Student engagement and prosocial behavior in high school students

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.