This Digest defines student engagement and describes various methods used to measure it, both in empirical research studies and at the classroom level. Student engagement has been defined in various ways, but it is evident that students who are engaged show sustained behavioral involvement in learning activities accompanied by a positive emotional tone. The use of metacognitive strategies may be taken to indicate active task engagement, while the use of shallow strategies may be taken to indicate superficial engagement. The most common way that student engagement is measured is through information reported by students themselves. A few studies have used summative rating scales to measure student engagement levels. These may include teacher report scales. Evidence of higher-order problem solving and metacognitive learning strategies may be gathered form sources such as student projects, portfolios, performances, and other demonstrations. The efficacy of these methods depends on the use of suitably structured tasks and scoring rubrics. Focused case studies can collect detailed descriptive accounts of engagement rates. Teachers interested in assessing student engagement in the classroom should consider using separate measures to get at cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of task engagement. (Contains 18 references.) (SLD)