Abstract
What teachers’ think about student engagement influences the teaching practices they adopt, their responses to students and the efforts they make in the classroom. Interviews were conducted with 31 mathematics teachers from ten high schools to investigate their perceptions and beliefs about student engagement in mathematics. Teachers also reported the practices they used to engage their students during mathematics lessons. Teacher perceptions of student engagement were categorised according to recognised ‘types’ (behavioural, emotional and cognitive) and ‘levels’ (ranging from disengaged to engaged). The teachers’ reports emphasised immediate attention being paid to students’ behaviours and overt emotions towards mathematics with fewer and less extensive reports made about students’ cognitive engagement. Teachers’ abilities to implement practices considered supportive of student engagement were linked to a number of elements, including their self-efficacy. Perceptions of being powerless to engage their students resulted in many teachers limiting their efforts to attempt some form of intervention.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behaviour change. Psychological Review, 84, 191–215.
Brown, M., Brown, P., & Bibby, T. (2008). “I would rather die”: reasons given by 16 year-olds for not continuing their study of mathematics. Research in Mathematics Education, 10(1), 3–18.
Chatzistamatiou, M., Dermitzaki, I., & Bagiatis, V. (2014). Self-regulatory teaching in mathematics: relations to teachers’ motivation, affect and professional commitment. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 29(2), 295–310.
Draper, J. (2013). Teacher self-efficacy: internalized understandings of competence. In S. Phillipson, K. Y. L. Ku, & S. N. Philipson (Eds.), Construction educational achievement (pp. 70–83). London: Routledge.
Fredricks, J. A., & McColskey, W. (2012). The measurement of student engagement: a comparative analysis of various methods and student self-report instruments. In S. L. Christenson, A. L. Reschly, & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student engagement (pp. 763–782). New York: Springer.
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, 59–109.
Furrer, C., & Skinner, E. (2003). Sense of relatedness as a factor in children’s academic engagement and performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 148–162.
Givvin, K. B., Stipek, D. J., Salmon, J. M., & MacGyvers, V. L. (2001). In the eyes of the beholder: students’ and teachers’ judgments of students’ motivation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(3), 321–331.
Goldin, G. A. (2014). Perspectives on emotion in mathematical engagement. In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education. New York: Routledge.
Hardré, P. L. (2011). Motivation for math in rural schools: student and teacher perspectives. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 23, 213–233.
Hardré, P. L., Davis, K. A., & Sullivan, D. W. (2008). Measuring teacher perceptions of the “how” and “why” of student motivation. Educational Research and Evaluation, 14(2), 155–179.
Harris, L. (2011). Secondary teachers’ conceptions of student engagement: engagement I learning or in schooling? Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 376–386.
Krippendorf, K. (2004). Reliability in content analysis: some common misconceptions and recommendations. Human Communication Research, 30(3), 411–433.
Lee, W., & Reeve, J. (2012). Teachers’ estimates of their students’ motivation and engagement: being in synch with students. Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Psychology, 32(6), 727–747.
Lewis, G. (2013). A portrait of disaffection with school mathematics: the case of Anna. Journal of Motivation, Emotion and Personality, 1(1), 36–43.
Martin, A., Anderson, J., Bobis, Way, J., & Vellar, R. (2012). Switching on and switching off in mathematics: an ecological study of future intent and disengagement among middle school students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(1), 1–18.
Martin, A. J., Papworth, B., Ginns, P., Malmberg, L., Collie, R., & Calvo, R. (2015). Real-time motivation and engagement during a month at school: every moment of every day for every student matters. Learning and Individual Difference, 38, 26–35.
Mason, J. (2008). PCK and beyond. In P. Sullivan & T. Wood (Eds.), The international handbook of mathematics education: knowledge and beliefs in mathematics teaching and teaching development (vol. 1). Rotterdam: Sense.
McLeod, D. B. (1992). Research on affect in mathematics education: a reconceptualization. In D. A. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning. New York: MacMillan.
Nardi, E., & Steward, S. (2003). Is mathematics T.I.R.E.D? A profile of quiet disaffection in the secondary mathematics classroom. British Educational Research Journal, 29(3), 345–367.
Pekrun, R., & Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. (2014). Introduction to emotions in education. In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education. New York: Routledge.
Philipp, R. A. (2007). Mathematics teachers’ beliefs and affect. In F. K. Lester Jr. (Ed.), Second handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning (Vol. 1, pp. 257–315). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
QRS-International. (2008). NVivo 8, QRS International Pty Ltd.
Raphael, L., Pressley, M., & Mohen, L. (2008). Engaging instruction in middle school classrooms: an observational study of nine teachers. The Elementary School Journal, 109(1), 61–81.
Reeve. (2009). Why teachers adopt a controlling motivating style toward students and how they can become more autonomy supportive. Educational Psychologist, 44(3), 159–175.
Reschly, A. L., & Christenson, S. L. (2012). Jingle, jangle, and conceptual haziness: evolution and future directions of the engagement construct. In S. L. Christenson, A. L. Reschly, & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student engagement (pp. 3–19). New York: Springer.
Schweinle, A., Meyer, D. K., & Turner, J. C. (2006). Striking the right balance: students’ motivation and affect in elementary mathematics. The Journal of Educational Research, 99(5), 271–294.
Skilling, K. (2013). Factors that Influence Year 7 Students’ Engagement and Achievement in Mathematics. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Sydney, Sydney:Australia.
Skilling, K. (2014). Teacher practices: how they promote or hinder student engagement. In Anderson, J., Cavanagh, M., & Prescott, A. (Eds.), Curriculum in focus: research guided practice. Proceedings of the 37th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, (pp, 589–598). Sydney: MERGA.
Skilling, K., Bobis, J., & Martin, A. (2015). The engagement of students with high and low achievement levels in mathematics. In Beswick, K., Muir, T., & Wells, J. (Eds), Proceedings of the 39th Psychology of Mathematics Education conference (vol. 4, pp. 185–192). Hobart: PME.
Skinner, E. A., & Pitzer, J. R. (2012). Developmental dynamics of student engagement, coping and everyday resilience. In S. L. Christenson, A. L. Reschly, & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student engagement (pp. 21–44). New York: Springer.
Smith, K. A., Sheppard, S. D., Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2005). Pedagogies of engagement: classroom based practices. Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 87–100.
Stipek, D., Salmon, J. M., Givven, K. B., Kazemi, E., Saxe, G., & MacGyvers, V. L. (1998). The value (and convergence) of practices suggested by motivation research and promoted by mathematics education reformers. Journal of Research in Mathematics Education, 29(4), 465–488.
Turner, J. C., Warzon, K., & Christenson, A. (2011). Motivating mathematics learning: changes in teachers’ practices and beliefs during a nine-month collaboration. American Educational Research Journal, 48(3), 718–762.
Wigfield, A., Eccles, J. S., Fredricks. J. A., Simpkins, S., Roeser, R. W., & Schiefele, U. (2015). Development of achievement motivation and engagement. Handbook of child psychology and developmental science, volume 3 (pp. 1–44).
Williams, S. R., & Ivey, K. M. C. (2001). Affective assessment and mathematics classroom engagement: a case study. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 47, 75–100.
Zazkis, R., & Hazzan, O. (1999). Interviewing in mathematics education: choosing the questions. Journal of Mathematical Behaviour, 17(4), 429–439.
Zyngier, D. (2007). Listening to teachers-listening to students: substantive conversations about resistance, empowerment and engagement. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 14(4), 327–347.
Acknowledgments
This research was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Projects grant LP0776843 in partnership with the Catholic Education Office, Sydney.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Skilling, K., Bobis, J., Martin, A.J. et al. What secondary teachers think and do about student engagement in mathematics. Math Ed Res J 28, 545–566 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-016-0179-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-016-0179-x