Showing papers on "Student engagement published in 1987"

The theory of cost-benefit analysis

Abstract: Students face four decision margins: (a) How many years to spend in school, (b) What to study, (c) How much effort to devote to learning per year and (d) Whether to disrupt or assist the learning of classmates. The thousands of studies that have applied human capital theory to the first two questions are reviewed elsewhere in this volume and the Handbook series. This chapter reviews an emerging economic literature on the effects of and determinants of student effort and cooperativeness and how putting student motivation and behavior at center of one's theoretical framework changes one's view of how schools operate and how they might be made more effective. In this new framework students have a dual role. They are both (a) investors/consumers who choose which goals (outputs) to focus on and how much effort to put into each goal and (b) workers getting instruction and guidance from their first-line supervisors, the teachers. A simple model is presented in which the behavior of students, teachers and administrators depends on the incentives facing them and the actions of the other actors in the system. The incentives, in turn, depend upon the cost and reliability of the information (signals) that is generated about the various inputs and outputs of the system. Our review of empirical research support many of the predictions of the model. Student effort, engagement and discipline vary a lot within schools, across schools and across nations and have significant effects on learning. Higher extrinsic rewards for learning are associated the taking of more rigorous courses, teachers setting higher standards and more time devoted to homework. Taking more rigorous courses and studying harder increase student achievement. Post-World War II trends in study effort and course rigor, for example, are positively correlated with achievement trends. Even though, greater rigor and higher standards improve learning, parents and students prefer easy teachers. They pressure tough teachers to lower standards and sign up for courses taught by easy graders. Curriculum-based external exit examinations (CBEEES) improve the signaling of academic achievement to colleges and the labor market and this increases extrinsic rewards for learning. Cross-section studies suggest that CBEEES result in greater focus on academics, more tutoring of lagging students, and higher levels of achievement. Minimum competency examinations (MCE) do not have significant effects on learning or dropout rates but they do appear to have positive effects on the reputation of high school graduates. As a result, students from MCE states earn significantly more than students from states without MCEs and the effect lasts at least eight years. Students who attend schools with studious well-behaved classmates learn more. Disruptive students generate negative production externalities and cooperative hard-working students create positive production externalities. Peer effects are also generated by the norms of student peer cultures that encourage disruptive students and harass nerds. In addition learning is poorly signaled to employers and colleges. Thus, market signals and the norms of student peer culture do not internalize the externalities that are pervasive in school settings and as a result students typically devote less effort to studying than the taxpayers who fund schools would wish.

Student Passivity: A Study of Question Asking in K-12 Classrooms.

Abstract: This study examines the socialization of student question-asking behavior, one aspect of learning how to learn in school. Good (1981) argues that because of differential teacher feedback, some students learn to become intellectually passive in classrooms. The study documents students' self-initiated questions in an attempt to determine whether highand low-potential students learn different questioning skills. To examine this question, we developed a coding system to differentiate nine types of questions students in grades K-12 ask. The system also identified target students to allow comparisons of students by ability (teachers' ratings) and sex across different types of questions. Twelve observations were made in each of 22 classrooms. Findings indicate that students in grades K-12 asked similar numbers of questions; however, the distribution of those questions varied somewhat with grade level. Requests for meaningful explanations were relatively infrequent at all grade levels, and procedural questions were relatively frequent at all grade levels. Male kindergarten students and students perceived by teachers to be low-achieving asked many more questions than female kindergarteners and all high-achieving students. As age increased, female students asked about the same number of questions as male students; however, low-achieving students over time askedfewer questions than students at other achievement levels, which provides some support for Good's (1981) passivity model.

Student Learning: Research in Education and Cognitive Psychology

Abstract: Categories of student learning thinking and problem solving learning as construing improving student learning on knowing ourselves as learners and researchers. Indexes: author subject.

Task as a heuristic for understanding student learning and motivation

Abstract: (1987). Task as a heuristic for understanding student learning and motivation. Journal of Curriculum Studies: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 135-148.

Underlife and Writing Instruction

Abstract: This article uses the sociological concept of underlife to explain several aspects of writing instruction. In sociological theory, "underlife" refers to those behaviors which undercut the roles expected of participants in a situation-the ways an employee, for example, shows she is not just an employee, but has a more complex personality outside that role. In contemporary writing instruction, both students and teachers undercut the traditional roles of the American educational system in order to substitute more complex identities in their place. On the one hand, students disobey, write letters instead of taking notes, and whisper with their peers to show they are more than just students and can think independently of classroom expectations. On the other, writing teachers develop workshop methods, use small groups, and focus on students' own "voices" in order to help students see themselves as writers first and students second. Both sets of behaviors are underlife behaviors, for they seek to provide identities that go beyond the roles offered by the normal teacher-as-lecturer, student-as-passive-learner educational system. These forms of underlife, moreover, are connected to the nature of writing itself. Writing, in the rich sense of interactive knowledge creation advocated by theorists like Ann Berthoff in The Making of Meaning and Janet Emig in Web of Meaning, necessarily involves standing outside the roles and beliefs offered by a social situation-it involves questioning them, searching for new connections, building ideas that may be in conflict with accepted ways of thinking and acting. Writing involves being able to challenge one's assigned roles long enough that one can think originally; it involves living in conflict with accepted (expected) thought and action. This article will explore student and teacher behavior in writing instruction as the underlife of the current educational system, and will suggest that the identities which may be developing for students in writing classrooms are

A Developmental Perspective of Sophomore Slump

Abstract: (1987) A Developmental Perspective of Sophomore Slump NASPA Journal: Vol 24, No 3, pp 15-19

Students' Personal Growth during the First Two Years of College. ASHE 1987 Annual Meeting Paper.

Abstract: Is students’ reported personal development during the first two years of college (after controlling for individual, pre-matriculation differences) reliably related to their collegiate experiences during those years? Do the sources of influence on that growth vary from one year to the next. LISREL results indicate that both social and academic integration levels are reliably related to reported personal growth in each year, but academic integration is stronger, particularly in the sophomore year. Academic and social integration in the first year was related to integration levels in the second, but reported personal development in the freshman year may be independent of the growth reported in the sophomore year.

A Description of Academic Work and Student Performance during a Middle School Volleyball Unit

Abstract: This article describes the movement tasks (Rink, 1985) in which students engaged during a 14-lesson volleyball unit in an eighth-grade physical education class, and the differential motor skill responses of high- and low-skilled target students during the practice of these tasks. Audio and videotaped records were made of each lesson. Analysis focused on the identification of the movement tasks that were verbally presented by the teacher during the lessons, the determination of students’ level of engagement in these tasks, and the frequency and rate of motor skill responses/successful motor skill responses during task practice for three high- and three low-skilled students. Thirteen major movement tasks were identified that formed a simple to complex progression of activities. A high level of consistent student engagement in tasks was observed, as well as differential performance outcomes for students of high/low skill levels. The results reveal the complexity of providing appropriate instruction for diffe...

Beyond Prescription: The Student Teacher as Investigator.

Abstract: In preservice foreign/second language teacher preparation programs, prescriptions about how to teach have certain limitations. The most outstanding is that direct transfer of information does not necessarily afford student teachers chances to gain insight into how they can investigate their teaching processes and make decisions about what they can do in classrooms after the teacher preparation program has ended. In this paper we present a multiple-activities approach to teacher preparation through which student teachers are provided with opportunities to investigate their teaching and to make decisions about what and how to teach. In this approach student teachers experience classroom teaching, observe other teachers, conduct investigative projects of their teaching and its consequences, and discuss teaching in several contexts. A multiple-activities approach has been shown to provide student teachers with opportunities to develop their decision-making skills. However, communication within these activities is complex and opportunities for student teachers to develop decisionmaking skills can be blocked as well as facilitated through the type of interaction which goes on within and across each activity. Thus, in our discussion we are sensitive to interaction within each activity and to the connections which can be made between them.

College Choice and the Nontraditional Student.

Abstract: In an age of declining enrollments many colleges are finding itnecessary to more actively manage their enrollments. One important area of study is the process used by students in making college decisions. In a community college setting this type of research is particularly challenging because of the diversity of the student population and the fact that many students do not take the SAT or ACT, both of which provide important background information for research on college choice. This paper documents the outcomes of an investigation of the decision-making processes of nontraditional students at a public, suburban community college. The research methodology used was focus groups. The college gained information regarding the critical life incidents which preceded the decision to return to college, information used once a college search was instituted, and factors influencing the choice of this particular institution, as well as qualitative data about students' impressions of and attitudes about college programs and services that affect persistence at the institution.

Improving Student Learning During Lectures

Abstract: Despite moves away from teacher-centred methods towards more independent student-centred learning, resource pressures will continue to require the use of large lecture classes. Instead of examining the behaviour of the lecturer in order to improve the limited efficiency of lectures, attention is focussed on what students can do during lectures to improve their learning. Five techniques are described to improve student learning during lectures: (i) improving student note-taking and attention by separating listening from recording, and requiring the note-taking to be undertaken from memory; (ii) improving student learning through active review during the lecture; (iii) involving students in structured discussions even in very large classes by using ‘pyramidding’; (iv) checking on student learning by using ‘instant questionnaires’ and (v) checking on student learning by asking them to summarise the ‘three most important things’ about the lecture. These techniques are drawn from two of a series of books entit...

A Decision-Making Process for the College-Bound Student: Matching Learner, Institution, and Support Program

Abstract: Often students, parents and high-school personnel become frustrated in their efforts to track down valid information about support services for LD students on college campuses. This article describes a process designed to help college-bound LD students select a college or university. Three major components should be explored when searching for appropriate postsecondary programs for LD students: (a) characteristics of the LD student, (b) characteristics of the institution, and (c) characteristics of the LD support program. By investigating these variables systematically, college-bound LD students will be better prepared to make an informed decision about their future educational and career goals.