I defended my thesis „School engagement and intentional self-regulation: A reciprocal relation in adolescence“ a the University of Iceland on the 23rd of May  2017. My opponents were Dr. Katariina Salmela-Aro, University of Jyväskylä, and Dr. Álfgeir Logi Kristjánsson, West Virginia University.

My thesis was a synopsis based on the publication of three peer-reviewed scientific journal article. The synopsis can be downloaded here.

About the thesis

The importance of school engagement (i.e., the willingness to engage in learning) for school success, such as good academic achievement and low dropout rates, has been well established. At the same time, intentional self-regulation (ISR; i.e., the ability to set, prioritize, and obtain long-term goals) has been shown to be a precursor, mediator, and outcome of school engagement. However, the relation between school engagement and ISR during adolescence is poorly understood. In this research, I explored the reciprocal relation between school engagement and ISR during adolescence. This study had three goals. The first goal was to further the development of a valid measure of ISR for use with adolescents. The second goal was to contribute to the development of a valid measure of schoo -engagement for use with adolescents. The third goal, which best captures the main purpose of the study, was to examine the hypothesized reciprocal relation of school engagement and ISR during the last two years of compulsory school in Iceland. The results from the development and adaptation of the school engagement and ISR measures were published in two journal articles based on four waves of data collected at the beginning and end of Grades 9 and 10 with a longitudinal sample of 561 youth in Iceland (46% girls, Mage at Wave 1 = 14.3 years, SD = 0.3). The third and final manuscript, based on data from the same longitudinal sample, supported the reciprocal relations of school engagement and ISR during adolescence after controlling for gender, academic achievement, and parent’s education. Furthermore, the results indicated decreased stability of both school engagement and ISR during the observed period. The decreasing stability is consistent with theories that present school engagement and ISR as malleable constructs that are open to contextual conditions. The reciprocal relations between school engagement and ISR support hypotheses that ISR skills are a key element in the promotion of school engagement.