NAIS Research: Trends in the 2023 Middle Grades Survey of Student Engagement (MGSSE)

By Grant Stringer
NAIS Research Analyst
September 2024

Executive Summary

Trends in the 2023 MGSSEFor the past several years, NAIS has partnered with the Center for Evaluation, Policy, & Research (CEPR) at Indiana University to offer the High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE) and the Middle Grades Survey of Student Engagement (MGSSE) to independent schools interested in measuring student engagement. Student engagement is increasingly viewed as one of the keys to building a safe, positive, and creative school climate and culture that increase student achievement and decrease student boredom, alienation, and dropout rates.

The MGSSE (for students in grades 5 through 9) provides an opportunity to learn about the emotional and social connections that independent school students have with their peers, their learning experiences, and their broader community. Through partnership with the CEPR, which administers and collects the surveys, NAIS has access to quantitative and qualitative data at the middle school level. This dataset provides insights into the complicated lived experiences that independent school students accumulate throughout their time in independent school ecosystems (school classrooms, hallways, and communities).

During the spring of 2023, CEPR administered the MGSSE survey to 2,611 students in grades 5 to 9 in 18 NAIS member schools across 10 U.S. states. The participating schools ranged in size from 96 to 1,218 students with an average size of 557 students.

The survey questions were categorized into three dimensions of student engagement:
  • Dimension 1: Captures the efforts, dedication, and methods employed by students in their pursuit of learning—encompassing the cognitive work and approaches to that work that students use. This dimension can be characterized as “engagement of the mind.”
  • Dimension 2: Encompasses students’ participation in social, extracurricular, and nonacademic school activities, including their interactions with peers—highlighting how students engage within their school community. This dimension can be conceptualized as “engagement in the life of the school."
  • Dimension 3: Highlights students’ sense of belonging (or lack thereof) in their school—focusing on their feelings about their place in the school, its operations, and the people within it. This dimension can be articulated as “engagement of the heart.”
This report provides a summary of key findings from the 2023 MGSSE survey. Many of them denote a lower level of engagement compared to the previous year.

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