Student engagement in a school context is widely accepted as a key element in predicting positive learning outcomes. Whilst there is consensus amongst educators and researchers that student engagement is important, there is less convergence in defining the concept of student engagement (Lawson & Lawson, 2013), particularly in the context of learning outcomes and the impact of engagement on individuals, schools and communities.

This is because student engagement has been researched and actively theorised in the last three decades for different purposes, spanning motivational literature (Skinner, Kinderman, & Furrer, 2009), addressing school drop-out (Finn, 1989; Finn & Zimmer, 2012), enhancing teaching quality (Darling-Hammond, 2007) and understanding student dispositions and motivation (Appleton, Christenson, Kim & Reschly, 2006; Eccles & Wang, 2012). These theories and research offer varying perspectives on student engagement, yet most agree that it is a complex and multidimensional construct that is distinct from other constructs such as motivation, personality and student agency (Christenson, Reschly & Wylie, 2012; Lawson & Lawson, 2013).

In Malaysia, the concept of student engagement has also been widely accepted as an important factor that influences positive learning outcomes. The literature in the Malaysian context commonly adopts the definition advanced by Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris (2004) which covers three related components; behavioural engagement, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement. To date, studies of student engagement in Malaysia are mainly focused on measurement, and whether student engagement can explain variance in student outcomes.

However, there is an exiguous body of evidence that these student engagement theories, which have been primarily developed in the west are applicable and context-appropriate for Malaysian schools. This paper seeks to address this particular gap by exploring the definition of student engagement as articulated by Malaysian students, teachers, and parents. Capturing the voices of these key stakeholders provides a critical understanding of how engagement is conceptualised in a Malaysian school context. The study uses a phenomenological approach where semi-structured interviews, think-aloud and exit interviews are conducted bi-lingually in English and the Malay language, with a small sample of students, teachers and parents.

The bi-lingual interviews consider the language component of understanding student engagement. For example, in the Malay language, there is no direct translation for the term “student engagement”; it is often used interchangeably with the term “student involvement”. This subtle difference suggests that the conceptualisation of student engagement may be potentially different from the definitions advanced by the

conceptual frameworks that most Malaysian engagement theories are based on.

By augmenting the voices of those directly engaged in learning on a daily basis, this study offers a ground-level perspective of engagement in Malaysian schools. It is argued that a nuanced understanding of engagement that is sensitive to socio-cultural perspectives such as language, social norms and identity will expand the evidence base of this construct in a context-appropriate manner. Given the multiplicity of voices in the engagement discourse, this articulation is vital in providing a voice to the Malaysian school community.

Prefatory to a larger study of engagement in Malaysia which includes developing an engagement measurement, this paper focuses on defining student engagement in a Malaysian school context. This study is comprised of two parts: 1) Individual and group interviews conducted with teachers, school leaders and parents using a semi-structured qualitative interview protocol; and 2) Think aloud and exit interviews conducted with students using cognitive pre-testing procedures. The interview data provides a phenomenological account of student engagement based on participants’ observation and experience. During the semi-structured interviews, participants are asked to describe student engagement in both abstract and concrete terms using open-ended and probing questions with scenarios as prompts. The information from the interview is coded against the definitional frame advanced by Fredricks et al. (2004) to determine if descriptions provided by the participants fall within the dimensions of behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement. The interview data also serves as a heuristic to inform and refine the items for the think-aloud and exit interviews with students. Think aloud and exit interviews are appropriate for use with children (Wooley et al., 2004) and helpful in gaining insights from students about their conceptualisation of a particular construct (Wilson, 2005). During the think-aloud process, students are presented with items sourced from engagement measurements developed from Fredricks et al. (2004)’s conceptual framework and adapted based on the semi-structured interviews with teachers, school leaders and parents. Students are asked to speak their thoughts aloud whilst responding to these items. Upon completion, students are invited to reflect on the process of responding to the items using a structured interview protocol that cover a series of specific and general questions. The think-aloud and exit interview data is coded against the same definitional frame used in the semi-structured interviews. Data collected from the two parts are then analysed and synthesized to surface a construct definition of student engagement in a Malaysian school context.

The three key hypotheses of this study are: • The conceptual framework of engagement which covers the dimensions of behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement is sufficiently broad to frame the construct of engagement for Malaysian schools; • The local context with its unique socio-cultural aspects and language nuances may result in some dimensions being more significant than others; and • The significance of social engagement will come to bear in describing and conceptualising engagement given the pluralistic and collectivist underpinnings of the Malaysian society

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