An Analysis of High School Students’ Classroom Engagement in Relation to Various Variables

Abstract

This research aims to probe the ways of which classroom engagement levels of high school students are affected by some variables. It is designed as a descriptive study (Relational Screening Model). The sample of the research was constituted of 705 students attending 9th, 10th and 11th grades in 7 state high schools located at Ankara. Data were conducted through Classroom Engagement Inventory developed by Wang, Bergin and Bergin (2014) and adapted into Turkish by Sever (2014), as well as Attitudes Towards School Scale developed by Alıcı (2013). Data obtained from the study were analyzed through Kruskal Wallis Test, Mann Whitney U Test, Spearmen Rank Correlation Coefficient, Logistic Regression and Cluster Analysis. Research found out that classroom engagement of girls are higher than boys; there is a significant correlation between school attitudes and classroom engagement at different levels and towards different directions; students tend to engage with Turkish language and literature class while they show lesser tendency towards engaging with math classes; when girls perceive themselves as successful and see school as an important support for their personal development, their classroom engagement level tend to go higher.