Abstract

Student engagement research has grown significantly in the past decade and measuring it is of high interest in educational research. To gain a deeper understanding of the current body of research on student engagement, this review aims to analyze the design characteristics of empirical quantitative research on student engagement in secondary school. A systematic review was performed in the Web of Science, Scopus, and SciELO databases from the period 2013 to 2020. Forty-seven articles met the inclusion criteria. The results revealed that most studies were performed in North America and none in Latin America; the designs were mainly measuring variable associations. Teacher-related variables are the least examined variables. The instruments used to measure the student engagement and the constructs employed, shows there is substantial theoretical heterogeneity among studies. Future studies need to accurately define student engagement; give further attention to variables related to teachers, peers, families, and institutional conditions.