Grade Level Differences in School Engagement among Public Secondary School Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20372/sshr.v1i1.1543Keywords:
Behavioural engagement, cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, grade levelAbstract
This study investigates differences in school engagement among public secondary school students concerning behavioural, emotional, and cognitive dimensions. Data were collected across grades 9, 10, and 11 using a validated questionnaire translated and adapted to the local context employing a cross-sectional research design. A total of 310 randomly selected students were surveyed. Descriptive statistics and ANOVA were used to analyse the data. The findings indicate that, in all dimensions of school engagement, major declines were found from grade to grade, and the steepest declines were in grade 11. Overall, all grades had behavioural engagement as the highest and emotional engagement as the lowest. The level of behavioural school engagement differed substantially between grades 9 and 11 and grades 10 and 11 and decreased with grades, from grade 9 to 11. The emotional, cognitive, and overall school engagement levels were significantly different between grades 9 and 10, 9 and 11, and 10 and 11, and decreased by increasing grade levels. The findings highlight the importance of focused efforts to keep students engaged, especially during the transition from one grade level to the next.
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