Student engagement in a higher education course: A multidimensional scale for different course modalities

Abstract

In higher education courses, student engagement has the potential to influence many outcomes, such as learning, retention, satisfaction, and academic success. Measuring student engagement in a course based on a multidimensional perspective provides important information for researchers, teachers, or even students, looking to target potential actions or improvements. This study presents an upgraded version of the Multidimensional Scale of Student Engagement in a Higher Education Course (MSSEC) resulting in a four-factor structure: emotional-cognitive, social, agentic, and behavioral. Engagement measures for a sample of university students (n = 465) were collected across different modalities (e.g., face-to-face, blended, online), at various faculties and university levels. Validity evidence was obtained through confirmatory factor analyses, internal consistency, and invariance of the measure using multi-group comparison. A first-order model with four correlated factors best fits the data, with good internal consistency for each factor of student engagement. Furthermore, multi-group confirmatory factor analyses support the scale's partial invariance across gender, age (traditional vs. non-traditional students), university levels (undergraduate vs. graduate), and course modalities (face-to-face vs. blended and online courses). From a multidimensional psychological perspective, the improved version of the MSSEC provides a sound scale to measure student engagement in a higher education course and thus obtain detailed and rich information for researchers, teachers, and students alike.