Can there be a possible way to be able to ascertain the levels of students' engagement or connection with the subject matter in a lecture/classroom setting?
Just keep track of who is listening and who is asking or answering questions in the classroom during lecture. Also in small group discussions keep a note of who is participating. These measures can be used to gauge student engagement levels. Maintain a log book on a daily basis and see if the score is increasing, decreasing or remaining the same. Based on the trend change your lecturing technique or supplement it if necessary to keep the engagement level high all the time.
Depends very much on the level: grammar school, high school or university.
At university level is somehow easier, because students are assigned a set of mandatory readings, and a professor can infer from the class discussion who went through the readings and who did not. With kids is more difficult, the teacher must stir intellectual curiosity, especially in those who are shy or coming from disadvantaged families.
Depends on your purpose (research, own lectures), how you conceptualise engagement, (see for example handbook of research on student engagement) and how you want to approach engagement as in how it can be observed, self-reported or as system generated data. In an article Bergdahl, et al 2018 (https://www.idunn.no/dk/2018/02/the_use_of_learning_technologies_and_student_engagement_in_) I chose to view student engagement as participation in a learning activity, and from a teachers perspective, try to see a value in how many of the students that engaged in different types of orchestration of learning activities using technologies...In this study, I chose student diaries, as well as observations.
Good luck :)
I m teaching one course...i asked students that they will get mark for participating during lecture ....and this will give positive impact ...students listen carefully and participating ...
These reference may help.
Davis, E. A., Hodgson, Y., Macaulay, J. O. J. B., & Education, M. B. (2012). Engagement of students with lectures in biochemistry and pharmacology. 40(5), 300-309.
Only class discussions can tell if the students engage with the topic. When they do not contribute to class discussions, it means that the topic, or the way it was presented, did not stir interest. Intense class debates are a measure of students' engagement.
Tolu -
Thank you for your excellent questions. In research, we assess engagement or interaction in the classroom using direct and indirect methods
Direct approaches include video recording, audio recording, observation, analysing active verbs used by students during interaction, and other methods
Indirect approaches are less effective these may include questionnaires, focus groups, personal interviews, etc.
I suggest reading my paper on students' interaction in problem-based learning tutorials.
https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1607551X09700683?token=D154092E58BAAE01D26F5A5D8B32FAB1091CB6A6280892419200721D6B458154AF3053508EB48ADAE097C7E56AB77E31
Tolu- I also have this review paper, I recommend reading it
Group interaction in problem-based learning tutorials: a systematic review.
Azer SA, Azer D.
Eur J Dent Educ. 2015 Nov;19(4):194-208. doi: 10.1111/eje.12121. Epub 2014 Oct 18. Review.