Introduction

This is a book about student engagement. It says so on the cover! We are not the first to study and write about the topic, nor will we be the last. Many articles and books have already addressed how to increase student engagement from a practical or psychological perspective. These texts raise important issues and offer hands-on advice concerning how to improve students’ motivation, increase their involvement, and get their attention in order to advance their learning and achievement.

Why do we need yet another book on the subject, then? Well, despite all the well-founded advice that draws on decades of psychological research on motivation and engagement, levels of student engagement don’t seem to be improving. Indeed, as we show in this book, engagement levels are at best plateauing and at worst plummeting. This is happening even when test scores have risen. Achievement and engagement are headed in opposite directions. It’s a dismal trajectory.

Too many educators and policymakers have adopted a narrow view of achievement. They have associated it with test scores. They have limited it to traditional basic skills like literacy and mathematics. They have elevated achievement above learning in a way that often does injustice to the learning. They have raised tested achievement scores by getting students to memorize things that they barely understand and quickly forget. This kind of achievement involves little learning that actually leads to new knowledge. It is often accomplished without much understanding. Instead of addressing engagement as a way to get genuine achievement, education systems have promoted superficial kinds of achievement, at the cost of engagement.