The concept of school engagement has attracted increasing attention as representing a possible antidote to declining academic motivation and achievement. Engagement is presumed to be malleable, responsive to contextual features, and amenable to environmental change. Researchers describe behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement and recommend studying engagement as a multifaceted construct. This article reviews definitions, measures, precursors, and outcomes of engagement; discusses limitations in the existing research; and suggests improvements. The authors conclude that, although much has been learned, the potential contribution of the concept of school engagement to research on student experience has yet to be realized. They call for richer characterizations of how students behave, feel, and think—research that could aid in the development of finely tuned interventions

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3516061.pdf

School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence

Preface Chapter 1 The challenge Chapter 2 The nature of the evidence: A synthesis of meta-analyses Chapter 3 The argument: Visible teaching and visible learning Chapter 4: The contributions from the student Chapter 5 The contributions from the home Chapter 6 The contributions from the school Chapter 7 The contributions from the teacher Chapter 8 The contributions from the curricula Chapter 9 The contributions from teaching approaches - I Chapter 10 The contributions from teaching approaches - II Chapter 11: Bringing it all together Appendix A: The 800 meta-analyses Appendix B: The meta-analyses by rank order References

Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement

How do people know as much as they do with as little information as they get? The problem takes many forms; learning vocabulary from text is an especially dramatic and convenient case for research. A new general theory of acquired similarity and knowledge representation, latent semantic analysis (LSA), is presented and used to successfully simulate such learning and several other psycholinguistic phenomena. By inducing global knowledge indirectly from local co-occurrence data in a large body of representative text, LSA acquired knowledge about the full vocabulary of English at a comparable rate to schoolchildren. LSA uses no prior linguistic or perceptual similarity knowledge; it is based solely on a general mathematical learning method that achieves powerful inductive effects by extracting the right number of dimensions (e.g., 300) to represent objects and contexts. Relations to other theories, phenomena, and problems are sketched.

/pdf/a-solution-to-plato-s-problem-the-latent-semantic-analysis-4jfk7ozfms.pdf

A Solution to Plato's Problem: The Latent Semantic Analysis Theory of Acquisition, Induction, and Representation of Knowledge.

A framework for conceptualizing the development of individual differences in reading ability is presented that synthesizes a great deal of the research literature. The framework places special emph...

Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy.

Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading

Engagement and Motivation in Reading

The authors explored different aspects of children's reading motivation and how children's motivation related to the amount and breadth of their reading. The reading motives assessed included self-efficacy, intrinsic-extrinsic motivation and goals, and social aspects. Fourth- and 5th-grade children (N = 105) completed a new reading motivation questionnaire twice during a school year. Children's reading amount and breadth were measured using diaries and questionnaires. Children's reading motivation was found to be multidimensional. Their motivation predicted children's reading amount and breadth even when previous amount and breadth were controlled. An intrinsic motivation composite predicted amount and breadth of reading more strongly than did an extrinsic motivation composite. Some aspects of girls' reading motivation were more positive than boys'. Students' reading amount and breadth contribute substantially to several valued aspects of their achievement and performance, such as reading achievement, world knowledge, and participation in society. Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding (1988) found that the amount of independent out-of-school reading accounted for 16% of the variance in the reading comprehension of fifth graders, after general activity levels were controlled. Similarly, Stanovich and Cunningham (1992) found that amount and breadth of reading predicted reading achievement, as indicated by standardized vocabulary tests, even after previous general intelligence was controlled. Both Anderson et al. and Cipielewski and Stanovich (1992) found that the amount of reading predicted growth of reading achievement during elementary school on different measures of reading comprehension (Cipielewski & Stanovich, 1992). Children's reading amount and breadth contribute to their knowledge of the world, including knowledge of information such as the size of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration budget, who were allies in World War II, and the distinctions among various religious beliefs (Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993). Individuals who read frequently also

http://cori.umd.edu/research-publications/1997-wigfield-guthrie.pdf

Relations of Children's Motivation for Reading to the Amount and Breadth of Their Reading.

Based on an engagement perspective of reading development, we investigated the extent to which an instructional framework of combining motivation support and strategy instruction (Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction—CORI) influenced reading outcomes for third-grade children. In CORI, five motivational practices were integrated with six cognitive strategies for reading comprehension. In the first study, we compared this framework to an instructional framework emphasizing Strategy Instruction (SI), but not including motivation support. In the second study, we compared CORI to SI and to a traditional instruction group (TI), and used additional measures of major constructs. In both studies, class-level analyses showed that students in CORI classrooms were higher than SI and/or TI students on measures of reading comprehension, reading motivation, and reading strategies. A widespread goal of education in the elementary grades is reading comprehension for all students. Reading comprehension becomes especially important in the later elementary grades (Sweet & Snow, 2003) and provides the basis for a substantial amount of learning in secondary school (Kirsch et al., 2002). Without the skills of reading comprehension and the motivation for reading to learn, students’ academic progress is limited (Alvermann & Earle, 2003). In view of the prominence of reading comprehension, a vital issue for educational psychology is investigating the characteristics of effective instruction for reading comprehension (Hiebert & Raphael, 1996). The growing knowledge base about instruction for reading comprehension is rightly directed toward identifying classroom practices with known effects on specific aspects of reading, and a major focus of this research has been on identifying effective reading strategies that increase children’s comprehension (Block & Pressley, 2002; Duke & Pearson, 2002; National Reading Panel, 2000). However, the evidence rests primarily on instructional research in which single cognitive strategies, such as questioning, are taught in controlled experiments. Relatively little investigation has been conducted on how multiple strategies can be combined in long-term comprehension instruction within the classroom, and

http://cori.umd.edu/research-publications/2004-guthrie-wigfield-etal.pdf

Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement Through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction

This study examined the extent that motivational processes facilitate the comprehension of texts and the extent of culture's role in children's motivational processes of text comprehension. Relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the amount of reading, past reading achievement, and text comprehension were examined by utilizing structural equation modeling. Fourth-grade students (187 U.S. and 197 Chinese) were administered a reading test and two questionnaires regarding reading motivation and reading amount. A final model fit the data well, showing that intrinsic motivation predicted text comprehension for both student groups after controlling for all other variables. Extrinsic motivation negatively predicted text comprehension except when associated with intrinsic motivation. Reading amount did not predict text comprehension after controlling for motivational variables. The structural relationships were statistically equivalent across the U.S. and Chinese groups. Cultural influences on reading motivation, reading amount, and comprehension were discussed.

Modeling the effects of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amount of reading, and past reading achievement on text comprehension between U.S. and Chinese students

Motivational variables contribute to reading achievement and text comprehension through several paths. We report the results of 2 studies further examining these relations. Study 1 included 3rd and 5th graders. We measured their motivation and reading amount with questionnaires and their text comprehension with 2 performance tests. Results revealed that reading amount significantly predicted text comprehension on 2 different indicators, even when the contributions of past reading achievement, prior topic knowledge, self-efficacy for reading, and reading motivation were controlled statistically. Study 1 also showed that reading motivation significantly predicted reading amount when past reading achievement, prior topic knowledge, and self-efficacy were controlled. In Study 2, we investigated the same variables among students in Grades 8 and 10 from a nationally representative data set. Similar to Study 1, the results showed that reading amount significantly predicted text comprehension with other variables...

John T. Guthrie

Papers

Engagement and Motivation in Reading

Relations of Children's Motivation for Reading to the Amount and Breadth of Their Reading.

Increasing Reading Comprehension and Engagement Through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction

Modeling the effects of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amount of reading, and past reading achievement on text comprehension between U.S. and Chinese students

Motivational and Cognitive Predictors of Text Comprehension and Reading Amount