Student Overinvolvement is Correlated with Lower Levels of Academic Engagement

Colleges want students to be involved in campus activities and to be engaged with campus culture. These concepts, while sharing overlap, have important differences. Student involvement refers primarily to the behaviors outside of class, such as participation in clubs or honor societies. Student engagement is a psychological investment with cognitive and emotional components. While low or moderate levels of involvement may boost engagement, overinvolvement may harm engagement. Data was collected from participants at a public university and at a private university with a religious affiliation (N=113). Students completed the Overinvolvement Scale (OIS) and the Higher Education Student Engagement Scale (HESES). Results showed internal validity for both the OIS and HESES. Feelings of overinvolvement were correlated with lower levels of academic engagement. Unexpected sample differences suggest that students at private religious universities seem to express higher engagement levels.