Student engagement as a function of environmental complexity in high school classrooms

The purpose of this study was to investigate the linkage between the quality of the learning environment and the quality of students' experience in seven high school classrooms in six different subject areas. The quality of the learning environment was conceptualized in terms of environmental complexity, or the simultaneous presence of environmental challenge and environmental support. The students (N = 108) in each class participated in the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) measuring their engagement and related experiential variables. Concurrently, environmental complexity and its subdimensions were observed and rated from video with a new observational instrument, The Optimal Learning Environments – Observational Log and Assessment (OLE-OLA). Using two-level HLM regression models, ratings from the OLE-OLA were utilized to predict student engagement and experiential variables as measured by the ESM. Results showed that environmental complexity predicted student engagement and sense of classroom self-esteem. Implications for research, theory and practice are discussed.     

Relations between academic performance,student engagement and student burnout: A cross-lagged analysis of a two-wave study

Academic performance and student well-being are two desired outcomes of any learning and instruction process. The purpose of the present study was to test the temporal order of the relationships between academic performance and two forms of student well-being (i.e., student engagement and burnout) in a specific context. 142 psychology undergraduate students completed self-reported measures of student engagement and student burnout in two waves, during a semester. Also, we included their grades from two intermediate evaluations. Path analysis models suggested that academic grades could be considered antecedents of student engagement and student burnout, while the well-being measures cannot be considered antecedents of the academic performance. These findings provide additional knowledge regarding the relationships between academic well-being and academic performance.     

Using learning analytics to assess student engagement and academic outcomes in open access enabling programmes

Curriculum design, teaching methods, assessments and range of academic support need to be inclusive in Open Access Enabling courses. The findings of this study confirm a correlation between student access to online learning materials and a positive impact on grades in science courses. More specifically, students who frequently use the online learning system to access materials have better assessment and exam results.     

A typology of student reading engagement: Preparing for response to intervention in the school curriculum

This study seeks to develop a typology of students’ reading engagement through secondary analysis of international sampled survey data. It aims at providing research-based evidences informing teachers how to help readers advance in reading performance. It hopes that when students complete junior secondary schooling (Grade 7–9) at age 15, more students can read happily, widely and skillfully. After establishing that Fondness for reading, Aspiration for reading, and Good at reading are three pertinent facets of reading engagement affecting reading literacy performance, the effects of variables pertaining to these facets are examined using Macao-China data drawn from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 Reading Literacy Study. The present study adopts a person-centered approach to arrive at a typology of eight latent clusters of students, each of which is identified with specific reading engagement characteristics. Response to reading intervention can then be proposed to help successive cohorts of junior secondary students enhance their reading literacy performance.     

Emotionally and motivationally supportive classrooms: A state-trait analysis of lesson- and classroom-specific variation in teacher- and student-reported teacher enthusiasm and student engagement

Teacher enthusiasm and student engagement are often interrelated and have important implications for student learning and students' and teachers' well-being. However, results on the lesson-specific variation of teachers' and students' affective-motivational experiences and their interplay are scarce. This study investigated variation in teacher enthusiasm and student engagement, each rated by teachers (n = 70) and students (n = 1537), as indicators of a shared affective-motivational climate in ninth-grade math classrooms across five consecutive lessons. Multitrait-multistate analyses revealed substantial “trait-like” consistency in all four affective-motivational measures. However, there was also a substantial degree of “state-like” lesson-specific variance that was shared across the four measures. This indicates that teachers' and students’ affective-motivational experiences are shaped by situation-specific influences and person-by-context interactions, which are shared between teachers and students. Teacher gender, teaching experience, class-level achievement, and the availability of motivationally supportive instructional interventions failed to explain substantial variance in these associations.     

Kahoot! Using a game-based approach to blended learning to support effective learning environments and student engagement in traditional lecture theatres

ABSTRACT

Traditional lecture theatre environments present significant challenges in higher education, in light of increasingly large and diverse student populations. This small-scale study explores how blended learning through the game-based platform Kahoot! can be used to enhance the learning experience offered to students in these spaces, from the perspective of 44 final-year primary education undergraduates. An action research approach was employed with data collected from pre- and post-lecture surveys. Findings suggest that the integration of synchronous online learning in lecture theatres presented no technical difficulties and that gaming was successful in enabling active participation and interactive learning. Students valued its competitive nature, the immediacy of feedback on their knowledge and structured opportunities for further discussion. Students reported improvements in engagement, concentration and retention, although results for the latter were more ambiguous and would benefit from further investigation.     

Expectancy-value profiles in math and science: A person-centered approach to cross-domain motivation with academic and STEM-related outcomes

The need to enhance the STEM workforce and, in turn, the STEM educational pipeline is a prevailing issue in the U.S. One critical component in this pipeline is students’ interest in STEM majors and their persistence in such majors, theorized to be a function of both students’ perceived value and expectancy beliefs in the subject matter. Using an expectancy-value lens, we examined cross-domain patterns of high school students’ expectancy beliefs and values in both mathematics and science using a person-centered or profile approach. With data from the High School Longitudinal Study, latent profile analysis revealed five profiles characterized as Low Math/Low Science (i.e., endorsing low levels of expectancy and value beliefs in math and science), Moderate Math/Moderate Science, High Math/High Science, Low Math/High Science, and High Math/Low Science. Taking into account aspects of students’ background and school context, we found that motivational profile membership predicted math and science high school achievement, college persistence, and both STEM major intentions and major choices. Moreover, there were a number of gender and racial/ethnic differences and contextual variation in profile memberships as well. Implications for theory and educational practice are discussed in relation to study findings.     

A person‐in‐context approach to student engagement in science: Examining learning activities and choice

Science education reform efforts in the Unites States call for a dramatic shift in the way students are expected to engage with scientific concepts, core ideas, and practices in the classroom. This new vision of science learning demands a more complex conceptual understanding of student engagement and research models that capture both the multidimensionality and contextual specificity of student engagement in science. In a unique application of person‐oriented analysis of experience sampling data, we employ cluster analysis to identify six distinct momentary engagement profiles representing different combinations of the behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions of student engagement in high school science classrooms. Students spend a majority of their classroom time in one of several engagement profiles characterized by high engagement on one dimension, but low levels on the others. Students exhibited low engagement across all three dimensions of engagement in about 22% of our observations. Full engagement, or high levels across all three dimensions, is the least frequent profile, occurring in only 11% of the observations. Students’ momentary engagement profiles are related in meaningful ways to both the learning activity in which students are engaged and the types of choices they are afforded. Laboratory activities provided especially polarized engagement experiences, producing full engagement, universally low engagement, and pleasurable engagement in which students are affectively engaged but are not engaged cognitively or behaviorally. Student choice is generally associated with more optimal engagement profiles and the specific type of choice matters in important ways. Choices about how to frame the learning activity have the most positive effects relative to other types of choices, such as choosing whom to work with or how much time to take. Results are discussed in terms of implications for practice and the utility of the methodological approach for evaluating the complexities of student engagement in science classrooms. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 88: 19–43, 2018     

Using concept maps to assess change in teachers’ understandings of algebra: a respectful approach

The purpose of this study was to explore teachers’ growth in understanding of algebra using concept maps. The study was set in the context of a five-year National Science Foundation funded teacher retention and renewal professional development project. In this project both beginning and experienced teachers are supported as they increase their understanding about mathematics, their ability to implement effective mathematics practices in their classrooms, and their knowledge of working with English Learners. Results indicate that teachers’ algebraic knowledge structures became more complex and connected as a result of their professional development. In addition, they were able to adapt their knowledge networks to incorporate important aspects of algebra into them. Concept maps are recommended to other leaders of mathematics professional development as a means of assessing change.     

Patterns of victimization: A person-centered approach to physical and sexual violence in a representative sample of Danish youth

Professionals and policy makers have only recently begun to recognize the extent to which different types of victimization are interconnected. To enhance our knowledge of the co-occurrence of physical and sexual violence across childhood and adolescence/early adulthood, the present study investigated distinct typologies of victimization in a sample of adolescents and young adults and explored the relationship between victimization typologies and gender, age, and mental health. Data from the Danish 2013 National Health Survey (“How are you?”) were used. Latent class analysis (i.e., a person-centered approach) was used to identify typologies of physical and sexual victimization in a representative sample of 3812 adolescents and young adults aged 16–24 years. Five distinct victimization typologies emerged: a normative, non-victimization group (76%), a physical victimization in adolescence/early adulthood group (13%), a physical revictimization group (5%), a poly-victimization group (4%), and a physical victimization in childhood group (2%). Physical revictimization, poly-victimization, and physical victimization in childhood were highly associated with poor mental health status. Using a latent variable modeling approach, we identified meaningful subgroups of the victimized population. Two subgroups (i.e., physical revictimization and poly-victimization), which comprised a third of all individuals in the victimization subgroups, had a high probability of exposure to multiple traumatic events and poor mental health. These study findings underscore the need to promote interventions addressing the co-occurrence of physical and sexual victimization and the persistence of victimization over time.