Fostering student engagement with motivating teaching: an observation study of teacher and student behaviours

Abstract

Given the importance of student engagement for students' current and future success, it is essential to explore how teachers can foster student engagement within lessons. This study relied on classroom observations to describe how teachers applied Self-Determination Theory (SDT) related (de)motivating teaching behaviours to foster students' engagement. Results from 120 observed lessons of 43 teachers indicated there were distinct relations between motivating teaching behaviours and student engagement. Most striking regarding the use of motivating teaching behaviours were the higher levels of relatedness support and guidance during activities in lessons in which students showed the highest levels of engagement. Conversely, in lessons where students were least engaged, teachers showed higher levels of chaotic teaching behaviours. Analyses of behaviours within lowly and highly engaging lessons showed that teachers in highly engaging lessons were observed to start with high levels of enthusiasm and after about ten to fifteen minutes focused on activating their students by offering room for experimenting and support while students worked on assignments. In contrast, teachers in lowly engaging lessons seemed to have a tendency to employ demotivating teaching behaviour at the start of the lesson. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Teacher Engagement in Language Teaching: Investigating Self-Efficacy for Teaching Based on the Project “Sino-Greece Online Chinese Language Classrooms”

“…(1) the meaning of "student engagement" should be shaped by specific places and times (Ashwin and McVitty, 2015;Bond et al, 2020), which requires that teachers should analyze the external factors that might impact student engagement; (2) student engagement is associated with student motivation (Yuan and Zhang, 2017;Bond et al, 2020;Cents-Boonstra et al, 2020) and persistence to learning (Archambault et al, 2009;Wang and Fredrick, 2014;Cents-Boonstra et al, 2020), which suggests that teachers should have a good understanding of internal factors of students (e.g., backgrounds, attitudes, confidence, and motivations of students) (Ferris et al, 2013;Ranalli, 2021); (3) student engagement is subject to change over time, which indicates that student engagement can be either fostered or hindered in the learning environment in which they work (Cents-Boonstra et al, 2020); (4) students who are engaged at school are likely to be engaged in their long-term vocation and will seek to attain occupational achievement (Abbott-Chapman et al, 2014;Cents-Boonstra et al, 2020), which foregrounds the importance of fostering student engagement.…”

“…Thus, both educational policymakers and researchers have been attracted to explore effective approaches to fostering student engagement. Self-determination theory (SDT), for example, puts forward the premise that student engagement will be fostered when teachers support their three basic psychological needs (Van de Berghe et al, 2016;Cents-Boonstra et al, 2020): the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Ryan and Deci, 2000;Cents-Boonstra et al, 2020). "The need for autonomy" is a sense of psychological freedom and volition to be oneself.…”

“…Teachers, whose workplace is characterized by cooperation and support for teachers, tend to have a high sense of self-efficacy (Goddard and Goddard, 2001;Duran and Duran, 2005). These three components echo the three psychological needs (i.e., the needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence) to foster student engagement (Ryan and Deci, 2000;Cents-Boonstra et al, 2020), which are also available for cultivating teacher engagement (Dutt et al, 2020): Personal efficacy supports the need of teachers for autonomy, efficacy within the organization for relatedness, and professional efficacy for competence. In turn, cultivated engagement of teachers will work on their self-efficacy.…”

The Relationship of Affective, Behavioral and Cognitive Engagements in ESL Higher Learning Classroom

“…In another general perspective, student engagement was observed as one of the predictors of operative pedagogic strategies which was rooted in socio constructivism theories (Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017;Zygnier, 2008). It became a medium to achieve efficacy in various teaching methods such as deep learning and a bridge for the students to explore their social terms in society (Cents-Boonstra et al, 2020;Czerkawski & Lyman III, 2016). Zygnier (2008) also explained that student-centered teaching approach viewed engagement based on the students' discovery and individuals' interest.…”

The influence of teacher-student proximity, teacher feedback, and near-seated peer groups on classroom engagement: An agent-based modeling approach

“…The degree of students' classroom engagement directly reflects their classroom learning motivation and affects their academic performance and social development. Hence, how to inspire and promote students' engagement in classroom teaching has become a key issue in classroom teaching management research in recent years [1][2][3][4][5].…”