dc.description.abstract | School or student engagement is widely recognized as a multidimensional construct
that encompasses three aspects of engagement – cognitive, behavioral, and emotional.
Previous research has linked student engagement to various positive developmental
outcomes such as academic achievement, prosocial behavior, and sense of belonging to
the school. Examining school engagement and its relationship with prosocial behavior
is especially important in high school, when engagement is known to decline. Therefore,
the aim of this study is to examine whether adolescents’ school engagement is
associated with prosocial behavior among high school students.
The research sample consisted of 766 students (61.1% female) from four high schools in
Serbia, age from 15 to 19 (M = 16.36, SD = 1.04). School engagement was assessed by Delaware Student Engagement Scale (four-point Likert-type scale, α = .90). The results
of the confirmatory factor analysis did not yield three separate factors, but instead
showed that the items of the behavioral and cognitive engagement subscales were best
represented by one factor. Thus, the scale consists of only two subscales:
cognitive/behavioral engagement (8 items, α = .89) and emotional engagement (4
items, α = .90). Data on prosocial behavior were collected using the prosocial subscale
of The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (5 items, α = .84).
The results show that school engagement is statistically significantly positively
correlated with students’ prosocial behavior. Students with higher scores on the
engagement scale exhibit more prosocial behaviors (r = .64, p = <.001). In addition, a
stronger relationship is found between students' cognitive-behavioral engagement and
prosocial behaviors (r = .65, p = <.001), compared to emotional engagement (r = .46, p =
<.001). The correlation remains significant even when age and gender of respondents
are taken into account.
The results of this study suggest that school engagement can be a powerful resource
for prevention practice and the promotion of prosocial behavior, and that it would be
useful to plan interventions that promote active engagement of students in school. | sr |