Effect of Students' Engagement on academic achievement in Different Stages of their Academic Career from a Dropout Perspective

In this study, the effect of students' engagement on their academic achievement through the course of their school careers was investigated. This was achieved by measuring the effects of individual components of engagement on the achievement of 1281 students from the Dutch region Twente. Differences in these effects for students of different stages in their career were measured using a moderated regression approach. For every component of the tested engagement model, an effect on achievement could be found, but the kind of effect differed depending on the stage of the students' school career and whether effects on mathematics or language achievements were measured. The results indicate that in order to understand the relationship between student engagement and achievement, one has to consider the different components of engagement in the context of the students' stage in their school career.