1. Understanding student engagement as a
multidimensional and dynamic concept
Master's Thesis
LET Master's Degree Program
Aleksandra Lazareva

2. Defining engagement
● Emotions
● Interest
● Motivation
● Engagement (Fredricks, et al., 2004):
– behavioral (participation, involvement)
– cognitive (investment, thoughtfulness)
– emotional (positive and negative reactions, willingness)

3. Engagement and self-regulation
(Wolters & Taylor, 2012)
● How do students function at school?
● Different models sharing core elements
● Behavioral, cognitive, emotional aspects
● Mediating processes
● Their definitions often include concepts that are
central to the other one
● Engagement results from the factors — self-
regulation acknowledges the factors but focuses on
the learner's efforts to manage own learning

4. Factors affecting student engagement
● Family, culture
● Educational context (Fredricks et al., 2004):
– school-level factors
– individual needs
– classroom context factors
● Practical reason for studying engagement

5. Empirical study
● Focus on classroom context factors affecting student
engagement:
– task characteristics (the entertainment part of the task,
autonomy support, meaningfulness + use of technology)
– social interactions (teacher interference and peer regulation)
● Primary school in Northern Finland
● 11 4th grade students
● English language classroom
● 1 month intervention (6 lessons, 45 minutes each)

6. Data collection and analysis
● Video observations (each lesson)
● Learning diaries (each lesson)
● Students' products (one activity)
● On-task/off-task and phase-shift analysis: quantity
and coherence of individual students' engagement —
main descriptor
● Analysis of engagement from the point of view of the
classroom context factors — establishing sources of
engagement/disengagement

7. Some results: Task characteristics
● Use of technology increased students' situational
interest in tasks → initiated engagement
● Technology started to be distracting if engagement
was not supported by other task characteristics
(e.g., challenging, meaningful)
● Meaningful tasks supporting autonomy resulted in
higher engagement
● Autonomy has to be promoted explicitly by the
teacher

8. Some results: Teacher interference
● Different types of teacher interference had different
effects on student engagement
– regulation of behavior
– additional instructions
– assistance
● Some students needed more attention from the
teacher while others could coordinate their work
themselves

9. Some results: Peer regulation
● Students had different success in regulating each
other's engagement
– turn-taking
– use of support materials
– drawing teacher's attention to help
● Emotional aspects

10. Practical implications
● Right combination of supports for individual
students
● Individual students had different needs in teacher
and peer support
● For some students it was easier to make
connections to tasks (i.e., meaningfulness) and
perceive autonomy than for others

11. References
● Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School
engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence.
Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59–109.
doi:10.3102/00346543074001059
● Wolters, C. A. & Taylor, D. J. (2012). A self-regulated learning
perspective on student engagement. In S. L. Christenson, A. L.
Reschly & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student
engagement (pp. 635–651). New York: Springer.