Students’ emotional and cognitive engagement as the determinants of well-being and achievement in school Janne Pietarinen a, *, Tiina Soini b , Kirsi Pyha ¨lto ¨ c a School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education, University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistokatu 2, P.O. Box 111, Finland b School of Education, FI-33014 University of Tampere, Finland c University of Helsinki Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Siltavuorenpenger 5A, P.O. Box 9, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland 1. Introduction Previous research on school engagement has shown that being engaged in school has a significant impact on both students’ subjective well-being (Creed, Muller, & Patton, 2003; Eccles, Vida, & Barber, 2004) and their academic performance (Wang & Holcombe, 2010). Students engaged in their studies, for example, receive higher grades and perform well on standardized tests (Ladd & Dinella, 2009; Schunk & Pajares, 2005). They also tend to use functional achievement strategies such as optimistic and task-focused strategies (Ma ¨ kikangas & Kinnunen, 2003; Salmela-Aro, Kiuru, Leskinen, & Nurmi, 2009) and are less likely to suffer from study burnout in later academic life (Salmela-Aro, Tolvanen, & Nurmi, 2011). Most students successfully engage in school activities throughout their school careers; however, some face serious problems. Willms (2003), for instance, found that in OECD countries, 25% of students experienced low emotional engagement at school, with International Journal of Educational Research 67 (2014) 40–51 A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 14 October 2013 Received in revised form 29 April 2014 Accepted 9 May 2014 Available online 29 May 2014 Keywords: Emotional and cognitive engagement Subjective well-being Learning outcomes A B S T R A C T This study aims to gain a better understanding of the interrelation between students’ emotional and cognitive engagement that is mediated by experienced well-being in school. The main hypothesis was that perceived emotional engagement constructed in the peer group and in teacher–student interaction together with school-related well-being contributes to students’ perceived cognitive engagement and, further, to their school achievement. A total of 170 students from three case study schools were surveyed, and the hypothesis was tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results showed that students’ cognitive engagement was highly dependent both on the dynamic interplay between students and the school environment and, more broadly, on the daily pedagogical practices adopted in schools. Moreover, the students’ experience of school-related well- being was a key mediator for emotional and cognitive engagement and, further, contributed to their school achievement. The detected interrelation between student learning and subjective school-related well-being has potentially significant implications for further studies attempting to understand the complexity of the experience of engagement in the multiple social contexts provided by schools. The findings further imply that the focus in developing school pedagogical practices should be the dynamics between students and their learning environment rather than solely the individual or the environment. ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +358 50 465 0642. E-mail addresses: janne.pietarinen@uef.fi (J. Pietarinen), tiina.soini@uta.fi (T. Soini), kirsi.pyhalto@helsinki.fi (K. Pyha ¨lto ¨). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Educational Research jo ur n al ho mep ag e: www .elsevier .c om /lo cate/ijed u res http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2014.05.001 0883-0355/ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.