Engagement, in Dictionary of Vocational Psychology

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Dictionary of Vocational Psychology

Engagement

According to Goslin (2003), an important predictor of learning. Vocational psychologists should be interested in the construct because it helps to account for noncognitive factors associated with success in career. According to Goslin, engagement involves five components:

1. Paying attention to whatever is to be learned;

2. Expending energy toward learning;

3. Directing energy toward learning;

4. Being active in one's learning: paying attention, concentrating, trying to remember, mentally rehearsing, thinking, practicing, focus on task, perseverance;

5. Expending effort over time, and thereby building expertise in the forms of complex knowledge and skills.

Goslin's view of engagement is therefore similar to Ericsson's view of the role of motivation in the development of expertise and its development. However, Ericsson emphasizes the importance of practice activities to a greater degree than does Goslin.

Individual differences researcher Phil Ackerman has proposed a closely related construct--"typical intellectual engagement" (TIE)--as an important predictor of academic learning and has operationalized this within a brief scale.

Goslin provides detailed discussion of factors (physiological, psychological, task-related/educational, social/cultural, learner activities) that may affect engagement in learning.

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