Understanding student behavioral engagement: Importance …

1 The Journal of Educational Research ISSN: 0022-0671 (Print) 1940-0675 (Online) Journal homepage: Understanding student behavioral engagement: Importance of student interaction with peers and teachers Tuan Dinh Nguyen, Marisa Cannata & Jason Miller To cite this article: Tuan Dinh Nguyen, Marisa Cannata & Jason Miller (2016): Understanding student behavioral engagement: Importance of student interaction with peers and teachers, The Journal of Educational Research, DOI: To link to this article: Published online: 10 Oct 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 108. View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [Vanderbilt University Library] Date: 02 November 2016, At: 14:04.

2 THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH. Understanding student behavioral engagement: Importance of student interaction with peers and teachers a Tuan Dinh Nguyen , Marisa Cannataa, and Jason Millerb a Leadership, Policy, and Organization, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA; bCurry School of Education, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY. Recent theoretical conceptualizations of student engagement have raised questions about how to Received 30 March 2016. measure student engagement and how engagement varies not only across schools, but also within school Revised 7 June 2016. and within classrooms. The authors build on existing research on student behavioral engagement and Accepted 18 July 2016.

3 Extend this research to emphasize a continuum of disengagement, active engagement, and passive KEYWORDS. engagement. They review common approaches to measuring engagement and highlight areas where Cooperative learning;. new theoretical conceptualizations of engagement require new approaches to measurement. The authors observational assessment;. analyze how student behavioral engagement changed depending on the context and demonstrate the student engagement;. need of a ner scale of engagement. They nd there was not a uniform association of higher behavioral teacher effect engagement and student interaction with peers, but it was the interaction with other students and the teacher that was predictive of increased engagement. Their work suggests that disaggregating behavioral engagement into disengagement, active engagement, and passive engagement has important research and conceptual implications.

4 Three decades ago, American public high schools were indicted students (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). Perhaps not as large, impersonal bureaucracies where teachers make an surprising, these increased expectations have coincided with implicit bargain with students to not expect too much of them steep declines in student motivation (Fredricks & Eccles, 2002). in exchange for compliance (Sedlak, Wheeler, Pullin, & Cusick, This decline in student motivation is noteworthy given the 1986; Sizer, 1984). Instruction was criticized as teacher centered large body of research that emphasizes academic and social and not engaging for students . In the intervening years, the engagement as key predictors of high school success, including United States has seen numerous reforms targeted at changing achievement and dropping out (Lee & Burkam, 2003.)

5 High schools to increase standards, focus on college and career Rumberger, 2011; Wang & Holcombe, 2010; Wig eld et al., readiness, equalize opportunities, and create more engaging 2006). Substantial research suggests that student engagement learning environments for students . Despite these numerous varies by the environment created by the school and teacher, reforms, national and international comparisons of student and by the learning opportunities teachers create in their class- achievement indicate that underperformance in high school is rooms (Boaler & Staples, 2008; Kelly & Turner, 2009; Nasir, a persistent problem, even as gains have been made in the ele- Jones, & McLaughlin, 2011; Walker & Greene, 2009; Watanabe, mentary grades (Rampey, Dion, & Donahue, 2009).

6 Research 2008). Despite this large body of research on student engage- on school reform and implementation has found that past ment, recent theoretical conceptualizations of student engage- efforts to scale up interventions in schools often results in little ment have raised questions about how to measure student change in the core work of teaching and learning (Elmore, engagement and how engagement varies not only across 1996). That is, there are often few changes in the ways in which schools, but within schools and within classrooms (Azevedo, students are asked to engage with school, and student engage- 2015; Cooper, 2014; Fredericks et al., 2004; Sinatra, Heddy, &. ment continues to decline as students enter middle and high Lombardi, 2015).

7 Schools, with 40 60% of high school students chronically disen- Here we build on existing research to make two contribu- gaged (Klem & Connell, 2004; Wig eld, Eccles, Schiefele, tions to existing knowledge of high school student engagement. Roeser, & Davis-Kean, 2006). First, we use an observation technique that follows students The last several decades of high school reform have not been throughout their day to observe the same students in multiple inconsequential for schools, however. Indeed, these various learning environments. Our observation approach also allows reforms have resulted in tremendous increases in expectations for capturing qualitative differences in engagement and leads to on teachers and students , which has placed new pressures on ndings that distinguish between passive and active CONTACT Tuan Dinh Nguyen Leadership, Policy, and Organization, Vanderbilt University, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 97203-5721.

8 Color versions of one or more of the gures in the article can be found online at 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. 2 T. D. NGUYEN ET AL. engagement (Azevedo, 2015; Sinatra et al., 2015). Second, we conduct in class investigate the students ' behaviors with regard use measures of teacher instructional practices to identify pat- to classroom or school norms, expectations, or rules. students terns in student engagement across interactions with peers and can either exhibit positive behaviors ( , when a student fol- teachers. The article is organized as follows. First, we de ne stu- lows classroom or school expectations), which are indicators of dent engagement in its various forms and review previous liter- higher student engagement, or they can exhibit negative behav- ature on the student and classroom characteristics that are iors ( , when a student is being disruptive in the classroom or associated with student engagement in high schools.)

9 In so disobeying an administrator), which are indicators of lower doing, we also review common approaches to measuring engagement or disengagement (Finn, 1993; Finn, Pannozzo, &. engagement and highlight areas where new theoretical concep- Voelkl, 1995; Finn & Rock, 1997). The second dimension of tualizations of engagement require new approaches to measure- behavioral engagement is student participation in school- ment. We then describe the data used and the analytic related activities, which consists of student participation in the methods. Next, we describe the ndings and focus on the class- school or student participation within the classroom. Research room and instructional characteristics associated with active on school participation focuses on the student 's support ( , and passive engagement.

10 Finally, we discuss the implications of attendance, positive interactions) of school-sponsored activities this article for future research on student engagement in high ( , pep rallies, sports teams, clubs, other extracurricular activ- schools. ities), which has provided insight into the student 's motivation to be a part of the school (Finn, 1993; Finn et al., 1995; Jones, Marrazo, & Love, 2008; Wang, & Holcombe, 2010). The Prior research on student engagement research on student participation in classroom activities focuses on how the myriad of classroom activities increase student De ning student engagement engagement compared to disengagement (Birch & Ladd, 1997;. student engagement is a broad construct that researchers have Buhs & Ladd, 2001; Cooper, 2014; Yazzie-Mintz & McCormick, studied through three primary domains: cognitive, emotional 2012).