Student engagement

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. You may improve this article, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new article, as appropriate. (December 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Student engagement occurs when "students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success (grades and qualifications), but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives."^[1]

Since the U.S. college dropout rate for first-time-in college degree-seeking students is nearly 50%,^[2] it is increasingly seen as an indicator of successful classroom instruction, and as a valued outcome of school reform.^{[3][clarification needed]} The phrase was identified in 1996 as "the latest buzzword in education circles."^[4] Students are engaged when they are involved in their work, persist despite challenges and obstacles, and take visible delight in accomplishing their work.^[5] Student engagement also refers to a "student's willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process promoting higher level thinking for enduring understanding."^[6] Student engagement is also a usefully ambiguous term for the complexity of 'engagement' beyond the fragmented domains of cognition, behaviour, emotion or affect, and in doing so encompass the historically situated individual within their contextual variables (such as personal and familial circumstances) that at every moment influence how engaged an individual (or group) is in their learning.^[7][8]