EFFECTS OF ENGAGEMENT IN HIGH SCHOOL AND EXPECTATIONS FOR COLLEGE ENGAGEMENT ON REALIZED COLLEGE ENGAGEMENT

Abstract

The positive relationships of college engagement with student persistence, graduation, and satisfaction are generally accepted by researchers and practitioners. Much emphasis has therefore been placed on fostering college engagement; however, despite considerable college programming focused on college engagement, little progress has been seen in national levels of college engagement. This stagnation begs the question of whether or not colleges are as responsible for fostering college engagement as is commonly believed. Students themselves may be predisposed to be engaged in college. No prior study has adequately examined high school student engagement and their expectations for college engagement and student relationships with college engagement across a national sample. This study proposes a comprehensive model of engagement and tests the model to contribute a more complete understanding of the student-level factors that contribute to college engagement to the body of extant research. To evaluate these relationships, a series of hierarchical linear models (HLM) models were developed using data from the 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 administrations of the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE) and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). In general, the variability in the NSSE benchmarks was mostly explained by student characteristics rather than college characteristics. Moreover, the engagement behaviors in high school exhibited the highest and most consistent relationship with each of the benchmarks. Expected college engagement generally demonstrated the second highest levels. However, no indirect relationships were found to be significant between the student and college characteristics, thus indicating that college characteristics had only direct and slight relationships with college engagement when compared to student characteristics. The findings of this study indicate a need to revisit the discussions surrounding college engagement. Rather than looking towards colleges as the primary source of college engagement, scholars and practitioners should rather look to those behaviors and expectations a student exhibited prior to enrolling in college. This paradigm shift is supported by the retention and engagement models previously proposed by Tinto, Bean and Kuh, but for lack of adequate statistical methods and survey instruments, the importance of prior engagement and expectations were understudied.