Hope and Student Engagement: Keys to School Success

Abstract

A number of psychological factors contribute to students’ capacity to access and benefit from instruction. These include motivation, self-efficacy, agency, social skills, student engagement, and hope. This chapter aims to explore the relationship between student engagement, hope, and student outcomes. Both student engagement and hope serve as psychological facilitators of achievement. That is, students who are actively engaged in learning and who have high levels of hope are likely to benefit from instruction and experience positive academic, social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes at school. In this chapter, we first describe and define our conceptualization of student engagement. Then, we define hope, explore Hope Theory, and describe how hope is measured in children and adolescents. Following this foundational discussion, we provide an integrative review of the extant literature regarding student outcomes associated with hope and student engagement, and we explore how student engagement and hope may interact to impact student outcomes. We also briefly describe interventions which show promise for promoting hope among students. The chapter ends with a discussion of future directions for research from which findings may assist educators in fostering student engagement and hope in order to promote positive outcomes for all students.