Microscopía Electrónica de Transmisión (TEM)

referred to as students’ success, performance, and outcomes) (see a review by Trowler &

Trowler, 2010). However, research regarding student achievement is lacking a unified direction. This is partially due to the controversy and ambiguity surrounding the definition of achievement. Based on Trowler and Trowler’s review, I broadly define student achievement as the degree to which students accomplish an academic-related task or goal.

As with any ambiguous concept, there is some uncertainty with respect to the content domains of student achievement. I classify the common indicators of student achievement into tangible and intangible indicators. Tangible indicators of student achievement include credits, grades, marks, etc. These tangible indicators of student achievement are commonly used by HEIs to rank students by subject knowledge (Wilbrink, 1997). On the other hand, intangible indicators of student achievement such as interpersonal skills or innovation are often neglected as part of HEI evaluation (Dean, 1998, p. 3). This may be because intangible indicators of achievement are difficult to measure or perhaps such achievement may only be realized in the long run. For instance, students’ development of interpersonal skills may take place after they have been exposed to many HEI modules, instructors, students, etc. Hence, it may be difficult to pinpoint intangible gains from a single HEI module. For these reasons, my dissertation focuses on tangible achievement. Research has shown that tangible student achievement (herein after referred to simply as student achievement) is related to numerous student-related factors, including personality (Poropat, 2009), attendance (Plant, Ericsson, Hill, & Asberg, 2005), cognitive ability (Jensen, 1973), and domain knowledge (Horn, Bruning, Schraw, Curry, & Katkanant, 1993). In addition to these factors, the concepts of student engagement and burnout that are proposed in this dissertation should also be related to student achievement.

Student engagement and student achievement. Student engagement is expected to

influence student achievement because highly engaged students should effectively invest their emotional, behavioural, and cognitive resources in the module. In other words, it is plausible to expect that engaged students “who are energetic and immersed in their studies are successful as well” (Schaufeli, Martínez, et al., 2002, p. 466). While Rich et al. (2010) examine the three dimensions of engagement in relation to performance in the organizational behaviour literature, no such study was conducted in educational research (Fredricks et al., 2004). Instead,

educational researchers primarily examined the relationship between one or two of the three dimensions of engagement and student achievement (Fredricks et al., 2004).

For students’ emotional engagement, few researchers examined the relationship between activated and pleasant positive emotions and student achievement. Some of these activated and pleasant positive emotions include enjoyment, pride, and hope. Enjoyment is regarded as a highly activated and optimum psychological experience (Kimiecik & Harris, 1996; Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry, 2002). In a sample of university and school students, enjoyment is the most reported positive emotion followed by pride (Pekrun et al., 2002). Macey and Schneider (2008) explain that pride in one’s work is characterized by pleasure and activation, and thus should be regarded as engagement. In addition to enjoyment and pride, hope is described as an emotion

characterized by passion (Bruininks & Malle, 2005), and thus may also indicative of

engagement. These highly activated and pleasurable emotions are likely to positively influence students’ cognitive resources that can be dedicated towards task completion (Pekrun et al., 2009). Empirical findings mostly support this argument, showing positive associations between

enjoyment, pride, and hope and student achievement (Pekrun et al., 2002). However, Pekrun et al. (2009) found that, of these three activated emotions, enjoyment is not a significant predictor

of student achievement. Pekrun et al. (2009) explain that perhaps, for some students, enjoyment may lead to increased efforts that facilitate improved performance, whereas, for other students, enjoyment may indicate that ‘all is well’ and no extra effort or preparation is needed.

For students’ behavioural engagement, researchers examined the impact of participation on student achievement. When participation is operationalized by quality contributions in class this can be indicative of engagement. Reinsch and Wambsganss (1994) found that when students are awarded points for quality class contributions, this leads to improvements in exam scores. The authors explain that the reinforcement of quality contributions influences exam scores because reinforcement encourages students to prepare more thoroughly for class. In addition to quality contributions, participation is commonly measured by attendance, and is positively related to student achievement (Plant et al., 2005; Torenbeek, Jansen, & Hofman, 2010; Torenbeek et al., 2012). However, unlike the highly activated nature of quality contributions, attendance is characterized by low activation, and thus is not indicative of engagement.

With regards to cognitive engagement, higher education learning requires students to be involved in their own learning. At the higher education level, students are generally given more freedom than at prior levels of education. External parties, e.g., instructors, parents, family, etc., are less likely to be involved in monitoring students’ progress. For this reason, students’ self- regulatory practices and approaches to learning become increasingly important for student success. Studies show that students’ self-regulation inclusive of their approaches to learning are associated with academic achievement (e.g., Heikkilä & Lonka, 2006).

Student burnout and student achievement. My earlier discussion of the COR model may

module. As students become burnt out, they are likely to be selective in spending their remaining resources or energies (Hobfoll, 1989). To protect their remaining energies, students may distance themselves from the source of burnout (Halbesleben & Bowler, 2007), e.g., the module and/or the instructor. In addition, according to the COR model, because loss of resources is stressful, students may seek to employ their remaining resources towards coping strategies in order to offset the losses incurred by burnout (Hobfoll, 1989), e.g., compensating by regaining efficacy in a related module or activity. Taken together, distancing and attempts to offset losses are likely to reduce student achievement for a module.

Like the organizational behaviour literature, empirical findings for the relationship between student burnout and achievement are inconsistent. Some studies found a weak negative association between student burnout and achievement (e.g., McCarthy, Pretty, & Catano, 1990; Nowack & Hanson, 1983). Conversely, Balogun, Hoeberlein-Miller, Schneider, and Katz (1996) found no association between student burnout and achievement. Finally, Garden (1991) found a negative association between student burnout and perceived performance, but no association between student burnout and actual performance. Schaufeli et al. (2002) suggest that perhaps the inconsistent findings are a result of inadequate operationalizations of student burnout in the education literature. Also, in some of these studies (e.g., Balogun et al., 1996; McCarthy et al., 1990), students’ general burnout is examined in relation to overall grade point average (GPA). It is reasonable to assume that a student may experience burnout in specific HEI modules, but remain engaged in others, thus reporting some overall burnout but still performing well in the modules in which they are engaged.

3.4.3 Summary of organizational behaviour and educational approaches.

student achievement in the educational literature. In each approach, a distinction between two types of performance is made. The organizational behaviour literature clearly distinguishes between in-role and extra-role performance whereas educational research suggests a distinction between tangible and intangible student achievement. For both organizational behaviour and educational strands of research, it is expected that employees’/students’ investment of emotional, behavioural, and cognitive energies in their work/study roles should influence their performance. This view is supported in both literatures, i.e., researchers consistently report positive

associations between engagement and performance. Still, in the educational literature the three dimensions of engagement have yet to be examined simultaneously in relation to student achievement.

For burnout and performance, the COR model suggests that employees/students may (1) distance themselves from sources of burnout and/or (2) try to offset losses by directing their remaining resources towards coping strategies. Consequently, burnout is likely to lead to lower performance in one’s work/study role. In both organizational behaviour and educational

literatures, the findings between burnout and performance are inconsistent, and these

inconsistencies are likely due to measurement issues as opposed to conceptual considerations. Therefore, based on the arguments presented, the following is proposed:

Hypothesis 5: There is a positive relationship between student engagement and student achievement.

Hypothesis 6: There is a negative relationship between student burnout and student achievement.