Student engagement occurs when "students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success (grades and qualifications), but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives."Newmann, F. (1992) Student Engagement and Achievement in American Secondary Schools. Teachers College Press. pp. 2–3.
Since the U.S. college dropout rate for first-time-in college degree-seeking students is nearly 50%, it is increasingly seen as an indicator of successful classroom instruction, and as a valued outcome of school reform. The phrase was identified in 1996 as "the latest buzzword in education circles."Kenny, G. Kenny, D. and Dumont, R. (1995) Mission and Place: Strengthening Learning and Community Through Campus Design. Oryx/Greenwood. p. 37 Students are engaged when they are involved in their work, persist despite challenges and obstacles, and take visible delight in accomplishing their work.Schlechty, P. (1994). "Increasing Student Engagement." Missouri Leadership Academy. p. 5. Student engagement also refers to a "student's willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process promoting higher level thinking for enduring understanding."Bomia, L., Beluzo, L., Demeester, D., Elander, K., Johnson, M., & Sheldon, B. (1997). "The impact of teaching strategies on intrinsic motivation." Champaign, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education. p. 294. Student engagement is also a usefully ambiguous term for the complexity of 'engagement' beyond the fragmented domains of cognition, behaviour, emotion or affect, and in doing so encompass the historically situated individual within their contextual variables (such as personal and familial circumstances) that at every moment influence how engaged an individual (or group) is in their learning.
Definitions Student engagement is frequently used to, "depict students' willingness to participate in routine school activities, such as attending class, submitting required work, and following teachers' directions in class."Chapman, E. (2003) "Assessing student engagement rates," ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. ERIC identifier: ED482269. However, the term is also increasingly used to describe meaningful student involvement throughout the learning environment, including students participating in curriculum design, classroom management and school building climate.Fletcher, A. (2005) Guide to Students as Partners in School Change. Olympia, WA: SoundOut. Retrieved 2/20/08. It is also often used to refer as much to student involvement in extra-curricular activities in the campus life of a school/college/university which are thought to have educational benefits as it is to student focus on their curricular studies.Donald Markwell (2007), A large and liberal education': higher education for the 21st century, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing & Trinity College, University of Melbourne.
In a number of studies student engagement has been identified as a desirable trait in schools; however, there is little consensus among students and educators as to how to define it.Taylor, L., & Parsons, J. (2011). Improving Student Engagement. Current Issues in Education, 14(1), p.5. Often, student engagement is defined according to one of the most popular measures of student engagement – the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Other studies have shown that student engagement overlaps with, but is not the same as, student motivation.Sharan, S. Shachar, H. and Levine, T. (1999) The Innovative School: organization and instruction. Praeger/Greenwood. p. 85. Because of the lack of consensus on what student engagement is (and what it is not), researchers have begun to offer suggestions for moving the educational literature towards a unified conceptualization of student engagement. These researchers generally adopt a combination of psychological and socio-cultural perspectives to represent student engagement as three dimensions including affect, behavior, and cognition. Using these perspectives, some researchers have further borrowed from work psychology research to suggest that the 'engaged' part of student engagement means that student harness themselves to their role, and thus show a high level of activation or energy.
Student engagement is used to discuss students' attitudes towards school, while student disengagement identifies withdrawing from school in any significant way.Willms, J.D. (2003) Student Engagement at School: a sense of belonging and participation: Results from PISA 2000. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. p. i.
Requirements Student engagement requires that teachers actively seek to create the conditions that foster this reaction. The first step to whole-school improvement in the area of student engagement is for the entire building faculty to share a definition of student engagement.Berardi, L. and Gerschick, T. (nd) "University Faculty Members' Perceptions of Student Engagement: An Interview Study. Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology. Retrieved 7/2/07. Other steps include clear articulation of learning criteria with clear, immediate, and constructive feedback; show students the skills they need to be successful are within their grasp by clearly and systematically demonstrating these skills, and; demonstrate engagement in learning as a valuable aspect of their personalities.Strong, R. Silver, H. and Robinson, A. (1995) "What do students want (and what really motivates them)?" Educational Leadership. September. p. 25.
Relationships between students and adults in schools, and among students themselves, are a critical factor of student engagement. This is especially true among students considered to be at-risk and without other positive adult interaction.McCombs, B.L., & Pope, J.E. (1994). "Motivating hard to reach students." Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. There are several strategies for developing these relationships, including acknowledging student voice, increasing intergenerational equity and sustaining youth-adult partnerships throughout the learning environment.Fletcher, A. (2005) Stories of meaningful student involvement. Olympia, WA: CommonAction. p. 19. There have been multiple formats identified for this type of engagement.Schunk, D. and Meece, J. (1992) Student Perceptions in the Classroom. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 27.
The National Survey of Student Engagement identifies dozens of everyday indicators of student engagement throughout colleges and universities.(nd) Definitions. Longwood University. Retrieved 7/2/07.
Indicators The term "student engagement" has been used to depict students' willingness to participate in routine school activities, such as attending classes, submitting required work, and following teachers' directions in class.Chapman, E. (2003). "Alternative approaches to assessing student engagement rates." Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 8(13). Retrieved 7/2/07. That includes participating in the activities offered as part of the school programNatriello, G. (1984). "Problems in the evaluation of students and student disengagement from secondary schools." Journal of Research and Development in Education, 17 p. 14. and student participation in school reform activities.Fletcher, A. (2005) Meaningful student involvement: Guide to students as partners in school change. Olympia, WA: CommonAction. p. 4. Engaged students show sustained behavioral involvement in learning activities accompanied by a positive emotional tone. They select tasks at the border of their competencies, initiate action when given the opportunity, and exert intense effort and concentration in the implementation of learning tasks; they show generally positive emotions during ongoing action, including enthusiasm, optimism, curiosity, and interest.Skinner, E.A., & Belmont, M.J. (1993). "Motivation in the classroom: Reciprocal effects of teacher behavior and student engagement across the school year." Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(4). p. 572.
Another study identified five indicators for student engagement in college. They included the level of academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching education experiences and a supportive learning environment.Kenny, G. Kenny, D. and Dumont, R. (1995) p. 37 Indicators of the absence of student engagement include unexcused absences from classes, cheating on tests, and damaging school property.Chapman, E. (2003).
Engagement is more than what students listen and do. A high level of engagement results in better learning, and the learner will be emotionally connected, feel satisfied with the course and the institution.(Fredrick et al. 2004) proposes a frame work in terms of Emotional, Behavioral & Cognitive.Newmann et al. (1992) highlighted that the engagement is related with the Mastery of academic work.Strong et al. (1995) described the process of student engagement. The author stated that the student engagement stimulates the curiosity.;;Christenson & Anderson, 2002Newmann, 1992Russell et al., 2005 identified four dimensions including academic, Affective, Behavioral, & Cognitive
The opposite of engagement is disaffection. Disaffected students are passive, do not try hard, and give up easily in the face of challenges... [they can] be bored, depressed, anxious, or even angry about their presence in the classroom; they can be withdrawn from learning opportunities or even rebellious towards teachers and classmates.Skinner, E.A., & Belmont, M.J. (1993).
Factors influencing student engagement Many factors contribute to a student's engagement at school, ranging from the student's internal experiences to the student's interactions with their environment. Research by Fletcher identifies eight different ways student engagement is affected through these internal and external factors, including manipulation and equity.Fletcher, A.F.C. (2023) "Stepping up student engagement," Principal Magazine Sep 26. National_Association_of_Elementary_School_Principals. Retrieved Jan 10, 2024.
Internal factors Studies have concluded that there are three main factors that contribute to the student's internal process of engaging,Wang, M. T., Degol, J. L., & Henry, D. A. (2019). An integrative development-in-sociocultural-context model for children’s engagement in learning. American Psychologist, 74(9), 1086. the first of which is behavioral engagement. Behavioral engagement defines how the student appears to be engaging with learning, such as participating and persevering. The second internal factor is cognitive engagement, which concerns the student's mental processes of paying attention and pushing themselves past their expectations. The last factor deals with the student's positive or negative experience of learning, and is called emotional-affective engagement. These internal engagement factors are not stable, and can shift over time or change as the student moves in and out of the school environment, classroom environment, and different learning tasks.
External factors There are a vast amount of external factors that influence a child's experience with engaging in learning, such as the family, school, peers, sociocultural factors, and environmental stressors.
Family