centered Practices for Student Mathematical Agency and Engagement
• Chapter 12. Changing Beliefs to Be Engaged in School: Using Integrated Mindset Interventions to Promote Student Engagement During School Transitions
• Chapter 13. Chronic Absence: A Sign to Invest in Conditions for Learning
• Chapter 14. Mental Health Interventions
• Chapter 15. Bullying and Bystander Behaviors
• Chapter 16. Spilling Over: How Participating in After-School Organized Activities Predicts Students’ Engagement
• Chapter 17. Effective School Reforms for Increasing Engagement
• Chapter 18. Implementing Check & Connect: Lessons From Two International Effectiveness Experiments
• Chapter 19. Creating Caring Classroom and School Communities: Lessons Learned From Social and Emotional Learning Programs and Practices
• Chapter 20. The Influence of Diverse Youth Development Models on Student Engagement and Academic Outcomes
• Chapter 21. Measuring Student Engagement to Inform Effective Interventions in Schools
• Chapter 22. Student Engagement Instrument as a Tool to Support the Link Between Assessment and Intervention: A Comparison of Implementations in Two Districts
• Chapter 23. Building an Engaging Community: Practices and Interventions that Support Students in Schools
• Chapter 24. The Met High School: Engaging Youth One Student at a Time
• Chapter 25. Conclusion: Status of Student Engagement Interventions
• Index