Content area
Full Text
Abstract
The degree to which students think, feel, and act engaged in school plays a vital role in their chances for academic and life success, yet levels of student engagement remain low. In this article, we focus specifically on how engagement works in the classroom, namely as a function of the interactions between students, teachers, and the class content. We propose a model in which student engagement in the classroom can be understood as emanating from the relatíonships between students and teachers; teacher levels of content and pedagogical expertise; and the degree to which students see the class content as relevant to their current interests, future goals, and identities.
A wealth of research supports the notion that student engagement leads to a variety of desirable academic and life outcomes (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2004). The more students are engaged in their schoolwork, the more likely they are to perform well academically, obtaining higher grades in their classes and higher scores on standardized tests. Student engagement has been directly linked to reduced high school dropout rates. Students who are more engaged in school are more likely to attend, and eventually graduate from, college. Some scholars have further suggested that promoting engagement can help shrink achievement gaps (Lee & Shute, 2009).
Unfortunately, research into student engagement and motivation reveals that up to 60% of high school students are "chronically disengaged" (Klem & Connell, 2004). In a large-scale national survey of American middle and high school students, the Quaglia Institute for Aspirations (2013) found that more than half of high school students are bored at school, and less than half enjoy being there. According to the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2004), "Dropping out of high school is for many students the last step in a long process through which students become disengaged from school" (p. 24). Dropping out is highly likely to have serious negative long-term consequences, such as difficulty finding employment and reduced quality of life. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in October 2009 approximately three million 16- to 24-year-olds were not enrolled in high school, nor had they earned a high school diploma or alternative credential (Chapman, Laird, Ifill, & KewalRamani, 2011). Moreover, levels of disengagement...