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Abstract:

School engagement has received increasing attention because of its importance to student outcomes and its malleability. For high-ability students, a lack of school engagement has been theoretically and empirically linked to underachievement. However, longitudinal research examining the evolution of their engagement over time, its co-evolution with achievement, and its effect on longer-term educational outcomes is lacking. In this study, we examined the development of school engagement in high-ability versus average-ability students across late elementary and early secondary school. Among the highly able students we also investigated engagement’s co-development with achievement and the effect of differentiated instruction on engagement and achievement development. Finally, we examined the predictive value of engagement and achievement trajectories for secondary school retention and non-academic studies, considered underachievement outcomes. We found that, on average, high ability student had lower initial engagement than their peers, and their engagement remained lower across the transition to secondary school. For the high ability students, the intercept and trajectory of engagement were not associated with those of achievement. Differential instruction in grades 4-5 was associated with higher initial levels of both engagement and achievement in grade 5, but not with changes in these variables over time. The underachievement outcomes were predicted by the intercept of achievement but not by engagement’s intercept or trajectory. This study contributes to the knowledge on the development of cognitively highly able students’ engagement, on differentiated instruction as a contextual factor influencing their engagement, and on less-studied long-term educational outcomes of high ability students.