Shakir Rahman is an Assistant Professor at the Hamdan Institute of Nursing & Allied Health Sciences, Swabi, Pakistan. Mr. Rahman completed his completed his PhD Nursing oursework from the University of Minnesota Twin cities campus Minneapolis MN, USA. His research focuses on teaching-learning methodologies, student engagement, and academic performance among undergraduate nursing students. He teaches Research Methodology and Biostatistics in Healthcare, emphasizing quantitative data analysis and interpretation. Mr. Rahman actively leads faculty capacity building initiatives across Pakistan, conducting workshops on test item development, lesson planning, technology integration, and emerging trends in nursing education. He is committed to developing a structured training program for novice nurse educators to elevate national nursing education standards. His work bridges rigorous academic research with practical pedagogical improvement, aiming to enhance student outcomes and educator competence in resource-varied settings. 

Association Between Nursing Students’ Engagement and Academic Performance: A Correlational study                                                                                                                                                  Background: Student engagement is a fundamental construct for understanding learners’ behaviors within the teaching-learning process, with academic performance widely regarded as a key outcome of such engagement. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between nursing students’ engagement—comprising behavioral, emotional, and cognitive dimensions—and their academic performance. Methods: A quantitative, correlational descriptive design was employed. Data were collected from 70 nursing students using an adopted questionnaire. Participants were recruited from private nursing institutions in Pakistan through non-probability purposive sampling. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS version 21. Results: The findings revealed that nursing students demonstrated a high overall level of engagement (mean = 2.77). Among the three dimensions, cognitive engagement recorded the highest mean score (2.82), followed by emotional engagement (mean = 2.77), while behavioral engagement had the lowest mean (2.73). A statistically significant positive correlation was found between students’ engagement and their academic performance (r = .152, p < 0.01). This indicates that as engagement levels increase, academic performance tends to improve. Students who are more cognitively, behaviorally, and emotionally engaged tend to be more proactive and vigilant in their studies, actively participating in learning activities and persisting through academic challenges.Conclusion: The study concludes that enhanced student engagement is associated with better academic outcomes among nursing students. Therefore, educators should implement diverse instructional strategies that deliberately foster all dimensions of engagement—cognitive, emotional, and behavioral—to optimize learning processes and subsequently improve academic performance in nursing education settings.