Abstract:

Students’ engagement in school has been seen as a key-element in order to reduce academic failure and school dropout. An approach with students from the Learning System in Alternation deserved special attention, due to the lack of investigation on this professional training model. In terms of methodology, the study focused on a sample of 440 students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades, of the Professional Training Centers of Porto district and Entre Douro e Vouga region, from both urban and rural residences. The data collection tools were: Envolvimento dos alunos na escola: Uma escala quadri-dimensional (Veiga, 2013); Regarding the school engagement, the study detected a considerable subgroup of students with low engagement, revealing the existence of significant relations between some engagement dimensions and the considered variables – “self-concept”, “age”, “gender”, “grades” and “creativity”. This study includes the results interpretation and discussion aligned with the literature review, limitations, applications, as well as suggestions to future investigations.

Keywords:

Students’ school engagement, learning system in alternation, school performance.