Engaged Learning

Student engagement is one of the most widely researched topics in the recent higher education literature. Most of the research on engagement has focused on its behavioral indicators and on the environmental supports for educationally purposeful activities. In this study, we developed a multidimensional measure of engagement by adding psychological components. A principal components analysis of the responses of 1270 traditional and non-traditional aged undergraduates from five different institutions extracted three components that were interpretable and internally consistent: Meaningful Processing, Participation, and Focused Attention. With a coefficient alpha of.91 and preliminary evidence for construct validity, the newly developed Engaged Learning Index appears to be a valid and reliable tool for educators to measure a broader spectrum of student engagement in the learning process