Just How Important is Student Engagement?

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Recently, the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute published their 2015 report on American Education titled, How Well Are Students Learning . The report is a very interesting read (and if you have some extra time this weekend, its worth it). On the topic of student engagement, the report makes a number of interesting contentions including the following:

  • On measures of student engagement, several countries noted for their superior performance on a much-cited international test rank below average on levels of student interest.
  • Increasing a student’s enjoyment of reading doesn’t correlate with improved reading scores.
  • On measures of student motivation, many countries saw their math scores decline even though their students reported higher levels of motivation.

The obvious conclusion here is that despite the efforts of a number of leading academics in the U.S. and elsewhere to promote student engagement, it doesn't improve student achievement.

To me, this conclusion seems not only counter-intuitive (and a bit suspect), but it raises some significant questions about engagement-based pedagogy.