How Do We ‘See’ Engagement in a Classroom?: A Comparison of Researcher, Student, and Teacher Perspectives

Abstract

This study compares three sources of inferences about the engagement of young science learners: researcher observations of classroom video, student self-reports, and teacher reports. 21 third-grade students participated in a series of embodied learning activities in their music classroom centered on the science behind musical sound. Perspectives from the researcher, music teacher, and students are compared in the context of two video clips from classroom activities that participants co-watched with the researcher during post-interviews. The results highlight the overlaps in how the researcher, teacher and students reported their perceptions of social and emotional engagement, as well as the similarities in reasoning around generative sources of positive emotional engagement. The analysis also surfaces the unique interpretations of events that each source of data offers. Overall, this paper argues that multiple participant and researcher perspectives together can offer a more robust understanding of how and why students engage with learning.