The Direct and Indirect Effects of Engagement on Desired Outcomes for First-Year Students with Learning Disabilities

Finding pathways to success for students with disabilities is important to the work of administrators and educators who wish to support this population. Guided by an anti-deficit framework and the minority group model, data from the 2015 and 2016 administration of the National Survey of Student Engagement were examined to learn how Engagement Indicators related to outcomes (GPA, satisfaction, and self-reported learning) for over fifteen thousand first-year students with disabilities. To avoid deficit framing, structural equation modeling was employed to measure the mediation effects of four Engagement Indicators for students with learning disabilities compared to other students with disabilities. Results from this study indicate that most Engagement Indicators are significantly, and in some cases strongly, related to outcomes for students with disabilities; however, only Student-Faculty Interaction was a significant, positive mediator for students with learning disabilities whereas the significant negative mediators indicate that engagement has divergent effects for students with disabilities.