Measuring student engagement: K-12

A new report from REL Southeast:  "Measuring Student Engagement in Upper Elementary through High School: A Description of 21 Instruments, presents the results of a literature review of available instruments for measuring student engagement (behavioral, emotional and cognitive) in upper elementary through high school. The study describes 21 instruments that include student self-reports, teacher reports, and observation measures.
The report summarizes what is measured, instrument purposes and uses, and available technical information. In addition, instrument abstracts describe the main features of each instrument, including the developer, population, method, background, administration, constructs measured, scoring and reporting, reliability and validity, and use. References are listed for each instrument. The report is descriptive and is not intended to assess the quality of each instrument or identify strengths or weaknesses."


To view this report, see http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=268

The impact of work on college students--it's complicated

Two recent studies reported at last week's Association for Institutional Research meeting examined the relationship between hours worked and student achievement, engagement, critical thinking, moral reasoning, socially responsible leadership, and psychological well being. In general, an excess of hours (over 20) has detrimental effects on student academic achievement, but not always on other areas measured. The implications for retaining students are discussed in today's Inside Higher Ed article.