Low Student Engagement Level in Struggling Learners and Ways to Address It

Abstract

This article is concentrated on understanding the concept of ‘student engagement’ and investigates the outcomes of the increased engagement levels in struggling learners. It addresses the effectiveness of some of the methods targeting ‘dips’ in students’ involvement levels and investigates its triggers. Student engagement has lately been on the radar of the educators’ community as one of the foundational layers of teaching. It has been interlinked with sounder progress levels, improved attendance, and increased learning-related curiosity. Action Research was used as a methodological approach, with observations, journaling, and staff interviews being used as methods. A sound body of literature was researched to establish a solid framework for this study. The research has shown that improved engagement has the potential to lessen behaviour-related incidents, boost progress in struggling learners, and has a positive impact on the social climate. However, more research is needed to confirm this. In this study, a significant improvement in the number of successful tasks performed independently by children, a decrease in behavioural incidents, and improved social integration were present as the result of the strategy applied to increase engagement. Identifying pluming components of engagement (i.e., cognitive, social, behavioural) was discovered to be instrumental for the engagement-booster strategy to be effective.