Gathering Diverse Student and Educator Perspectives on Engagement: Uncovering a Story of Misunderstandings and Supporting Realignment

Decades of research demonstrate that higher student engagement leads to higher achievement, holding true across all subject areas and grade levels. Engagement is defined by a student’s active investment in a task or learning environment, but this investment is not readily observable. So, educators are often taught that engagement is best measured as behaviors that demonstrate compliance and minimize classroom disruptions, such as sitting quietly. The transition to online learning precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic restricted teachers’ abilities to determine the degree of student engagement through behavior monitoring alone, and there were tremendous concerns about learning loss as students disengaged from their online classrooms.
The presenters for this session led the evaluation for the Increasing Diverse Learner Engagement and Achievement (IDLEA) project aimed at increasing student engagement during the first years of COVID-19 in schools. IDLEA prioritized understanding the needs and engagement levels of diverse learners, which included students identified as English learners, students with Individualized Education Plans (IEP) or 504 Plans, students who qualified for free or reduced-priced lunch, and students identified as gifted and talented. A cohort of 13 charter schools participated in the project. They spanned a range of models, educational philosophies, sizes, and geographic locations. While IDLEA was a response to the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also recognized that a narrow focus on remote learning as the culprit of student disengagement ignores the larger conditions that support engagement.
Grounded in research, the evaluation broadened the concept of engagement to include cognitive, emotional, and behavioral domains. These domains take into consideration how students' internal worlds influence their engagement rather than relying on externally visible and measurable behaviors alone. Understanding engagement in this new way necessitated asking students themselves about their levels of engagement. So, we developed a Student Engagement Assessment (SEA) and ensured it was accessible to students from elementary through high school. We also developed a survey for educators to report their estimation of students' levels of engagement.
Comparing the responses of students and educators uncovered critical misalignments. Overall, teachers believed that students, specifically in the diverse learner groups, were less engaged than students reported themselves to be. These findings instigated robust conversations among educators about how to grow their professional practice to assess levels of engagement and create learning environments that engage all students.
By the end of the grant, nearly all diverse learner groups reported increases in their levels of engagement across all three domains. The greatest gains were experienced by students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch and students with an IEP or 504 Plan. Importantly, the gaps decreased between levels of engagement of students in the diverse learner groups compared to their peers who were not in the group.
The realignment of teacher and student perspectives was possible through the inclusion of multiple perspectives. Ultimately, new understandings of engagement supported both students’ learning and teachers’ skills. The findings from IDLEA underscore the need for evaluators to challenge themselves to conduct evaluations that prioritize and validate traditionally overlooked voices in service to those groups and in promoting broader systems changes.