Academic engagement and its impact on undergraduate student performance at the University of La Laguna

Abstract

The attitude and involvement with which undergraduate university students approach their training process can have a significant impact on the academic results they obtain. The relationship that can occur between low involvement and the possibility of failing or dropping out of studies has led us to propose this research, where the relationship between engagement and academic performance is deepened. The engagement refers to the feeling of well-being of the students with respect to a challenge related to their training process. Students who are studying at university are exposed to living situations that make them more or less committed to their learning process, which can lead to obtain better or worse academic results. This ex-post-facto quantitative study, which was carried out with a sample of 564 first and second year students from the three degrees of the Faculty of Education of the University of La Laguna (Spain), aimed to analyze the relationship between academic commitment and performance in studies. The results reveal that students with higher scores in the different structural dimensions of academic commitment (vigor, dedication and absorption) have higher grades in the subjects they take. The discussion of the study focuses on the need to plan strategies to promote academic commitment in order to strengthen both the trajectories of adaptation and permanence in the degree and the achievement of better academic results in university students.