School engagement, information technology use, and educational development: An empirical investigation of adolescents
Introduction
School engagement is an important antecedent of students’ psychological and educational development (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). Several prototypical types of school engagement profiles may exist, including Highly Engaged, Moderately Engaged, Minimally Engaged, Emotionally Disengaged, and Cognitively Disengaged, each of which can drive different behaviors, psychological states, and educational development outcomes (M.-T. Wang & Peck, 2013). Nonetheless, the mediating mechanisms through which different engagement profiles result in different educational development outcomes are still largely unknown. It is important to focus on such mechanisms, because interventions targeting them may improve the relationship between school engagement dimensions and educational development outcomes.
One arguably important set of such mediating mechanisms includes the use of information technologies (IT), both for school (i.e., utilitarian) and pleasure (i.e., hedonic) purposes. IT has become an increasingly important part of life in modern societies, especially among adolescents, who are commonly referred to as “digital natives” (e.g., Thompson, 2013). Discussing IT use as a mediating mechanism is particularly important because IT can dualistically facilitate both adolescents' engagement with school work (e.g., asking for help with homework, searching for relevant information, Ensor, 2012, Jacobs, 2012), and their disengagement from school (e.g., through playing non-educational videogames or using social media for socialization and fun, Christakis et al., 2004, Ong et al., 2011). In essence, IT is a double-edged sword; it is a readily available means for engaging with the school work (e.g., Gross, 2004, Jackson et al., 2006, Madell and Muncer, 2004, Willoughby, 2008), but also for escaping and disengaging from school (e.g., Junco, 2012a, Karpinski et al., 2013, Kirschner and Karpinski, 2010, Shah et al., 2012, Van Rooij et al., 2011; Turel, 2015; Turel & Bechara, 2016; Turel, Mouttapa, & Donato, 2015; Turel, Romashkin, & Morrison, 2016; Xu, Turel, & Yuan, 2012). For example, some studies have raised concerns regarding the negative effects of hedonic and excessive patterns of IT use, such as the problematic use of videogames and/or social media, on adolescents' performance at school (e.g., Turel, 2015, Turel and Serenko, 2012, Turel et al., 2011). In contrast, other studies have argued that IT can help adolescents; they use IT predominantly for accessing information, mostly for educational purposes, which can have positive impacts on adolescents’ educational development (e.g., Gross, 2004, Jackson et al., 2006, Madell and Muncer, 2004, Willoughby, 2008).
Considering this wide spectrum of potential impacts of different patterns of IT use on adolescents' educational development, it is important to better comprehend (a) how the patterns of IT use vary among adolescents as a function of their school engagement, and (b) how these patterns can affect adolescents’ educational development outcomes. This study makes one of the first strides towards addressing these gaps; it examines how IT use patterns can help translating common school engagement profiles into educational outcomes.
School engagement refers to “energized, directed, and continued action, or the discernible qualities of students’ interactions with learning activities or environments” (M.-T. Wang & Peck, 2013, p. 1266). It is a trichotomy of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement dimensions (e.g., Fredricks, et al., 2004; M.-T.; Wang and Peck, 2013, Watton, 2014). Behavioral engagement with school refers to the notion of participation in learning activities and physical presence in class and school (Fredricks et al., 2004; M.-T.; Wang & Peck, 2013). Cognitive engagement with school captures preference for hard work, investment in and use of self-regulated approaches to learning, as well as being strategic in planning, monitoring, and evaluating short-term and long-term learning outcomes (Fredricks et al., 2004, Zimmerman, 1989). Emotional engagement with school encompasses affective reactions to the school environment and to the school activities (e.g., Fredricks et al., 2004, Skinner and Belmont, 1993, Voelkl, 1997). The multidimensional conceptualization of school engagement provides a rich lens for understanding how students act, feel, and think toward the school, which can directly and indirectly affect their educational development outcomes (Fredricks et al., 2004; M.-T.; Wang & Peck, 2013).
Students who demonstrate high behavioral engagement with school are more likely to absorb the delivered content, feel they belong, participate in the class, and ultimately succeed academically. In contrast, students who adapt disengaging behaviors, such as truancy, are at a greater risk for educational failure (Appleton et al., 2006, Simons-Morton and Chen, 2009; M.-T.; Wang, 2009; M. T.; Wang, Selman, Dishion, & Stormshak, 2010). Similarly, cognitive engagement with school is positively associated with educational development; students who are willing to exert the necessary cognitive effort toward studying and learning and develop and use self-regulated strategies for learning, manage to better comprehend and master complex concepts (Miller and Byrnes, 2001, Zimmerman, 1989). Finally, high emotional engagement with school (i.e., having positive feelings and attitude toward the school and enjoying being at school) can foster educational development (Fredricks et al., 2004; M.-T.; Wang & Peck, 2013). In contrast, low emotional engagement with school can lead to a number of developmental problems, such as substance abuse and depression (e.g., Hawkins et al., 2001, Li and Lerner, 2011, Maddox and Prinz, 2003; M.-T.; Wang & Peck, 2013).
Despite the importance of viewing school engagement as a multidimensional phenomenon, most studies thus far have either focused on a sole dimension of school engagement, usually behavioral engagement, or combined various dimensions of school engagement into a single composite factor (Marks, 2000). Both of these approaches impede the examination of distinctive and simultaneous effects on dimensions of engagement on developmental outcomes (Jimerson, Campos, & Greif, 2003; M.-T.; Wang & Peck, 2013). Accordingly, a recent study has shown that the three dimensions of school engagement can configure differently in adolescents, creating distinct profiles of individuals, who significantly vary in their educational and psychological functioning (M.-T. Wang & Peck, 2013). Following this path, we first attempt to investigate the following question:
Research Question 1: Are there meaningful distinctive clusters of adolescents based on the configurations of different levels of their behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement with school?
IT may be broadly classified into two types: productivity-oriented or “utilitarian” systems and pleasure-oriented or “hedonic” systems (Massey et al., 2007, Van der Heijden, 2004, Wu and Lu, 2013). While the prime objective of utilitarian IT is to improve users’ productivity in school/job related tasks, the principal objective of a hedonic IT is to create pleasurable and entertaining experiences for users (Massey et al., 2007, Van der Heijden, 2004). Using self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) terminology, utilitarian IT (e.g., Microsoft Excel) are aimed at primarily generating extrinsic rewards, whereas hedonic IT (e.g., videogames, social media) are aimed at yielding intrinsic rewards. Hence, utilitarian IT serves a specific goal external to the interaction between the user and the system, such as doing school work (Massey et al., 2007). In contrast, interacting with hedonic IT is typically an end in itself.
Extrapolating these notions to the context of this study, we can categorize adolescents’ use of IT into two types: (1) use of IT for utilitarian purposes, which represents the use of IT, such as word processors or online learning systems, in support of school work (hereafter, use of utilitarian IT); and (2) use of IT for hedonic purposes, which refers to the use of IT for pleasure, socialization, and entertainment purposes (hereafter, use of hedonic IT). It is noteworthy that the boundaries between utilitarian and hedonic IT may not always be as palpable as their names suggest (Sun and Zhang, 2006, Wu and Lu, 2013) because hedonic IT can still occasionally provide utilitarian value and utilitarian IT can elicit intrinsic rewards. Nonetheless, we follow the logic that “a system is classified as utilitarian if it is used in a work or education environment to improve job or school performance more than 80 percent of the time, or as hedonic if it is employed in the home for fun and relaxation more than 80 percent of the time” (Wu & Lu, 2013, p. 155).
Studies on the impacts of use of IT on students' educational development have implicitly associated the use of utilitarian IT with positive impacts and the use of hedonic IT with negative impacts (e.g., Jackson et al., 2006, Junco, 2012b, Junco, 2012c, Willoughby, 2008). Nonetheless, how these IT use choices may be influenced by one's school engagement is largely unknown. While we know that different school engagement profiles may lead to different levels of educational functioning (M.-T. Wang & Peck, 2013), our search revealed no study that examined the relationships between adolescents' engagement with school and their patterns of use of utilitarian and hedonic IT. Hence, we address this issue by examining how the extent of use of utilitarian and hedonic IT as well as educational development outcomes vary between adolescents with different school engagement profiles.
Research Question 2: How are distinctive clusters of adolescents, based on combinations of their different levels of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement with school, associated with adolescents' extent of use of utilitarian and hedonic IT as well as their educational development outcomes (GPA)?
Behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement dimensions can drive students' educational development (e.g., Fredricks et al., 2004, Li and Lerner, 2011; M.-T.; Wang & Peck, 2013). Moreover, it is also expected that different school engagement profiles determine, in part, the extent of use of utilitarian and hedonic IT employed by students. Furthermore, research has generally indicated positive impacts of the use of utilitarian IT and negative impacts of the use of hedonic IT on students' educational development outcomes (e.g., Jackson et al., 2006, Junco, 2012b, Junco, 2012c, Kirschner and Karpinski, 2010, Paul et al., 2012, Willoughby, 2008). On this basis, we can expect that adolescents' use of utilitarian and hedonic IT partially mediates the effects of adolescents’ behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement with schools on their educational development outcomes (See Fig. 1). Considering that no study has empirically investigated such a partial-mediation model, we pose the following research question:
Research Question 3: Does adolescents' use of utilitarian and hedonic IT partially mediate the relation between their behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement with school and their educational development outcomes (GPA)?
Section snippets
Sample and procedure
The sample was drawn from an anonymous, nationally representative dataset of 8th and 10th grade high school students across the United States (U.S.), which was put together by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, Survey Research Center in 2013 (Johnston, Bachman, O'Malley, & Schulenberg, 2013). This dataset is part of a series of annual surveys that explore changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of American adolescents. After removing the
Results
Descriptive statistics and correlations for key variables are provided in Table 1.
Discussion and conclusions
This study contributes to research in education and developmental psychology by addressing three important research questions. The first research question focused on school engagement as a multidimensional construct and inquired about the distinctive and meaningful clusters of adolescents based on the combinations of different levels of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement with school. Our findings lent support to the existence of distinctive profiles of adolescents, based on
References (64)
- et al.
Measuring cognitive and psychological engagement: Validation of the student engagement instrument
Journal of School Psychology
(2006) - et al.
Television, video, and computer game usage in children under 11 years of age
Journal of Pediatrics
(2004) Adolescent Internet use: What we expect, what teens report
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
(2004)In-class multitasking and academic performance
Computers in Human Behavior
(2012)The relationship between frequency of facebook use, participation in facebook activities, and student engagement
Computers & Education
(2012)Too much face and not enough books: The relationship between multiple indices of facebook use and academic performance
Computers in Human Behavior
(2012)- et al.
An exploration of social networking site use, multitasking, and academic performance among United States and European university students
Computers in Human Behavior
(2013) - et al.
Facebook® and academic performance
Computers in Human Behavior
(2010) - et al.
Adolescents' decision making in social situations: A self-regulation perspective
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
(2001) - et al.
Factors affecting adoption of online banking: A meta-analytic structural equation modeling study
Information & Management
(2015)
Narcissism, extraversion and adolescents' self-presentation on Facebook
Personality and Individual Differences
Digital game-based learning in high school computer science education: Impact on educational effectiveness and student motivation
Computers & Education
Effect of online social networking on student academic performance
Computers in Human Behavior
The digital natives as learners: Technology use patterns and approaches to learning
Computers & Education
Gamified vocabulary
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Teaming with technology: “Real” iPad applications
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Hooked: How to bild habit forming products
Problematic computer game use among adolescents, younger and older adults
Addiction
Mclust version 4 for R: Normal mixture modeling for model-based clustering, classification, and density estimation
School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence
Review of educational research
Social isolation, psychological health, and protective factors in adolescence
Adolescence
Long-term effects of the seattle social development intervention on school bonding trajectories
Applied Developmental Science
Cut off criteria of fit indices in co-variance structure analysis; Conventional criteria versus new alternatives
Structural Equation Modeling
Does home internet use influence the academic performance of low-income children?
Developmental psychology
Rethinking common assumptions about adolescents' motivation to use technology in and out of school
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Toward an understanding of definitions and measures of school engagement and related terms
The California School Psychologist
Monitoring the future: A continuing study of american youth (8th- and 10th-Grade surveys), 2013
The mediating effect of gaming motivation between psychiatric symptoms and problematic online Gaming: An online survey
Journal of medical Internet research
The effects of escape from self and interpersonal relationship on the pathological use of internet games
Community mental health journal
Teens, social media & technology overview 2015
Developmental trajectories of school engagement across adolescence: Implications for academic achievement, substance use, depression, and delinquency
Developmental psychology
School bonding in children and adolescents: Conceptualization, assessment, and associated variables
Clinical child and family psychology review
Cited by (36)
Social network site use and academic achievement: A meta-analysis
2018, Computers and EducationOrganizational deviance via social networking site use: The roles of inhibition, stress and sex differences
2017, Personality and Individual DifferencesCitation Excerpt :One type of such presumably problematic behaviors is organizational deviance via SNS use, defined as online SNS use behaviors that violate social norms or formal or informal policies and traditions (e.g., policies and traditions that prohibit SNS use during specific times or tasks); these violations are largely disapproved by society or organizations (Hollinger & Clark, 1982). For instance, using SNS during class time instead of listening to a lecture is such a deviant behavior because it infringes informal expectations from students and in some cases also violates formal school (organizational) policies (Qahri-Saremi & Turel, 2016). In work settings, it can introduce task distractions, reduce positive emotions and eventually translate into reduced job performance (Moqbel & Kock, 2017).
Gamification in Test-Driven Development Practice
2023, ACM International Conference Proceeding SeriesChildren want to be celebrities. Is it compatible with school engagement?
2023, Revista Complutense de Educacion
- 1
Both authors have equal contributions.