Student engagement is best understood as a relationship between the student and the following elements of the learning environment: adults at school, students' peers, instruction, curriculum, and the wider school community.
Though student engagement is a complex, multidimensional construct, definitions typically include three primary components:
Survey questions describe:
students' effort, investment, and strategies for learning;
the work students do and the ways students go about their work;
engagement connected to instructional time.
Survey questions describe:
students' actions in social, co-curricular, and non-academic school activities, including interactions with other students;
the ways in which students interact within the school community;
engagement with the school outside of instructional time.
Survey questions describe:
students' feelings (positive or negative) about their current school situation;
students' attitudes toward the people with whom they interact, the work, and school structures;