Student Engagement: A Collaborative Endeavor

Student engagement is the term used to qualify the extent to which a learner is able and willing to make cognitive, emotional, and behavioral investments in the course of interacting with the learning process. Several studies indicate that students who can sustain their curiosity, interest, and passion tend to have relatively more successful academic careers and are less likely to drop out of school.

Student engagement is an accountability measure. According to Axelson and Flick (2011), in addition to measuring institutional quality and effectiveness, it is one of the variables used in educational research to explain student learning and development. Engagement indicators are sometimes observable, assessable, and context-dependent. Different engagement behaviors manifest at different times of the school day: the beginning of class, during teacher-directed instruction, group activities, independent work time, and at the end of class. Interestingly enough, what constitutes engagement in one learning phase may indicate disengagement or a lack of motivation in another.

Unfortunately, however, not all students are motivated to engage meaningfully with learning. Following Ronksley-Pavia and Neuman (2020), "disengagement is a growing problem in schools across the globe…nearly 60% of all gifted students are not actualizing their potential, exposing the loss of potential for both the individual and the society". (pg. 274) According to a report by the National Association of State Boards of Education (A State of Engagement: NASBE Study Group on Student Engagement, 2015), "A student drops out of school every 43 seconds, costing billions of dollars in lost earnings, healthcare costs, and other expenses. Surveys indicate that students making this critical decision cite lack of engagement ..." (pg.7)

The Student Engagement Construct

Although the student engagement construct occupies a prominent place in the education lexicon, there is no consensus on its conceptual foundation, and research continues in this regard. Burch, Heller, Burch, Freed, and Steed (2015) proposed a conceptualization based on four components:

Emotional engagement (i.e., affective states such as paying attention, interest, boredom, happiness, anxiety)

·        Physical engagement (i.e., physical and mental efforts exerted in staying on task)

·        Cognitive engagement in the classroom (i.e., a psychological state associated with effort and persistence in learning in the classroom such as asking clarifying questions and self-regulation)

·        Cognitive engagement out of class (i.e., psychological state associated with effort and persistence in learning outside the classroom such as studying, reading supplemental books)

The engagement conceptualization by Burch et al. was primarily grounded in research on student involvement by Astin (1984) and the psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work advanced by Kahn (1990).

Barab and Gresalfi (2015) similarly explored student engagement's multidimensionality and also identified four engagement types: procedural-conceptual -, consequential-, and critical engagement:

·        Procedural engagement. Following instructions, series of steps (e.g., an algorithm in math), or using procedures correctly.

·        Conceptual engagement. Possessing a working knowledge of a concept (e.g., why an algorithm works in math) or tool but cannot generalize its use to real-life situations.

·        Consequential engagement. Using concepts as disciplinary tools, connecting solutions with implications, and extending disciplinary tools to real-life situations.

·        Critical engagement. Knowing how to evaluate or question the adequacy of a selected tool.

Barab and Gresalfi opined that shifting a learner from procedural engagement to consequential engagement is likely to cultivate transformative outcomes, where the learner can see the concept in question as a meaningful and useful tool.

The approach by Barab and Gresalfi (2015) seems to present student engagement as a hierarchical construct (i.e., arranged in order or ranked). In this regard, procedural engagement is at the lower end of the gamut while consequential-, and critical engagements are at the higher end. On the other hand, the conceptualization advanced by Burch et al. (2015) presents student engagement as an interaction of the psychological and behavioral that may be setting-specific.

NASBE's discussion on student engagement (A State of Engagement: NASBE Study Group on Student Engagement, 2015) encompasses the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions. Emotional engagement is a crucial driver and refers to students' emotional reaction to school: how they feel about their teacher, classroom, and school experience. Behavioral engagement is how students conduct themselves in school. It has to do with students' attentiveness and how active they are in the school setting. The cognitive dimension of student engagement refers to the psychological investment a student makes to learn, and it includes the ability to self-regulate and take ownership.

Some engagement approaches reference variables that are directly within the control of the teacher. For example, the Glossary of Education Reform identified six engagement domains: structuring learning tasks to pique students' curiosity (intellectual); monitoring students' moods to inform decisions aimed at facilitating the learning process (emotional), and the adoption of routines that stimulate learning or interest while reducing monotony and potential disengagement (behavioral). It also discusses the use of physical activities during the learning process to promote learning or interest (physical), the use of a variety of strategies to stimulate social interactions (social), and taking active steps to include students from diverse cultural backgrounds (cultural).

Starting with a healthy student-teacher relationship, the teacher can engage students in their learning by sharing control of their classrooms with the students, creating culturally relevant activities, using effective prompts and questioning techniques to stimulate critical thinking, and building on prior knowledge to enhance understanding. Additionally, it is beneficial to incorporate cooperative learning, effective feedback, and opportunities for students to become aware of their metacognition (i.e., how they learn), so they are better able to meaningfully monitor and regulate their learning needs (Atkinson, 2014; Manzuoli, Pineda-Báez, & Vargas Sánchez, 2019; Eichhorn, Lowry, & Burke, 2019).

Implication for Practice

School is the physical or virtual space within which learning occurs. Therefore, a conducive learning space will be one where the teacher and learner are engaged in meaningful ways to actualize the definition of learning: a permanent change to long-term memory.

In March 2020, many education systems were forced to make the rapid transition to distance learning due to the global pandemic, COVID-19. What followed next was a flurry of activities: building stakeholder capacity, repurposing resources, deciding on the best platform to use for the delivery of instruction (e.g., Zoom or Google Meet), accommodating students who declined online instruction, selecting instructional material (as many district-adopted materials were not designed for remote instruction), scheduling (e.g., for synchronous and asynchronous, hybrid), planning instruction to engage learners in a virtual space, providing feedback and grading, how best to approach assessment, accepting families as collaborators in instruction, reimagining teacher evaluation, connectivity issues including the non-availability of technology, providing emotional support, deciding on how best to identify and provide services to students with disabilities and so forth.

As with teaching and learning in a physical space, teachers and students respond differently to remote learning. According to Walker and Koralesky (2021), the rapid transition to online teaching may have impacted student engagement. They also noted that online learning can be effective for students who are motivated, self-disciplined, organized, and have good time-management skills. Conversely, it can be less effective for students who lack appropriate technology or reduced interactions with peers and teachers. The initial issue really was not merely a lack of appropriate technology but proficiency in its use. At the inception of distance learning, teacher- and student-self-efficacy was low as both struggled with the transition. However, with time, they became more proficient and comfortable with the technology and instruction format.

Although there are several definitions and descriptions of student engagement, there is a consensus that it is a respondent or elicited multidimensional behavior. It is beneficial for teachers to be conversant with engagement domains and intentional in the planning and delivery of instruction to engage or re-engage students effectively. Instructional material must be presented in thoughtful and exciting ways to develop and stimulate interest.

Motivation is an essential ingredient in the teaching-learning transaction, and the body of research correlates teacher motivation with student motivation. Mubeen and Reid (2014) explored the nature of motivation in the context of learning and sought to relate it to self-efficacy, self-concept, confidence, and self-esteem. According to them, motivation is an inner state or force that activates and provides direction to thoughts, feelings, and actions. They concluded, among other things, that "...self-efficacy is likely to be powerfully related to motivation. For example, the learner who simply believes that she can succeed in the task ahead may well be highly motivated to go ahead." (pg. 131) They further identified goal-directed behavior and persistence as the two main characteristics of motivation.

Similarly, Bandura (1986 & 1997) noted that thinking processes and motivation are informed by self-efficacy or an individual's belief in their capacity to execute a certain behavior or task. Motivation towards learning may arise from intrinsic (e.g., self-reliance, determination, self-awareness, confidence) or extrinsic (support, praise, rewards, encouragement, an expectation of good grades) factors.

Young learners rely on the adults in their lives (e.g., parents, teachers) to nurture their interests to be motivated and engaged. This is why those adults need to be familiar with the factors associated with the intrinsic and extrinsic factors of motivation and the different domains of engagement. The student first needs to engage with the adult for engagement with learning to be meaningful.

Education systems continue to adjust to the demands imposed by the COVID-19. Student engagement is prominent as teachers continue to explore different approaches to engaging students in a virtual space. Students' disengagement from the learning process may be due to several reasons, and the teacher, as a partner in the knowledge acquisition enterprise, is expected to structure learning to be multi-modal enough to reach diverse learning modalities. As noted by Alkaabi, Alkaabi, and Vyver, G. (2017), the interplay of antecedent conditions and internal motives will drive approach or avoidance behavior, resulting in engagement (or otherwise) at the behavioral, cognitive and emotional levels.

According to the Carnegie Mellon University's Eberly Center, students may lack interest if they see little value in the content, do not believe that their efforts will improve performance, or struggle with the structure and allocation of rewards. Non-supportive classroom climate, competing priorities, and physical, mental, or other personal problems may be additional reasons for lack of motivation.

           Visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic are four learning modes commonly discussed in the literature. Among other things, reaching diverse learners requires teachers to be familiar with their students' learning modalities in order to be able to determine the best approach to stimulate interest and motivation. Students employ different senses and skills during a lesson, so teachers need to consider this when planning lessons.

If a student sees little or no value in content or task, it will be beneficial for the teacher to explain the lesson objectives and extend the learning experience to real-world contexts and help students see the connection between an assigned task and the big picture (while highlighting essential skills). Additionally, it helps to connect learning to the students' interests and provide choices such that the cognitive effort required in choosing among alternatives does not constitute an extra burden for the learner.

When a student does not see a connection between effort and performance, the teacher can set rigorous and attainable standards by keeping tasks within the learner's proximal development zone. It will also be beneficial to provide learners with multiple opportunities to engage with the task in a low-stakes environment, timely and constructive feedback, and explicitly teach productive study habits. To address issues that students may have with the structure and allocation of rewards, teachers must ensure that rewards are commensurate with students' effort and time. Shaping or gradual molding or training can be employed to promote desired behavior. It is also important for teachers to be fair and consistent in their grading.

Adopting practices that foster a supportive climate, modeling respect, and a willingness on the part of the teacher to confront self-biases are some steps that will help to address the concern of some students who might feel that the classroom climate is non-supportive. Additionally, teachers can get – and use - feedback from students to create healthy social norms for classroom interaction. Being realistic when assigning tasks is one way of reducing (and possibly eliminating) the concern associated with competing priorities. it will also be beneficial to link tasks to desired outcomes as a way of holding students accountable.

Regarding issues associated with physical, mental, or other personal problems, teachers can support students and families by facilitating access to District and community resources (e.g., school-based mental health services, psychologists, socio-emotional learning specialists, Educationally Related Intensive Counseling Services, ERICS). The preceding further highlights the crucial role of the teacher as a catalyst for student engagement.

Poverty, social exclusion, and isolation are additional factors that militate against student engagement and school success. Consequently, engagement and disengagement challenges should be reframed as opportunities for collective action. Since teachers and student support staff are not the only professionals who work with disengaged young people, Lawson and Lawson (2020) proposed an approach that involves interdisciplinary teams, community agency and school partnerships, cross-sector collective impact formations, cradle-to-career system building, and community development initiatives. For example, in addition to school-based mental health agencies, some districts have created multi-disciplinary teams to address students’ emotional needs during the pandemic.

There is a debate raging in the field regarding whether students have experienced a learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The learning loss proponents contend that learning has suffered because the school closures, restrictions, and other consequences of the pandemic have adversely affected learning. Conversely, opponents argue that the deficit view does not acknowledge the gains made. Neither side, however, has been able to provide factual evidence to support its claims. The debate is one of semantics. The situation can be analogized to trying to decide whether or not a patient might bleed to death without offering any meaningful help other than the occasional application of ointment to the unaffected part of the body and holding up the empty ointment container to show that an attempt was - and is being - made to save the patient. Obviously, a more expedient approach would be to accept that there has been a learning loss and reframe the situation as a challenge to accelerate learning.

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper was to examine some domains of engagement in the context of knowledge acquisition. At the risk of sounding reductionist, education can be analogized to a team sport because it requires participants to interact (e.g., student-to-teacher, student-to-student) or work together. It is also a contact sport to the extent that the learner is expected to make contact or grapple with content and new ideas. Student engagement is the consequence of the interaction between learner and teacher in an agreed space. A teacher's roles, orientations, and practices are a key driver in student engagement and agency. Because student engagement is an indicator of school effectiveness, coupled with the fact that learning is not an isolated or stand-alone event, it is only fair to extend the discourse to include other stakeholders' engagement (e.g., teachers, other service providers, and parents). Finally, the engagement narrative also needs to accommodate the impact of policy on practice meaningfully.

References

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