Development of a student engagement scale for senior high school students in Indonesia

Student engagement positively influences academic achievement, yet instruments suited to the Indonesian cultural context remain limited. This study aimed to develop a valid, reliable, and user-friendly student engagement scale for high school students. Using a quantitative descriptive design, the study involved 295 male and female students aged 15–18 years recruited through convenience sampling. The scale comprised three dimensions: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. The results showed that the scale demonstrated a good model fit based on the goodness-of-fit indices (χ2/df = 1.60; CFI = 0.966; TLI = 0.962; SRMR = 0.074; RMSEA = 0.045) and good reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.844 for emotional engagement, 0.753 for behavioral engagement, and 0.782 for cognitive engagement. The developed scale can be used by teachers, counselors, and educational researchers to identify students’ levels of engagement and inform the development of programs to improve student engagement.