Student Engagement: What do we know and what should we do?

esearch and launched several studies that asked students about student engagement. As
Dunleavy & Milton (2009) state, “CEA [Canadian Education Association] believes
student voices need to be central in shaping how we think about the modern purpose of
schooling and learning environments” (p. 5). Their multi-year, multidimensional action
research project collected data from students (and teachers) on many aspects of student
engagement in Canadian schools. They asked students to describe the “ideal school” or
learning environment and also asked them what would help increase student engagement
in learning. Their findings have been both enlightening and foundational to a series of
projects across the country.
What did you do in school today? has grown from a network of ten to seventeen
Canadian school districts. Administrators, teachers, and students in more than 150
schools are now working with ideas and data generated by CEA’s
multidimensional framework of student engagement (Dunleavy, Milton, &
Crawford, 2010, p. 3).
Willms & Flanagan (2007) also sought the student voice and created an anonymous
online survey through which students could express their honest perspectives on
engagement and school experiences. The survey instrument is entitled Tell them from me
and was created in 2004 by Willms and Flanagan and continues to be used by many
Canadian school districts to help identify and address issues of student disengagement.
There is further complication when one measures or considers engagement through the
lens of “motivation to learn.” When seemingly engaged and successful students spoke
openly about their learning and levels of engagement, they often described their
classrooms as “boring, hectic, stressful, and disconnected from the real world” (Dunleavy
& Milton, 2009, p. 9). Some revealed that ‘they are merely following the rules or
expectations – or “doing school” as Pope (2003) described in Doing school: How we are
creating a generation of stressed-out, materialistic, and miseducated students. These
students are motivated by external factors that have little to do with what or how they are
learning (e.g. achieving long term goals or getting good marks) (Dunleavy & Milton,
2009, p. 9).
Although students in the study did not come up with catch-all terms and categories, such
as “behavioral,” “cognitive,” or “academic,” they came up with criteria they considered
conducive to engagement (see below). These will be elaborated further in the section of
the paper titled “How do we improve student engagement?” but for now a brief “student
perspective is perhaps insightful” (Dunleavy & Milton, 2009, p. 10). As Dunleavy &
Milton (2009) describe,
Set against all of the challenges that left them feeling frustrated and disengaged in
school, however, the students also offered powerful images of what it would take
for them to feel fully engaged in learning. In the school they imagined, they
would:
• Solve real problems.
• Engage with knowledge that matters.
• Make a difference in the world.
Student Engagement: What do we know and what should we do? 22