Measuring Students’ Cognitive Engagement on Assessment Tests: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Short Form of the Cognitive Engagement Scale

Whitney Smiley and Robin Anderson   |    Volume Six: Summer  |   

As with K-12 institutions, higher education institutions are feeling the pressure from the state governing bodies to provide evidence that learning is occurring, in return for the hard-earned tax dollars the states dispense to colleges and universities. In response, many higher education institutions are designing methods to assess student learning and development as evidence of the effectiveness of their academic programs. These assessments are typically viewed as low-stakes for the students because there are no consequences regardless of how they perform. However, if institutions want to demonstrate what students are learning to stakeholders, students must be motivated to put forth effort on the test (Wise & DeMars, 2005). It often falls to assessment specialists to ensure that assessment data are collected in a meaningful way, especially in low-stakes situations.

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