In this 3-part series on student engagement, Dr Amy Berry and Dr Kellie Picker are sharing insights from their study Student perspectives on engaging in learning at school, where they surveyed nearly 1,300 Prep to year 12 students and conducted 45 focus groups with 158 students. In part , the authors explored students’ top tips on how teachers could help them get more engaged in learning. In today’s article, they share student perspectives on learning at school, and explore what it means to be a good learner.
Researcher: ‘Imagine that I’m an alien from outer space and I am about to start school for the very first time. I don’t know anything about school, but I know that I really want to be a successful learner when I’m there. Could you help me? What advice could you give me to help me understand what great learners do at your school?’
Student: ‘Use your alien ray gun to insert knowledge into your brain.’
This was just one of the many funny moments we had when we spoke to students from Prep to year 12 about their experiences of learning at school. This year 5 student was making a joke, but it does tap into the belief many students expressed that learning at school is about behaving, while passively taking in and accumulating knowledge.
Whether we explicitly communicate it or not, students receive messages that contribute to their understanding of what it means to be a learner at school. Even the youngest students in our study were able to give advice about how to be a successful learner. But are they getting the right idea about learning? Do they understand what is involved in learning and how to help themselves learn better?
We were interested to know if students understood what it takes to be actively engaged in the process of learning, and whether they could describe the kinds of things that people do when they are trying to learn and improve. To find the answers to these questions, we surveyed nearly 1,300 Prep to year 12 students and conducted 45 focus groups with 158 students in our study Student perspectives on engaging in learning at school, funded by the Australian Council for Educational Research’s Strategic Research Board.
Engaging in learning
Engagement is sometimes described as ‘motivation in action’, the things that people do when they are fuelled with a desire to achieve a meaningful goal and empowered with a belief that they have the capacity to achieve that goal. Engagement fluctuates and is influenced by context.
We might be highly engaged in one learning experience but find we are mentally and emotionally checked out in another. Engagement also ranges from passive forms to more active forms, more like a dimmer switch than an on/off switch.
The Continuum of Learner Engagement (Berry, 2020) describes the range of different forms of engagement and disengagement that might take place in the classroom. Engagement can range from passively participating to actively driving your learning. Similarly, disengagement can range from passively withdrawing and ‘flying under the radar’ to actively trying to disrupt the teacher and other learners.
The continuum was originally developed based on teacher descriptions of engagement and disengagement, and we wondered if the students would also talk about these different forms in their descriptions of learning at school. Beyond that, we wanted to know if students understood that there was more to learning than just following instructions and getting your work done.
What did we find out?
In our survey, students were asked if they considered themselves a good learner. Overwhelmingly, the answer was yes. Eighty-seven per cent of secondary students and 94% of primary students agreed that they felt they were a good learner. However, a closer look revealed that while 40% of primary students strongly agreed that they were a good learner, that number dropped to only 18% for secondary students.
For year 3-12 students, the question about being a good learner was followed with an open-ended prompt (What makes you say that?) to probe their thinking and reasoning. Looking at the student responses gives us a good insight into the types of behaviours they associate with successfully engaging in learning at school. Using the continuum of engagement as a lens, there was evidence of each of the 3 forms of engagement in their responses.
Eighty per cent of students described ‘behaviours’ related to Participating, the most passive form of engagement. This included things like paying attention, listening and getting work done. Thirty-four per cent talked about things related to Investing, including being interested and enjoying learning, wanting to improve and being challenged, putting in effort and taking risks to extend themselves.
Only 11% of students described behaviours related to Driving, the most active form of engagement. This included things like seeking and using feedback to improve, seeking help when they needed it, engaging in self-assessment and understanding what works for them as a learner.
In our focus group discussions, students described the full range of engagement from Disrupting to Driving. When asked to describe what successful learners at their school do, many focused on behaviours related to either compliance or passive participating in lessons. For example, many students in the early years drew pictures and talked about the importance of ‘whole body listening’ and ‘paying attention’.
There was evidence, however, that some students were aware of their engagement and the active steps they could take to help themselves grow and improve. These students seem to understand that learning takes effort and a certain amount of risk.
‘Know your level of learning in the different subjects and really try to challenge yourself.’
‘I listen to others and challenge others with my own ideas to improve my knowledge.’
‘If I think I have mastered something, I try to take a more difficult approach so I can challenge myself in a new way.’
Of concern was the evidence suggesting many students believe being good at learning at school is about finding things easy, being quicker than others, achieving a certain grade or standard, and staying out of trouble. While these things may be associated with being a successful student at school, this does not mean the individual is growing or reaching their potential as a learner.
There was also evidence that some students believed that needing help, taking longer to understand something, or getting things wrong meant you were not a good learner. This suggests we have work to do to help students understand that learning is a process that requires effort and challenge as we strive towards a goal of growth and improvement, rather than just seeing it as a performance that is about getting things done and doing it quickly.
Stay tuned: In part 3 of this series on engagement, Dr Amy Berry and Dr Kellie Picker explore the issue of disengagement, and students share their insights into the roadblocks to engaging in learning at school.
References
Berry, A. (2020). Disrupting to driving: Exploring upper primary teachers’ perspectives on student engagement. Teachers and Teaching, 26(2), 145-165.
Berry, A. (2022). Reimagining student engagement: From disrupting to driving. Corwin Press.
Consider the following questions as you get to know the students in your class and you plan learning experiences for them:
What would your students say if you asked them what successful learners do?
Do they understand learning as a process of improvement that requires active engagement on their part?
Are they focused more on passive compliance and following the rules of school?
Do they know what they can do to drive their own learning?
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