Approaches to Measuring Attendance and Engagement

Grey, Simon; Gordon, Neil Andrew

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that, where we measure student attendance, this creates an extrinsic motivator in the form of a reward for (apparent) engagement and can thus lead to undesirable behaviour and outcomes. We go on to consider a number of other mechanisms to assess or encourage student engagement – such as interactions with a learning environment – and whether these are more benign in their impact on student behaviour i.e. they encourage the desired impact as they are not considered threatening, unlike the penalties associated with non-attendance. We consider a case study in Computer Science to investigate student behaviour, assessing different metrics for student engagement, such as the use of source control commits and how this measure of engagement differs from attendance.

Citation

Grey, S., & Gordon, N. A. (2018). Approaches to Measuring Attendance and Engagement. New Directions in the Teaching of Physical Sciences, 13(13), Article 2692. https://doi.org/10.29311/ndtps.v0i13.2767

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 22, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Nov 30, 2018
• Publication Date: 2018
• Deposit Date: Feb 8, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 8, 2019
• Journal: New Directions in the Teaching of Physical Sciences
• Print ISSN: 1740-9888
• Electronic ISSN: 2051-3615
• Publisher: Higher Education Academy
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 13
• Article Number: 2692
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.29311/ndtps.v0i13.2767
• Keywords: Student Engagement; Learning Analytics; Computing Education
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/1165571
• Publisher URL: https://www108.lamp.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/new-directions/article/view/2767
• Contract Date: Feb 8, 2019