{"id":1158,"date":"2019-05-20T17:33:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T17:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-education\/?post_type=chapter&p=1158"},"modified":"2019-05-20T17:33:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T17:33:14","slug":"student-engagement","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-education\/chapter\/student-engagement\/","title":{"raw":"Student Engagement","rendered":"Student Engagement"},"content":{"raw":"In education,\u00a0student engagement<\/b>\u00a0refers 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. Generally speaking, the concept of \u201cstudent engagement\u201d 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 \u201cdisengaged.\u201d\u00a0Stronger student engagement<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0improved student engagement<\/i>\u00a0are common instructional objectives expressed by educators.\r\n
In many contexts, however,\u00a0student engagement<\/em>\u00a0may also refer to the ways in which school leaders, educators, and other adults might \u201cengage\u201d students more fully in the governance and decision-making processes in school, in the design of programs and learning opportunities, or in the civic life of their community. For example, many schools survey students to determine their views on any number of issues, and then use the survey findings\u00a0to modify policies or programs in ways that honor or respond to\u00a0student perspectives and concerns. Students may also create their own questions, survey their peers, and then present the results to school leaders or the school board to advocate for changes in programs or policies. Some\u00a0schools have created\u00a0alternative forms of student governance, \u201cstudent advisory committees,\u201d student appointments to\u00a0the\u00a0school board, and other formal and informal ways for students to contribute to the governance of a school or advise superintendents, principals, and local policy makers. These broader forms of \u201cstudent engagement\u201d can\u00a0take a wide variety of forms\u2014far too many to extensively catalog here. Yet a\u00a0few illustrative examples include school-supported\u00a0volunteer programs and community-service requirements (engaging students in public service and learning\u00a0through public service), student organizing (engaging students in advocacy, community organizing, and constructive protest), and any number of potential student-led groups, forums, presentations, and events (engaging students in community\u00a0leadership,\u00a0public speaking, and other activities that contribute to \u201cpositive youth development<\/a>\u201c). For a related discussion, see\u00a0student voice<\/a>.In education, the term\u00a0student engagement\u00a0<\/i>has grown in popularity in recent decades, most likely resulting from an increased understanding of the role that certain intellectual, emotional, behavioral, physical, and social factors play in the learning process and social development. For example, a wide variety of research studies on learning have revealed connections between so-called \u201cnon-cognitive factors\u201d or \u201cnon-cognitive skills\u201d (e.g., motivation, interest, curiosity, responsibility, determination, perseverance, attitude, work habits, self-regulation, social skills, etc.) and \u201ccognitive\u201d learning results (e.g., improved academic performance, test scores, information recall, skill acquisition, etc.). The concept of student engagement typically arises when educators discuss or prioritize educational strategies and teaching techniques that address the developmental, intellectual, emotional, behavioral, physical, and social factors that either enhance or undermine learning for students.It should be noted that educators may hold different views on student engagement, and it may be defined or interpreted differently from place to place. For example, in one school observable behaviors\u00a0such as attending class, listening attentively, participating in discussions, turning in work on time, and following rules and directions\u00a0may be perceived as forms of \u201cengagement,\u201d while in another school the concept of \u201cengagement\u201d may be largely understood in terms of internal states such as enthusiasm, curiosity, optimism, motivation, or interest.\r\n\r\nWhile the concept of student engagement seems straightforward, it can take fairly complex forms in practice. The following examples illustrate a few ways in which student engagement may be discussed or addressed in schools:\r\n