LAUSR

Background Student engagement, specifically emotional engagement, is a predictor to positive learning outcomes and academic success. Autonomy, competence, and relatedness have been associated with engagement; however, these studies have not been done in nursing. Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine if autonomy, competence, and relatedness predicted emotional engagement among graduate nursing students in the online learning environment. Methods A descriptive, correlational design was used to determine the levels of and relationships among emotional engagement and autonomy, competence, and relatedness as well as predictors of emotional engagement in students (n = 123) in online nursing programs. Results Findings revealed that students were emotionally engaged in their learning, and competence was the only predictor of emotional engagement. Conclusion Competency-based learning strategies should be implemented in online learning environments to increase the emotional engagement of graduate nursing students.