Abstract:

Conceptual Framework:
The value and current relevance of the construct students’ engagement in school (SES) have been highlighted in literature, despite of the lack of empirical studies and validated multidimensional instruments.

Purpose:
The purpose of this study is to study how the relationship between SES and the student’s concept of self (self-concept), varies throughout the adolescence school years.

Method:
The sample consisted of 685 students from different regions of the country, of both sexes, divided by grade (6th, 7th, 9th and 10th).
Data were collected in classroom context through a survey that included items from “Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale” (PHCSCS) and the questionnaire “Student’s Engagement in School - A Four Dimensional Scale (SES-4DS)” which includes the cognitive, affective, behavioral and agentic dimensions (Veiga, 2013), and shows high psychometric qualities.

Results:
Results from variance analysis of engagement (anova two-way 2x2), according to school year (6th and 7th versus 9th and 10th grades) and self-concept (low and high), allowed to find a main effect of the school year on the cognitive dimension of SES and total scale (p <0.001); the effect of self-concept (ac) manifested itself in all dimensions of SES, with a high level of significance (p <0.001); the significant effects of the interaction of the variables year and self-concept emerged in cognitive and agenctic dimensions, as well as in the total scale, and were due to a greater differentiation in the 6th and 7th grades, comparing with the 9th and 10th grades, and also a greater decrease, over the years, of such dimensions in the higher self-concept group than in in the lower self-concept group. The study of this same variable in the modality of anova two-way 2x3 (low, medium and high self-concept) confirmed the main effects but not the variables interaction.

Conclusions:
Considering the lack of studies on these concepts, results are framed within the context of social-cognitive perspective of adolescence development, emphasizing the importance of the activation of variables such as self-concept.

Keywords:

Students’ engagement in school, self-concept, school year, adolescence.