Helping teachers increase student academic engagement rate. The evaluation of a minimal feedback procedure.
A single daily note telling teachers if their low-engaged students improved can double on-task behavior with no training or cost.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two middle-school teachers got a one-line note after each class. The note said if their low-engaged students were more or less on-task than the day before. That was it. No coaching, no money, no extra staff.
The researchers flipped the note on and off in an ABAB design. They counted academic engagement every day with a simple 15-second momentary time sample.
What they found
When the note was delivered, engagement jumped. When it stopped, engagement dropped. The jumps were large and happened quickly for both classes.
The teachers did not get new strategies. Just the score. Yet they changed their teaching and kids stayed on task twice as much.
How this fits with other research
Schwarz et al. (1970) did the same thing 15 years earlier in preschool. They also gave daily feedback and saw teachers pay more attention to kids’ good behavior. The 1985 study shows the trick still works in middle school with almost zero training.
Mansell et al. (2002) used self-monitoring with at-risk middle-schoolers and got big gains that lasted into the next school year. Their students tracked their own work, while the 1985 paper kept the work on the teacher. Both routes end at the same place: more engagement, low cost.
Sottilare et al. (2023) used Check-in/Check-out with elementary kids. That routine takes more steps, but it also raised engagement. The 1985 note is even simpler and may fit when time is tight.
Why it matters
You can start tomorrow. Pick one student who stares out the window. After class, write the teacher a sticky note: “Today 40% on task, yesterday 20%.” Do it for a week. Graph it. Most teachers will shift their prompts and praise without any extra training. No apps, no tokens, no meetings. Just data in the teacher’s hand.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Recent research has found the time students spend actively engaged in task appropriate activities to be a powerful predictor of student achievement. However, attempts to apply the research with a view to increasing student academic engagement have been generally limited to complex and expensive procedures requiring a high degree of involvement by consultants and teachers, resulting in overly intrusive approaches to classroom innovations. This study evaluates a service-delivery strategy of minimal complexity and intrusiveness, designed to increase academic engagement rate in the regular classroom. Intervention, initiated and withdrawn in two classrooms of 12-15 year olds from an Australian school, involved 1) informing teachers of relevant research on time-related controllable classroom variables, and 2) telling teachers whether academic engagement rates of selected low-engaged students were increasing or decreasing after each lesson. Academic engagement rates increased substantially for target students in both classes and marked increases were evidenced for their nontarget peers. Withdrawal of intervention resulted in decreasing levels of student engagement. The results are interpreted in an applied behavioral framework, and implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cost-effectiveness, ease of application, limited need for external professional involvement, and maintenance of the effect.
Behavior modification, 1985 · doi:10.1177/01454455850091004