Student Engagement: What Does it Mean?

In education, “student engagement” refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education. 

According to the Glossary of Educational Reform, generally speaking, the concept of student engagement is predicated on the belief that learning improves when students are inquisitive, interested, or inspired, and that learning tends to suffer when students are bored, dispassionate, disaffected, or otherwise “disengaged.” Stronger student engagement or improved student engagement are common instructional objectives expressed by educators.  HOWEVER… It is not up to the student to BE engaged. It is up to the teacher to CREATE an engaging classroom for learning.

“Student engagement” really is an educational buzz-term that people throw around all the time with little or no calibration on what it really looks like with students in the classroom.  There are different aspects of engagement and many different ways to look at it- researchers have listed the following factors on what it means to be fully engaged:

• Intellectual Engagement 
• Emotional Engagement 
• Behavioral Engagement 
• Physical Engagement 
• Social Engagement 
• Cultural Engagement 
• Relational Engagement

In my experience, from a direct classroom perspective, student engagement can be narrowed down to three primary factors:  Content and Cognitive Engagement, Behavioral Engagement, and Emotional Engagement.   Here is a classroom breakdown for each and what it would “look like” in the classroom:

Content and Cognitive Engagement:  The content of the lesson is on target and aligned with the grade level standard.  The lesson’s objective not only is focused on the content of the standard, but it is at the rigor level of the standard.  For example, if the standard is asking the students to “analyze how the author develops and contrasts the points of view of different characters” the students will be doing work at the analysis level (detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis for discussion or interpretation) and not at a lower level of comprehension or basic understanding. 

Behavioral Engagement: Encompassing students’ effort, persistence, participation, and compliance with school and classroom structures are the basis for behavioral engagement.  When a classroom is proactively managed including consistent rules and routines, pre-determined norms for communication, teacher-controlled structured student interaction, and the pace of the lesson is up-tempo with little or no down-time, there are few opportunities for students to misbehave and classroom management is not an issue.   In a classroom with behavioral engagement, the teacher uses low-profile management controls, and physically the students are involved in their learning. There is so much happening all the time that students don’t have the time to misbehave. 

Emotional Engagement: Students’ feelings of interest, happiness, a sense of “belonging”, and to the extent they care about their school and classroom are a part of being engaged emotionally. However, it also must include the relationship between what and how the students are learning and their real life. Teachers need to create opportunities where students’ culture and human interest are taken into consideration. “Why are we learning this?” and “When will I ever use this?” are important questions for teachers to consider.  It is obvious when a student is emotionally engaged in a classroom because they want to be there in mind, body, and spirit and they can make the connection of how important their learning is.  They are probably smiling a lot too. J

It was Madeline Hunter in the 1960’s and 1970’s that developed thinking around effective lesson planning, design, and delivery.  At the heart of her research was the need for students to be engaged in their learning.  It would be a great mindset for all teachers if we always asked ourselves before lesson planning and delivery… “Am I doing all that I can to keep my students engaged on a content, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional level?”