Antecedents and Outcomes of Students' Engagement

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate possible antecedents
and outcomes of students' engagement. Students' engagement is
a positive condition characterized by vigor, dedication and
absorption in work and it was measured by the Utrecht Work
Engagement Scale for Students (UWES-S). Our study had two
research problems. Within the first problem, we relied to the Job
Demands-Resources Model to examine the possible determinants of students' engagement: core self-evaluations and the
person-environment fit (congruence as measured with the Iachan
M index). Within the second research problem we examined the
role of students' engagement in explaining academic achievement. Participants were students enrolled in six different study
programs at the University of Zagreb (N = 380). The results
have shown that congruence and core self-evaluations explained
students' engagement. Core self-evaluations were shown to be
related to all aspects of students' engagement, while congruence contributed over and above core self-evaluations to
dedication and total students' engagement. Academic achievement was determined by gender, age, core self-evaluations
and students' engagement, but not by congruence. Students'
engagement explained an additional variance of academic
achievement s over gender, age, and core self-evaluations.