Academic Engagement

Overarching Framework of Academic Engagement. Pierson and Connell’s (1992) motivational theories and Newmann’s (1992) incorporation of academic engagement theory built the foundation of the current theoretical framework for academic engagement. As a sub-theory of motivational theories, self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000) provides the overarching framework to understand the roles of academic engagement in a student’s life (Appleton et al., 2008; Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Eccles et al., 1993; Fall & Roberts, 2012; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Skinner et al., 2008; Wang & Eccles, 2013). Self-system model of motivational development (Skinner & Belmont, 1993), stage-environment fit theory (Eccles & Midgley, 1989), and expectancy-value

theory (Eccles, 1983) substitute SDT from different aspects and altogether constitute the theoretical frameworks of academic engagement.
Self-determination theory. Self-determination theory is a theory of motivation that uses traditional empirical methods to build its theory and to inform educational practices. The theory assumes that all students, no matter their age, gender, socioeconomic status, nationality, or cultural background, possess fundamental growth tendencies such as intrinsic motivation, and psychological needs that may provide a motivational foundation for their high-quality engagement and positive functioning in educational activities (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Students possess needs, goals, interests, and values of their own. These motivations sometimes manifest themselves with little relevance to the context, as when a student adopts a mastery goal orientation across all achievement contexts. These motivations also express themselves when students are not interacting with the greater ecology, as when an adolescent opens a book, finds it interesting and read it for hours. When in the domain of education, however, context plays an important role in students’ experience. For example, in the school, community, or family, students live and interact in a social world that offers support for and threats against their needs, goals, interests, and values in terms of education. That being said, the extent to which the student actively engages in academic activities is invariably a joint product of his or her motivation and social supports versus thwarts.
Self-System model of motivational development.

The Self-System Model of Motivational Development (SSMMD; Skinner & Belmont, 1993; Skinner et al., 2008) builds off of youths’ developmental needs to connect with others and interact with their broader ecologies and internalize the knowledge, customs, and values that surround them (Appleton et al., 2008; Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Eccles & Harold, 1993; Wang & Eccles, 2013). The model addresses an important factor that mediates the connection between social support and positive developmental outcomes, the individual’s self-system processes, which are defined as relatively stable personal resources that individuals construct over time in response to interactions with the developmental context (Skinner et al., 2008). In research, self-system processes are mostly commonly operationalized as students’ identification with school (Fall & Roberts, 2012), perceived self-control (Appleton et al., 2008), subjective tack value (Wang & Eccles, 2013), and academic self-efficacy (Wigfield, Eccles, Schiefele, Roeser, &, Davis-Kean,

2006).
In general, the model suggests that when youths’ developmental needs are met by social contexts or activities, they will engage with the contexts or activities constructively and achieve better developmental outcomes. To illustrate, deeper connections between youth and the adults around them promote the internalization of adults’ values and expectations for education, as well as engagement with academic pursuits, which subsequently promote students’ academic outcome (Fall & Roberts, 2012; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Wang & Eccles, 2013). Theories of school dropout and a growing body of research suggest that contextual factors can influence students’ self-system processes which further predict students’ academic engagement (e.g., Fall & Roberts, 2012; Wang & Eccles, 2013).
Stage-environment fit theory. As an extension to the self-determination theory, stage-environment fit theory suggests the importance of looking at the fit between the needs of early adolescents and the opportunities afforded them throughout the process of development (Eccles & Midgley, 1989). A good fit would help students keep engaged in education, while a poor fit may result in a decline of motivation and engagement with high school.
Eccles and colleagues see that youths’ needs are not static throughout adolescence.

Instead, their specific needs may be changing over time in respond to their cognitive, social and emotional development (Eccles et al., 1993). Some negative changes may result from a mismatch between the needs of developing adolescents and the opportunities afforded to them in their various social environments. According to the theory, the unique developmental nature of adolescence partly results from the relation between changes in the developmental needs of adolescents and changes in the social contexts in which they live (Eccles et al., 1993; Eccles, Lord, & Roeser, 1996). Adolescents whose environments change in developmentally regressive ways are more likely to experience negative impacts on their engagement. In contrast, adolescents whose social environments effectively respond to their changing needs are more likely to experience positive outcomes on engagement. For example, considering that one of the salient developmental tasks confronting adolescents is establishing oneself as an autonomous being (Eccles et al., 1993; Smetana, 2000), it is not surprising to see the raise of stress and tension among family members if the needs for autonomous were not adequately addressed and

met.