Dissertation writing help on teacher Variables Affecting Student Engagement

Custom Dissertation Writing Service on significant impact of engagement

Engagement is conceptualized as a psychological process, specifically, the attention, interest, investment, and effort that students expend in the work of learning (Marks, 2000). The concept of engagement includes affective participation as well as a behavioral one in the learning experience. Steinberg (1996) emphasizes not only students' "motivation to learn" but also their "interest" and "emotional involvement" with school.

Previous studies show that there is a strong positive relationship between engagement and academic achievement across diverse populations (Finn, 1993; Marks, 2000). As a mediator, engagement links teacher behaviors with student achievement (Hines et al., 1986). In addition, Hunter (1999) finds that engaged adolescents demonstrate higher levels of psychological functioning, like self-esteem and a sense of control.

In spite of the significant impact of engagement, research studies over the past two decades have documented low levels of student engagement in U.S. schools (Goodlad, 1984; Steinberg; 1996). Enhancing student engagement has been a challenge to educators, and efforts to increase student engagement have been a theme of school reform over the past decade. This is the reason student engagement is explored for this study.

The Prospects data that are nationally collected are used in this research. In the process of sampling, 120 districts were drawn from across all major strata, including the four Census regions (Northeast, South, Midwest, and West) and three levels of urbanization (Urban, Suburban, and Rural). In total, 372 schools were selected for the Prospects core sample and the average sample size per school was approximately 70 students. The large-scale sample size and representation enhance external validity of this investigation.

This research is divided into two main parts and the research questions are addressed as follows.

1. What student and teacher individual variables separately and interactively affect student engagement?
2. How much academic achievement can be predicted by student engagement?

According to previous research (Finn, 1993; Marks, 2000), student engagement and academic achievement have a positive relationship. This research will add to this line of literature by examining the link between student engagement and fall-to-spring achievement gains. Measuring the academic growth for an academic year gives more exact information about the effect of each classroom teacher, which is the strength of this study.

Since the first part of the study is to find out what student variables and teacher variables independently and interactively affect student engagement, Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) is used for analysis. Students are nested within a classroom in this data structure and two-level modeling is implemented. When students are located at the first level, teachers are at the second level. Since students belong to each teacher in HLM, it is possible to analyze each teacher's effects on student engagement. For the second research question, another HLM model is set up, where student engagement is regarded as a predictor at the student-level.