Table 1.
Monitoring the Future Items Assessing Academic Engagement and Principal Components Analysis (PCA) Results
| Variable | Question | Response Options | M (SD) | PCA Factor Loadings |
Final Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Factor 1 | Factor 2 | |||||
| Intelligence | Compared with others your age throughout the country, how do you rate yourself on school ability? | 1 (Far below average) to 7 (Far above average) |
4.99 (1.21) | 0.922 | - | Retained in academic self-efficacy score |
| Ability in school | How intelligent do you think you are compared with others your age? | 1 (Far below average) to 7 (Far above average) |
4.88 (1.20) | 0.908 | - | Retained in academic self-efficacy score |
| Interest in courses | How interesting are most of your courses to you? | 1 (Very dull) to 5 (Very exciting and stimulating) |
2.87 (0.99) | - | .781 | Retained in emotional academic engagement score |
| Likes going to school | How much do you agree or disagree with each statement below? Going to school has been an enjoyable experience for me. | 1 (Disagree) to 5 (Agree) |
3.06 (1.03) | - | .754 | Retained in emotional academic engagement score |
| Importance of school topics for later life | How important do you think the things you are learning in school are going to be for your later life? | 1 (Not important) to 5 (Very important) |
2.96 (1.18) | - | .733 | Retained in emotional academic engagement score |
| School work is meaningful | How often do you feel that the school work you are assigned in meaningful and important? | 1 (Never) to 5 (Almost always) |
2.99 (1.07) | - | .731 | Retained in emotional academic engagement score |
| Enjoyment of school experience | Some people like school very much. Others don’t. How do you feel about going to school? | 1 (I don’t like it at all) to 5 (I like it very much) |
3.39 (1.23) | - | .639 | Retained in emotional academic engagement score |
| Satisfaction with educational experiences | How satisfied are you with your educational experiences? | 1 (Completely dissatisfied) to 7 (Completely satisfied) |
5.07 (1.59) | Dropped | ||
| Importance of doing well in school for getting a good job | How much do you agree or disagree with each statement below? Doing well in school is important for getting a good job. | 1 (Disagree) to 5 (Agree) |
4.23 (1.01) | Dropped | ||
Seven of these items were form-specific and were not asked of all participants. The PCA and subsequent academic engagement analyses were restricted to participants with non-missing data for these items (N = 1536). Only factor loadings > |0.6| are displayed.
M, mean; SD, standard deviation.