How Should We Quantify Student Engagement?
Abstract
Student engagement is widely thought to be a key predictor of student motivation and achievement. Engagement has been defined as “both the time and energy students invest in educationally purposeful activities." Unfortunately this doesn't identify what specific student actions to include in a quantification of engagement.
This interactive presentation invites participants to consider how they would quantify student engagement using technology. The discussion will be informed from lessons learned at the University of Michigan where a rich database of student participation in class has been collected and related to student outcomes.
Results of learning analytics analyses suggest that incoming GPA of a student not only predicts course grades but also predicts how the student will engage in the course. Lower GPA students behave differently in class than higher GPA students, answering fewer questions, getting fewer questions right, physically coming to class less and taking fewer notes than higher GPA students by a factor of six. This suggests that interventions to alter patterns of student participation hold promise to affect improved student learning.
Location
Room 1220 B
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Samson, Perry, "How Should We Quantify Student Engagement?" (2015). SoTL Commons Conference. 143.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sotlcommons/SoTL/2015/143
How Should We Quantify Student Engagement?
Room 1220 B
Student engagement is widely thought to be a key predictor of student motivation and achievement. Engagement has been defined as “both the time and energy students invest in educationally purposeful activities." Unfortunately this doesn't identify what specific student actions to include in a quantification of engagement.
This interactive presentation invites participants to consider how they would quantify student engagement using technology. The discussion will be informed from lessons learned at the University of Michigan where a rich database of student participation in class has been collected and related to student outcomes.
Results of learning analytics analyses suggest that incoming GPA of a student not only predicts course grades but also predicts how the student will engage in the course. Lower GPA students behave differently in class than higher GPA students, answering fewer questions, getting fewer questions right, physically coming to class less and taking fewer notes than higher GPA students by a factor of six. This suggests that interventions to alter patterns of student participation hold promise to affect improved student learning.
