Look at ads for software for schools and you will see words that promise student engagement and improved academic achievement (see, for example: Dell Computers: 2011-western-heights high school). Like hot dogs and mustard, Harry and Sally, the upbeat words about software and new mobile devices engaging students, raising test scores of minority students and closing the achievement gap are joined like Siamese twins. “Schools powered by (put in your favorite software company) report impressive gains in first year.” Or listen to what educators and students say about new tablets, clickers, interactive whiteboards, or the latest mobile gadget:
An elementary school teacher: “The two mobile labs in our school have enabled and encouraged real-world learning regardless of grade level. Grade two students are the most active, especially with multimedia projects.” From a high school student using an iPad: “I think it is a wonderful way to gain knowledge. Maybe more practice would help improvement in skills.” From a college student: “I actually kind of like it. [Having clickers to register your opinion] make[s] you read. It makes you pay attention. It reinforces what you’re supposed to be doing as a student.”
What’s the connection between engaged students and academic achievement? I know it sounds like a dumb question because the connection seems so self-evident. But it is not as obvious as needing a parachute to skydive. It is more complicated.
Most parents, educators, and voters assume–as do policymakers and researchers–that engaged students will do well in school, score better on tests, and graduate than disengaged students who grow alienated from academic tasks and engage in behaviors that often lead to dropping out of school. Engagement, then, is a psychological process where students not only pay attention to school activities but invest themselves by doing the work.
That many students are disengaged from schooling has been documented time and again. Causes for that alienation range from schools’ socioeconomic characteristics, curricular fragmentation, and pedagogical approaches–the environment that students find themselves in–to the background of students that shape their attitudes, interests, and motivation–the social psychological explanation for disengagement. The taken-for-granted truth that student engagement leads to improved achievement rests in the social psychological explanation.
Buried in this assumption about engagement are separate links in a chain of reasoning that need to be examined. I specify these links in the chain and then I will insert the use of high-tech hardware and software in schools as another link into that chain. The complications will become self-evident.
1. Motivated students will engage in academic work that teachers assign.
2. Engaged students are attentive, participate in classroom activities, and complete assigned work.
3. Because students pay attention, participate, and complete work, they acquire academic knowledge and skills from teachers and peers that result in classroom and school rewards further strengthening engagement.
4. Expanded school-based knowledge and skills produce academic improvement as measured by teacher grades and standardized tests.
That is the generic chain of reasoning supporting the concept of engagement. To many experts and lay people, psychological involvement in schooling–engagement–is the solution to low academic achievement and dropping out of school.
Where do laptops, whiteboards and mobile devices running academic software from phonics to calculus fit? See 2 above. Software and hardware will motivate students to get engaged in academic work by increasing students’ attentiveness to classroom tasks, participating in teacher-designed activities, and completing assignments.
What evidence supports the chain of reasoning, especially the link dealing with high-tech devices and software?
I have already mentioned above the claims that vendors and tech enthusiasts made about student engagement. Based mostly on responses from students and teachers who are using the software and hardware for a few months–let’s discount “evidence’ displayed in ads or in “white papers” that vendors supply to potential buyers–even a year of hands-on experiences and immediate feedback along with bells and whistles accompanying software surely count as evidence. Here comes a “yes….but”
Yes, it is evidence of the “novelty effect” but not evidence of engagement leading to achievement. The “novelty effect” is the initial gush of enthusiasm that most (but not all) teachers and students experience when using new devices and software. Note, however, that the novelty wears thin over time and the effects–attentiveness, participation, and completion of work diminish as well.
And that is what has happened with the use of films, instructional television, computer assisted instruction, desktop and laptop devices over the past century. In sum, while hardware and software may at first engage students, that engagement and its effects deteriorate. Increased academic achievement remains, again, out of reach. The chain of reasoning and its linked assumptions gets broken. No more hot dogs and mustard, no more Harry and Sally, and no more engagement=achievement.