Student engagement and its development in university education: A three-year follow-up study

The starting point of this study has been to follow the engagement development of the same cohort of students in Finland for three academic years. A dynamic model of student engagement and specially designed Engagement Evaluation Questionnaire (EEQ) has been utilised for the study. Altogether 974 students representing different disciplines from all 13 research-intensive Finnish universities responded to the survey during the three-year follow-up. Four engagement profiles (overall engaged, personally engaged, socially engaged, and disengaged) were identified in the analyses. The engagement profiles were relatively stable across the three time points, despite some maladaptive and adaptive changes found in the analyses. The validity of the extracted latent profile patterns across time was investigated by testing their associations with priority of students' study fields, withdrawal intentions and register data on academic achievement. •In the three-year follow-up, four main engagement profiles were identified.•Overall engaged were the biggest profile group within all years (56,9-59,0 %).•Stable patterns of engagement were more common than transitions between profiles.•Critical notion is that maladaptive transitions occurring more often than adaptive ones.•Socially engaged and disengaged profiles seem to be “at-risk” profiles.