‘So, You Think It’s Good’ - Reasons Students Engage When Learning with Technologies – a Student Perspective

• Student engagement is significantly related to school success. With the increasing digitalisation of education, it is essential to explore if student engagement is affected by the uptake of learning technologies (LTs). The aim of this study was to approach what factors students perceive to influence their engagement when learning with technologies. This was done by asking students to report their level of engagement and fill in a questionnaire to evaluate a classroom intervention designed to facilitate engagement. The intervention included a learner assessment application, a virtual learning environment (VLE) And a separate tablet the teacher used to access the shared workspace. These LTs facilitated instant feedback between the teacher and the students and enabled multiple simultaneous dialogues which allowed all students to engage with both content and peers. Results show that students’ invested effort in learning activities were related to their reported levels of engagement. Surprisingly, in this intervention, control and stress showed no correlation with engagement. Some aspects of peer modelling and feedback showed weak correlations, albeit these were non-significant. Instead, students reported that feeling ‘content with one’s outcomes’ and ‘engaging in learner-centred dialogues’ were their main reasons to engage. Moreover, students’ reasons to engage in short tasks were not the same as their reasons to engage with long-term goals, such as completing their assignment. The results show that conditions for learning changed when implementing LTs. As conditions for learning changed, so did students’ reasons to engage. Moreover, insights into students’ reasons to engage and reported levels of engagement to suggest that obtaining this information can be useful to identify students in at-risk zones and offer them the support needed. Orchestration of inclusive engagement and implications for future designs are discussed.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

student engagement

design for engagement

learning technologies

engagemang

design för engagemang

teknikstött lärande

IKT

informationssamhället

Information Society

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)