First-year college students' expected and actual engagement

Abstract

Using longitudinal student survey data, the current study explored the relationship of new college students' expected and actual engagement, covering three aspects of student engagement: collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, and discussions with diverse others. The results support findings of previous studies about the positive correlations between freshmen's expectations and actual behaviors in relation to student engagement. In addition, we found, for students who had the same expected engagement level, those with more varied expectations for different activities better fulfilled their expectation of engagement. We also utilized a structural equation model to investigate the relationship of expected and actual engagement. The model further showed that students' perceived college environment significantly moderates the relationship of expected and actual engagement in collaborative learning and discussions with diverse others but not in interactions with faculty. Besides the structural measure, an institution's basic Carnegie classification did not have statistically significant moderation between expectation and actual engagement in all engagement aspects. The findings imply a caring campus environment promotes a higher level of realization of that expectation.