Title: Student engagement: the role of social influence and locus of control

Authors: Tito L.H. Grillo; Cláudio Damacena

Addresses: School of Management, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Washington Luis, 855, Cep: 90460-010, Porto Alegre, Brazil ' School of Business Administration, Economics and Accounting, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Ipiranga, 6681, Cep: 90619-900, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Abstract: Engagement has become a popular topic in marketing research and practice. The present study focuses on higher education as a propitious context for the assessment of engagement phenomena and tests two sets of constructs as predictors of student engagement with a course. One set is conceptually grounded on the Social Influence Theory (SIT), whilst the other is grounded on the locus of control concept. We conducted surveys in higher education institutions and used structural equation modelling for the analysis. Results suggest that social influence constructs are stronger predictors compared to locus of control constructs. We discuss the results along with implications.

Keywords: student engagement; customer engagement; social influence theory; locus of control; higher education institutions; HEIs; management in education; course engagement; structural equation modelling; SEM.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2015.072098

International Journal of Management in Education, 2015 Vol.9 No.4, pp.466 - 485

Published online: 30 Sep 2015 *

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