‘It showed me that I was not dumb’ the role of flexible learning programmes in enabling cognitive (re)-engagement

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the change in students’ cognitive engagement as a result of participation in a Flexible Learning Programme. Using an understanding of engagement as both a process and a relationship between the students and their school, we sought to determine whether students’ perception of competency, willingness to engage, and establishment of learning goals were different after the programme compared with before enrolment. To achieve this, we used a range of data sources which included both student and teacher voice, collected prior, during and after the programme. Data from the programme’s complete cohort of 46 students collected over a span of five years were analysed. Findings revealed that students’ cognitive engagement increased within the programme, and these improvements were significantly maintained after students returned to their mainstream ‘host’ school. These findings provide a response to some common criticisms of Flexible Learning Programmes and add to the body of evidence supporting their role in the reengagement of disengaged students.

KEYWORDS:

• Disengagement
• reengagement
• cognitive engagement
• flexible learning

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the students, teachers and principal who participated in this study. We also appreciate the support from the ‘host school’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey Thomas is a Lecturer in Behaviour Management in the School of Education at the University of Tasmania. His teaching and research interests centre around the relationship that students have with education. Specifically he is interested in how teachers manage their classrooms to increase student engagement, and what we can do if a student becomes disengaged.

Janet Dyment is a senior lecturer and deputy head of the School of Education at the University of Tasmania. Janet’s research and teaching adopts an interdisciplinary approach in various curriculum contexts and she seeks to make her teaching thematic, integrated and situated in real life contexts.

Professor Ian Hay is the former Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania. His main research interests are in the domain of students with literacy and academic difficulties, the role of motivation in learning, and students’ cognitive development.

ORCID

Jeffrey Thomas http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9121-0449

Notes

1 This quote, which serves as the title of this paper, came from follow up interviews with students who participated the FLP. These interviews are not features as a data source in this paper due to page limit restrictions in this journal but additional papers are being prepared that present this data.

2 In Australia each school has been measured on the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) based on a range of factors that influence disadvantage including parent occupation, level of educational attainment and socio economic status based on geographic location. The Host School in this study has an ICSEA of 966, with 67% of its students in the lower half of the ICSEA range.

Additional information

Funding

This paper presents findings from a PhD study of the first author whose studies are supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship funded by the Australian Federal Government.