If you were to ask students just five questions in an effort
to gauge their engagement, what would you ask?
@punyamishra blogged
recently regarding a five-item Gallup
survey that concludes that student engagement drops precipitously as
students progress through school. @punyamishra did not disagree with the Gallup
conclusion, but he questions whether the five items Gallup used were the best
measure of student engagement.
Gallup asked students to respond to these five statements:
I have a
best friend at school
I feel safe
in this school
My teachers
make me feel my schoolwork is important
At this
school, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day
In the last
seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good schoolwork
Should Gallup have omitted the statements relating to best
friends and feeling safe? It makes sense that these items would correlate positively
with student engagement: students are more likely to fully commit themselves to
their schoolwork in a positive, safe school climate. However, even if positive,
safe school climates are a necessary condition for high levels of student engagement,
one should not conclude that high levels of student engagement exist in this
situation. Educators need to take advantage of this climate by giving students
high quality work.
Asking students whether they believe their schoolwork is
important comes the closest to measuring the heart of student engagement. When
students value schoolwork, they are more likely to fully commit themselves and
to persist when they face difficulties. However, should Gallup have omitted the
reference to teachers in the third item? Teachers greatly influence student
engagement with the quality of work they provide, but this item could just ask students
to respond to "my schoolwork is important."
The statement relating to students' sense of efficacy is also on the right track. Although we need to stretch students to work in areas in which
they are not comfortable, we can build engagement with opportunities for
students to experience a sense of mastery, a sense of being in the zone.
The item relating to recognition or praise is certainly on
the right track to the extent that it is asking about students' opportunities
for affirmation. Teachers can promote student engagement by designing tasks and
activities so that the work of students is visible to persons who are important
to students. Students are more likely to be engaged when they know that they
quality of their performance matters to peers and others whose opinions matter
to them. We need to be careful with this particular item. When students sole
motivation for working hard is the pursuit of a good grade or other external
recognition then the engagement, using Phil Schlechty's terminology, is
ritualistic, rather than authentic. Authentic engagement leads to deeper,
longer-lasting learning.
Even if we would create different items or approaches to
measure student engagement, kudos to Brandon Busteed and Gallup for their focus
on student engagement. Asking students about their level of engagement can provide
rich information to guide our efforts to engage students in meaningful work.
Check out these other blog posts regarding student
engagement:
