Literature Review 4: Introducing New Ideas to my Inquiry

In her article, Cooper (2014, p. 364) outlines that there is a significant lack of understanding of why students engage or disengage from school classrooms in American high schools, despite the fact that there are discrepancies between, ‘low levels of engagement and high importance of engagement’. This article not only defines ‘engagement’ on a classroom level, but also aims to address the significant issue of the role of the teacher in classroom engagement, ‘an individual student’s likelihood of engaging might rest on chance as classes are made and students are distributed across available options (Cooper, 2014, p. 364). Cooper (2014) also aims to provide a three part framework, by which teaching practices can be analysed in correlation to positive classroom engagement.

In the introductory paragraph, Cooper (2014) states that, ‘Classroom engagement is an active state of responding to a class through focused behaviour, emotion and cognition’ (p. 365). Similarly to both the work of Parsons et al. and Wang, Bergin & Bergin (2014), Cooper (2014) identifies that engagement can be categorised into cognitive, affective (emotional) and behavioural engagement. However, Cooper (2014, p. 365) argues that, ‘Although engagement occurs along these three dimensions, these elements are also highly synergistic, such as hey feed off and into one another, building the boundaries between them and collectively constituting a holistic experience of classroom engagement’.

Cooper provides a line of argument through explaining the work of Nakkula (2003) to introduce the concept that student identity is linked to emotional engagement. Cooper (2014) states that identity is formed through relationships with peers and teachers in both classes and extracurricular activities through their successes and failures. Through the use of existing literary research, Cooper (2014, p. 366) argues that, ‘this emerging body of research suggests that identity development could be an underlying mechanism by which adolescents subconsciously make meaning of classroom experience and then engage or disengage accordingly’.

Under the subheading, ‘Teaching for Engagement’, Cooper (2014) outlines her motives for this article, by introducing the theory of three differing teaching practices that engage students (connective instruction, academic rigor and lively teaching), using the work of other theorist. Cooper (2014, p. 366) defines ‘Connective instruction’ based on the work of Martin & Dowson (2009) as, ‘practices that emphasize individual students’. Additionally, Wolf, Crosson & Resnick (2005) refer to ‘academic rigor’ as ‘practices that promote the academic dimension of the classroom’ (Cooper, 2014, p. 366). Finally, Cooper (2014, p. 366) states that the third practice is ‘lively teaching practices, which are conceptualized here as those that emphasize active learning opportunities’. The study aims to examine how these three theorised practices can be used individually, or in combination to engage students in the classroom. Furthermore, Cooper (2014) argues that this study will inform teachers’ decisions about how to attain high student engagement levels.

Next, the article provides practical ways of thinking and recognising the differing teaching practices, which are then used in the subsequent study. Cooper (2014, p. 367) defines the theoretical conceptions of Martin & Dowson (2009) as six teaching practices, that can be recognised in a classroom as the following: promoting relevance, conveying care, understanding students, giving affirmation, using humour to relate to student and allowing self-expression. Academic rigor (justified through the theoretical knowledge of Wolf et al.) is categorised by: challenging work, academically pushing students and delivering passion for content. Interestingly, Cooper (2014) does not draw upon existing theoretical frameworks in the identification of lively teaching as the following: games and fun activities, group work and assigning projects. Cooper’s (2014) perspective is that all strategies will engage students but, she hypothesizes that connective instruction will produce the most engagement, as the focus of the study is on adolescent participants.

(Cooper, 2014, p 367)

Cooper (2014) outlines the research methodologies, stating that a representational sample was chosen consisting of 1, 132 students from grades 9-12 of a Texas school, where surveys were given to these students that asked questions relating to the 12 teaching practices outlined from connective instruction, academic rigor and lively teaching. A pilot survey was conducted were teaching staff gave paper surveys to students to report on their lessons (Cooper, 2014). However, Cooper (2014) questioned the validity of this survey data (using existing theoretical research knowledge), as students may be influenced by the fact that they were reporting on the teacher that provided the questionnaire, therefore different teaching staff from assorted subjects administered the surveys during the actual research process. Case studies were also used in classes where there were discrepancies between reported engagement levels from students (Cooper, 2014). Cooper (2014) outlines the process where six to eight students, who were representational of the classes, were selected to be observed and interviewed. Evidence was provided using Regression Analysis of survey data (quantitative data) and case study data (qualitative data) was transcribed and coded (Cooper, 2014).

Cooper (2014) concluded that challenge (academic rigor) showed the weakest correlation with engagement, whereas care and understanding (connective instruction) showed the strongest correlation with engagement. Moreover results indicated that, ‘connective instruction and engagement was more than seven times stronger than the relationship for rigor and lively teaching (Cooper, 2014, p. 382). In terms of subject areas, Cooper’s (2014) evidence showed that, ‘students were more engaged in electives – particularly in the arts (p. 379) and this may have been due to the fact that English and academic subject placed greater focus on academic rigor. Cooper (2014) concludes that all three teaching practices promoted and increased classroom engagement. However, Cooper (2014) also argues that, ‘variations in engagement might also be due to other factors, such as difference across students or other class characteristics’ (p. 377).

Finally, Cooper (2014) perceives that further research would need to be undertaken to fully examine if connective instruction does in fact increase student engagement. However, she does argue that ‘with a stronger, more systematic understanding of how various teaching practices link to engagement, educators can begin to more uniformly modify classes for increased engagement (Cooper, 2014, p. 397)

I chose to review this article because it helped me to ‘move forward’ in my inquiry by finding out more about engagement in education (blog post link). Secondly, I also want to find out what strategies and tasks teachers in English/Literacy and Performing Arts use to engage students. I felt that analysing the concept of three teaching practices in this article, I would be able to link my observational data to existing theory. Furthermore, I would be able to identify if there are any links between what I find in my own inquiry and the conclusions and results in this existing research. I found the research to be valid, as it was well referenced and researched with existing theoretical knowledge and findings.

Thinking critically, this research was carried out in the American education system. This makes me question whether it is directly related to my inquiry topic and whether I can legitimately make comparisons with my own research and Cooper’s (2014) research conclusions. Although this article recognises the research’s limitations, these findings are only representational of one school, this can vary massively between schools within one country let along across countries. I also question whether Cooper (2014) was biased towards proving that connective instruction was the most effective way to engage students.

Bibliography

Cooper, K. S. (2014) Eliciting Engagement in the High School Classrooms: A Mixed-Methods Examination of Teaching Practices. American Educational Research Journal, April 2014, Volume 51, Issue 2, pp. 363-402 

Martin, A. J., & Dowson, M. (2009). Interpersonal relationships, motivation, engagement, and achievement: Yields for theory, current issues, and educational practice. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 327–365.

Nakkula, M. (2003) Identity and possibility: Adolescent development and the potential of schools. In: Sadowski, M Adolescents at school: Perspective of youth identity, and education, pp. 7-18 Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.

Wolf, M. K., Crosson, A. C., & Resnick, L. B. (2005). Classroom talk for rigorous reading comprehension instruction. Reading Psychology, 26(1), 27–53.