Students' engagement in technology rich classrooms and its relationship to professors' conceptions of effective teaching

This study examined dimensions of student engagement in technology rich classrooms and the relationship of this engagement to professors’ conceptions of effective teaching. We collected questionnaire data from 332 students and analysed the data in relation to the finding of another study (Authors, forthcoming) involving 13 professors’ coursespecific conceptions of effective teaching. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation revealed four dimensions of student engagement: cognitive and applied engagement, social engagement, reflective engagement and goal clarity. Subsequent multivariate and univariate analyses of variance showed that the extent of students’ cognitive and applied engagement and social engagement is related significantly to professors’ conceptions of effective teaching. The study has implication on design and assessment of technology-rich learning environments and on faculty development programs involving technology use in their teaching. Introduction The value-added role of computer technologies is attributed to the way they are used in the teaching and learning processes rather than to their mere presence in the classroom or the special features associated with the technologies (Bain, McNaught, Mills & Lueckenhausen, 1998; Jonassen, 2000; Kim & Reeves, 2007). Given this perspective, a logical deduction would be that the role of computers for student learning ought to be understood within the context in which it is appropriated (Bain et al, 1998; Salomon & Almog, 1998). Salomon and Perkins (1998) have argued compellingly that cognitive and social aspects of learning are intertwined and have further asserted that any research on learning and technology should use a composite unit of analysis that involves the cognitive activity, the learning goal, the social context and the learning medium and materials. If one agrees that learning environments influence the extent of student engagement (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000) and that the design of these environments, in turn, is influenced by teachers’ views and orientations about effective teaching (Kember & Kwan, 2000; Pajares, 1992), then one would assume that a full understanding of computer use in classroom contexts will require examining the learning environment, including the nature and extent of student engageBritish Journal of Educational Technology Vol 45 No 1 2014 83–96 doi:10.1111/bjet.12001 © 2012 British Educational Research Association ment, the rationale for the use of computers, as well as views on effective teaching. There is considerable literature on student engagement; however, it has not been studied in relation to teachers’ conceptions of effective teaching especially in the context of technology use. This study was conducted to address this gap and had two purposes: (1) to determine the dimensions of students’ engagement in technology rich classrooms and (2) to delineate the relationship between student engagement and professors’ conceptions of effective teaching.