Abstract:
Across Australia, recent policy initiatives have focused on student engagement in school and learning. Many reforms, especially those relating to secondary schooling and literacy, propose changes to curriculum, school organisation, and teacher practice. Although teachers play a significant role in the implementation of policy reforms, little research has looked at student engagement from teacher perspectives. The study reported in this paper utilised a phenomenographic approach to investigate teacher conceptions of how to facilitate student engagement.
In this study, teachers described engaging students in qualitatively different ways. These differences were abstracted into three categories of description. In the first category, teachers conceptualise delivering set activities and discipline to students. In the second, teachers suggest that they must modify curriculum and class organisation. In the third category, teachers propose that genuine collaboration with students is necessary to truly engage pupils in learning. These data indicate that teachers hold diverse understandings about how to facilitate student engagement and that it cannot be assumed that educationists share similar understandings about engagement. Also, as teachers self report success when using a collaborative approach, it may be fruitful to further investigate this way of teaching using a range of research methodologies.
In this study, teachers described engaging students in qualitatively different ways. These differences were abstracted into three categories of description. In the first category, teachers conceptualise delivering set activities and discipline to students. In the second, teachers suggest that they must modify curriculum and class organisation. In the third category, teachers propose that genuine collaboration with students is necessary to truly engage pupils in learning. These data indicate that teachers hold diverse understandings about how to facilitate student engagement and that it cannot be assumed that educationists share similar understandings about engagement. Also, as teachers self report success when using a collaborative approach, it may be fruitful to further investigate this way of teaching using a range of research methodologies.