Instructional interventions that support student engagement: An international perspective

Internationally, a significant number of secondary school students present signs of disengagement in the classroom, having consequences for learning, achievement, and school completion. The instructional environment is a powerful vehicle to stimulate student engagement in the classroom. It can mitigate more distal bioecological influences such as gender, age, socioeconomic status, and cultural background. In this chapter, we discuss the key characteristics of instructional environments that support behavioral, emotional, and cognitive student engagement. These characteristics include meaningful classwork, the development of student competence, the support of student agency, the promotion of positive peer relationships, and the establishment of positive teacher-student relationships. We then conduct an international literature review identifying studies of interventions influencing student engagement, and profile selected intervention studies in more depth. The chapter concludes by discussing questions that emerge from our review and suggesting directions for future research.