Engaged or entitled? Study orientations among traditional and non-traditional business students

Abstract

Research on student engagement, study engagement and academic entitlement has followed separate paths. This research examined how the concepts relate to each other among traditional and non-traditional Finnish business students (N = 476). A cluster analysis indicated that students form two clusters. Part-time students, students over the age of 25, students with more than 5 years of work experience and students taking open university courses or studying for a master’s degree were more likely to belong to the more engagement-oriented cluster than their comparison groups. Although respondents’ student engagement and study engagement scales correlated moderately, only the cognitive engagement dimension of student engagement had a strong correlation with study engagement subscales, indicating that student engagement is a much wider, if somewhat a fuzzy, construct than study engagement. Further analysis showed significant differences between the study and student engagement levels of traditional and non-traditional students.