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Student engagement in four rural Northwest districts
- Region:
Northwest
- Abstract:
Description: The Northwest Rural Innovation and Student Engagement (NW RISE) Network convenes teachers and leaders from some of the Northwest's most isolated and remote communities to share improvement strategies and spread best practices for rural schools. The network is partnering with REL Northwest on an exploratory study to advance members' knowledge of measuring, understanding, and improving student engagement in NW RISE districts.
Previous studies have shown that geographic isolation can contribute to chronic absenteeism and a broader lack of student engagement, both of which are correlated with lower student achievement. However, the relationship between engagement and achievement—and how engagement varies across student demographic groups—has not yet been studied extensively in rural areas. This study will address this research gap by exploring differences in student engagement across student demographic groups in four rural districts that belong to NW RISE. The study will also inform rural school leaders' decisionmaking aimed at increasing student engagement by examining how different measures of engagement are related and how engagement relates to achievement in these districts.
Research questions:- For grades 6–12 students who attend one of four rural districts during the 2018/19 school year, to what extent do three measures of student engagement (self-reported measures, participation in extracurricular activities, and attendance in school) and annual grade point average (GPA) vary by district?
- By district, how do these differences vary by student demographics (grade band, gender, race/ethnicity, and free or reduced-price lunch status)?
- To what extent are different measures of student engagement correlated for each district and for grades 6–8 and grades 9–12 within each district?
- To what extent are different measures of student engagement and student achievement (as measured by annual GPA) correlated for each district and for grades 6–8 and grades 9–12 within each district?
- How do correlations for student engagement and GPA differ for each district based on student demographics (grade band, gender, race/ethnicity, and free or reduced-price lunch status)?
Study design: REL Northwest researchers will conduct a descriptive analysis of data from four NW RISE districts, including NW RISE student engagement survey data collected in spring 2019 and student administrative data from the 2018/19 school year, connected through unique student identifiers. This study will explore the correlations between student engagement survey scores and grade band (6–8 and 9–12), student demographics, participation in extracurricular activities, and annual GPA.
Projected release date: Summer 2021
Partnership or research alliance: The Northwest Rural Innovation and Student Engagement (NW RISE) Network Collaborative
Related products: What's Happening? report- Principal Investigators & Affiliation:
Ashlie Denton, REL Northwest at Education Northwest