Engagement 0
Running head: Engaging Youth
Engagement and Positive Youth Development:
Creating Optimal Learning Environments
David J. Shernoff
Contact information:
David J. Shernoff
Associate Professor in the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology, and Foundations at
Northern Illinois University, College of Education, Department of Leadership, Educational
Psychology and Foundations, Graham Hall, DeKalb, IL 60115-2854, USA; dshernoff@niu.edu;
(630) 418-0162 (phone); or (815) 753-8750 (fax).
Key terms: adolescence, after-school programs, classrooms, developmental needs, educational video games, emotions, engagement, Experience Sampling Method, flow, learning environments, motivation, optimal experience, positive youth development, relationships, school engagement, schooling, student engagement, youth engagement, youth purpose

Engagement 1
ABSTRACT
There is growing recognition that public school students in the U.S. are pervasively disengaged from schooling. Engagement is a central theoretical model for promoting school completion and a variety of youth outcomes including enhanced learning and psychological well-being. This chapter overviews this research on engagement and highlights influences on engagement as conceptually based in flow theory. Research investigating the immediate effects of instructional practices on engagement in public high school classrooms is presented, leading to a conception of optimal learning environments. Evidence-based, alternative models to improve engagement are highlighted, including selected alternative schools, organized after-school programs, and curricula using immersive technologies. Implications for educational philosophy, practice, and policy are also discussed, including for transforming the relationship between schools and communities.

Engagement 2
Studies in the US have found that over one quarter of all high school students are not engaged in schooling, with upwards of 40% to 60% of students characterized as chronically disengaged, including both high and low achievers alike (Furlong & Christenson, 2008; Klem &
Connell, 2004; Marks, 2000; Steinberg, Brown, & Dornbusch, 1996). Adolescents generally report being more dissatisfied with school than any other area of life, with 9% describing their school experience as “terrible” (Huebner & Diener, 2008, p. 380). Furthermore, a consistent finding among numerous studies is the tendency for academic engagement to steadily decline as students progress through the elementary, middle, and high school years (Marks, 2000; National Center for
Education Statistics, 2000; Stipek, 2002). In this chapter, I review prevailing literature on the reasons for chronic disengagement, the significance of engagement and how it has been studied, and discuss engagement as conceptualized by theory on flow experiences. It is suggested that engagement may be a lens through which to see the extent to which two important educational aims are facilitated: learning and psychological well-being. Next, I report research findings on perceptual and contextual factors influencing engagement and a related conceptual model. Recent research on the immediate impact of instructional practices in public high school classes, including the use of immersive technologies, is then presented. Several alternative models to mainstream public education, with associated research on their effectiveness in engaging youth, are also considered. This includes an alternative public school and organized after-school programs for youth engagement. A conceptualization of optimal learning environments is also presented, and implications for educational philosophy, policy, and practice are discussed.
Reasons for Pervasive Disengagement: The Status Quo of Schooling
Student (or school) engagement typically refers to students’ involvement with schooling, academics, or learning, while disengagement refers to boredom, disassociation, detachment, or

Engagement 3 alienation with respect to schooling (e.g., Finn, 1989, 1993; Marks, 2000; Skinner & Belmont,
1993). The 2009 High School Survey of Student Engagement found that two-thirds (66%) of students are bored at least every day in high school, and approximately one in six students (17%) are bored in every class (Yazzie-Mintz, 2010). Eighty-one percent of students in the sample were bored in class because the material was not interesting; 42% felt that material taught not relevant to live; 35% were bored due to lack of interaction with the teacher, and 26% because the work was too difficult. The frequency with which these reasons for boredom were cited were very consistent in both the 2006 and 2009 administration of the HSSSE. Additional reasons for boredom reported in the 2006 report were that students did not feel to be an important part of the school community
(45%), and that there were no adults at school who cared about them (22%) (Yazzie-Mintz, 2007).
In both 2006 and 2009, approximately 1 in 5 students (20% in 2006 and 22% in 2009) considered dropping out of high school, and within this group the three most-cited reasons given were not liking school, not liking the teachers, and not seeing value in their school work. Because the survey is taken by attending students, however, the sample constitutes only the “survivors”: over one million (or 30%) of all 9th graders fail to graduate from high school four years later, with the dropout rate approaching 50-55% in some large, urban centers (Alliance for Excellent Education,
2009; Toppo, 2010).
It is important to understand the characteristics of schools and schooling which most strongly contribute to the current status quo, some of which become apparent from students survey responses. For one, 20% of high school students say their disengagement stems from confusion in difficult courses like math and science. However, a higher percentage – nearly one third of high school students – say they are bored because they are not challenged enough (Yazzie-Mintz,
2007). Secondly, the benefits of schooling are not immediately evident to students because they

Engagement 4 purportedly exist some time in the distant future, such that their personal happiness or fulfillment is constantly being deferred (Noddings, 2003). A third distinctive characteristic is that children are frequently told to “do their best,” but for one-fourth to one-third of them, their best is clearly not good enough, simply because they represent the bottom end of a perpetual grade distribution.
When a sizable proportion of students are made to feel inferior, there is not only a lack of happiness and engagement, but self-esteem also suffers. Thus, a certain measure of unhappiness and disengagement may be actively created by the educational system itself (Glasser, 1975).
Failing to emotionally engage and identify with school can lead to the perception that there is nobody at school who cares, and declining participation (Voelkl, 1997). Finn’s (1989) seminal research and identification-participation model suggests that a chronic pattern of tardiness, absenteeism, failing classes, and suspensions are seen as characterizing a gradual cycle of disengagement – and half of all high school students report patterns of skipping school (Yazzie-
Mintz, 2010) – that is ultimately expressed by dropping out of school for large numbers of youth.
This model was supported by a recent longitudinal study of high school drop out in a recent study of 11,827 French-Canadian students, which demonstrated that students dropped out when feeling alienated and believing that school did not meet their needs (Archambault, Janosz, Fallu
& Pagani, 2009). When high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds become disengaged in schools, they are less likely to graduate from high school and face limited vocational and life opportunities In fact, fewer than half of 9 th
graders who enter high school in areas of concentrated urban poverty earn a diploma (The National Research Council Institute of
Medicine, 2004). Because dropping out of school is often the most visible sign of a gradual cycle of disengagement, the primary theoretical model for understanding school dropout and promoting school completion centers on engagement (Furlong & Christenson, 2008).

Engagement 5
The National Research Council (NRC) Institute of Medicine (2004) argues that schools are breeding grounds for alienation because, overall, they do not foster a healthy environment for psychosocial development. There is considerable overlap in characterizing the American educational system as emphasizing efficiency, monolithic teaching practices, and narrow curricula devoid of meaning to the real lives of students (Boyer, 1983; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Goodlad,
1984; Sizer, 1984). Such a learning environment appears to have resulted in significant proportions of students who are not authentically engaged either because they not take schooling seriously
(Steinberg et al., 1996), or alternatively, because they take school all too seriously. For this latter group, the value of schooling is reduced to an ambitious competition to gain college admission and/or satisfy parental expectations, accompanied by symptoms psychological maladjustment and academic dishonesty (Pope, 2001).
Historical Consideration: How Did Schools Get this Way?
According to Tyack’s (1974) account of educational history, public schools in their predominant form were developed in an effort to manage masses of students , modeled after the hierarchical centralization of industrial bureaucracies. As industrialization, demographic shifts, and urbanization altered country life in the early 1900s, according to this account, schooling based on the one-room country schools of the 19 th century – which were controlled by the community, nongraded, and featured mixed-ability instruction, flexible scheduling, and parental visitations – was transformed into a singular, dominant system of schooling, with the primary aim of teaching vocational skills. A chief distinction of the new schools was that they were designed and led by professionals, and controlled though a centralized bureaucracy. City and state superintendents, school board leaders, and other central administrators were impressed by the division of labor of the factories, punctuality of the railroad, and chain of command of businesses, and sought to bring

Engagement 6 the same order of rapid industrialization to the new graded schools. Thus, the principle influence in shaping the dominant model of schooling that has proven remarkably resistant to change ever since was the convergence of industrialization and urbanization in the middle decades of the nineteenth century (Tyack).
The new, “one best system” of schooling brought with it several practices that have since become firmly entrenched. For example, the new system included ability levels, records of attendance, and uniform textbooks. Central offices created increasing controls over students, teachers, principals and other subordinates in the school hierarchy. Perhaps most saliently from today’s perspective, uniform written tests provided a single standard by which to measure the
“output” of each school, replacing the more personalized and intuitive written evaluations by teachers based on oral examinations. From nearly the moment they were implemented, the tendency for school children to answer a low percentage of standardized test questions was used as evidence of failure in entire districts.
“Traditional education,” as we sometimes refer to it today, was thus mass education . The main reason that bureaucratization gradually replaced the older, decentralized “village pattern” of schooling was the pressure of large numbers (Tyack, 1974), p. 38-39). Although educators and critics scorned that administrators were putting organization ahead of education, schooling became an extremely efficient machine through which students became “batch processed.” The nearly universal design and physical layout of schools utilized for the batch processing of students has been dubbed the “egg-crate school” (Tyack; Tyack & Tobin, 1994). Students were divided by their tested proficiency, large numbers of students were put into a single classroom, and these students were to attend the same exact studies at exactly the same time. Division-of-labor efficiency was obtained by focusing the work of a teacher on a single grade (Tyack & Tobin). Uniform courses

Engagement 7 were designed to conform to standardized testing, and uniform curricula were created in which teachers were instructed what questions to ask and what answers to accept. The model was so precise that superintendents in their central office could know, at any given time, what pages of each textbook were being worked on in every school (Tyack).
The Aims of Education
One does not have to get very deep into a discussion about schooling before realizing that it cannot be evaluated nor improved without reference to the aims of education. Noddings (2003) argues that as a culture, we seemed to have all but abandoned a discussion of educational aims, almost taking for granted the aim of “achievement” in the early years, and the aim of vocational or career utility during later education. Aims of education are of course rooted in societal values and to some extent are morally relative; furthermore, multiple aims of education must coexist in a pluralistic society, and change over time as conditions change. However, John Dewey (1943/1990) famously simplified one guiding precept of educational aims this way: “What the best and wisest parents wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy” (p. 7). While not all people may agree with Dewey’s ideal, if we did grant for the moment that one thing we would want children to take from school is that which their parents would want for them, we come to an interesting observation. Seligman, Ernst, Gillham, Reivich, & Linkins (n.d.) pointed out that the list of things that most parents want for their children include happiness, confidence, balance, health, kindness – in other words developmental, psychological, and emotional well-being . They further assert that the list bears almost no overlap to the list of things parents describe schools as actually emphasizing -- achievement, success, conformity, and subject content.

Engagement 8
Identifying factors leading to the positive development and psychological well-being of youth is the primary goal of research on positive youth development (Larson, 2000; Lerner et al.,
2005). A primary tenet of work on positive youth development is not that “every child can achieve,” as defined by No Child Left Behind legislation, but that every child has the potential for healthy development . Because positive and engaging experiences are the lifeblood of developmental well-being, it has been suggested that motivation and sustained engagement are key drivers of positive youth development (Larson, 2000, 2006). Lerner’s (2004) research has found that the tendency of toward positive youth development is generative. Youth who develop wellbeing are typically engaged in commitments or involvements extending beyond themselves, an engaged disposition he has called, “thriving.” A thriving young person is defined as an individual who “takes action to serve her own well-being and, at the same time, the well-being of parents, peers, community, and society…in manners reflective of (his or her) individual strengths, talents, and interests” (p. 4-5). Damon (2008) and colleague’s have similarly found that a sense of purpose
– to create and accomplish something meaningful to one’s self and the desire to make a difference to others -- is closely connected to well-being.
Of course, another aim of education with which most would agree is essential is learning.
However, not only is it suggested that the aim of well-being may become neglected when there is a priority only on learning goals, but there is no perfect agreement on what learning actually is or how it is measured. Measuring learning through course exams and standardized achievement tests does not account for the common phenomenon of students’ tendency to forget a great deal of what was “mastered” for the test only weeks after studying for it. Months later, and certainly years later, often most of the knowledge that was “learned” seems to have vanished. Just as anyone who has learned a foreign language knows, “use it or lose it” is often the name of the learning game, which

Engagement 9 is why motivation, and continuing motivation in particular, may be the master key to learning that leads to life achievements or accomplishments valued by society. Albert Einstein (1936/1954) thus believed that the quality of the achievement is determined by the quality of the motivation (see pp.
59-64). The development of certain kinds of motivation would thus appear to be an important aim of education in its own right –most especially intrinsic motivation, which by definition persists even in the absence of external incentives and pressures (R. M. Ryan & Deci, 2000)
In sum, both learning and well-being or positive youth development may be considered important aims of education. Engagement may serve as a lens, from students’ experiential point of view, through which processes serving both ends can be seen. Thus, engagement is an important construct and valuable outcome in its own right both because a) it is related to substantive, meaningful learning that carries forward into the future, and b) engaged experiences also serve the fuel well-being. Both claims will now be further examined following a brief examination of how engagement has been conceptualized in the context of the research literature.
RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP ON ENGAGEMENT
Usually referring to students’ involvement with schooling, academics, or learning (e.g., Finn,
1989, 1993; Marks, 2000; Skinner & Belmont, 1993), there is fairly broad agreement that student
(or school) engagement involves both behaviors (e.g., completing assignments) and emotions (e.g., belongingness), and encompasses effort and persistence in school work (Connell & Wellborn,
1991; Newmann, 1992; Skinner & Belmont, 1993; Smerdon, 1999). Engagement and motivation to learn (Stipek, 1993) are highly related concepts, having more commonalities than differences as measurable constructs. Both motivation and engagement have been conceptualized as a personal trait and context-varying psychological state (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Schunk,
Pintrich, & Meece, 2008). However, motivation has been traditionally viewed as a psychological

Engagement 10 construct, whereas engagement, even in its common definition, refers to an emotional involvement or commitment to some object, and thus refers to the experiential intensity of a relationship or interaction. It can refer to a sustained relationship, as with engagement in the process of schooling or a domain of interest, and also to one’s temporal involvement or interactions with activities and social partners in the immediate environments, as with research on youth engagement (Joselowsky,
2007; Yonezawa, Jones, & Joselowsky, 2009). Created by the dynamics of the situation or immediate context, engagement in this sense is not dissimilar from the concept of situational interest (Hidi & Anderson, 1992; Mitchell, 1993). An increasing amount of attention is directed to engagement because it is presumed to be malleable and highly influenced by the learning environment, thus considered a means ameliorate downward student trajectories. Fredricks,
Blumenfeld and Paris (2004) observed that a multitude of conceptualizations and measurements of engagement run throughout the literature, and concluded that that school engagement should be conceptualized as a multidimensional meta-construct made up of three distinct but related dimensions: cognitive engagement (i.e., investment in learning, self-regulation), behavioral engagement (i.e., positive conduct, demonstration of effort), and emotional engagement (e.g., interest and boredom).
Engagement and Sustained Involvement in Learning
As a latent metaconstruct, engagement pervades the propensity to learn in the meaningful or lifelong sense. Similar to Hidi and Renninger’s (2006) four-phase model of interest development, individual episodes of engagement gradually accrue meaning, culminating in a strengthened, sustained and persistent involvement and commitment in an area of interest (Nakamura, 2001). For example, interest and enjoyment reported at random moments in high school science classes was found to predict the choice of a college major in science two years, and was a better predictor of

Engagement 11 performance in college than grades in high school (Shernoff & Hoogstra, 2001). Similarly, interest in classes once in college was also predictive of continued study in the same subject area
(Harackiewicz, Barron, Tauer, & Elliot, 2002). Findings such as these suggest that a pattern of momentary engagement may be predictive of long-term continuing motivation , an important but seldom considered educational outcome (Maehr, 1976). Studies of creative professional achievement have found that individuals who developed a lifelong commitment with domain, and meaningfully contributed to it, typically have had a long history of daily engagement in intrinsically enjoyable, related activities (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Nakamura, 2001). Thus, as
Csikszentmihalyi and Larson (1984) have suggested, the pattern of engagement one builds in adolescence can have a defining influence on patterns of attention, consciousness, and interest development that carry into adulthood. Perhaps not surprisingly, a great deal of research has shown that student engagement is positively related to learning and achievement, and that disengagement leads to poor academic outcomes in a variety of subjects (Kelly, 2008; Marks, 2000; Sirin &
Rogers-Sirin, 2004; Voelkl, 1997).
Engagement and Psychological Well-Being
Although the importance of engagement is frequently reduced to its relationship to achievement, research has shown that there is a strong relationship between engagement and wellbeing. Students who are interested and involved in skill-building and productive pursuits score higher on measures of psychological adjustment, including measures of self-esteem, responsibility, competence, and social relations, whereas youth who report feeling alienated from school are more likely to have a variety of serious psychological and behavioral problems including withdrawal, depression, aggression, delinquency, drug and alcohol use, and sexual promiscuity (Jessor &
Jessor, 1977; Steinberg et al., 1996). In the longer-term, and at a societal level, alienation and

Engagement 12 detachment is believed to contribute to a multiplicity of behavioral problems including dishonesty, violence, greed, corruption (Deci, 1996). Positive psychologists have questioned whether repairing human weaknesses and averting a psychological diagnosis should be the only goal of psychological health (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). It should not escape us that the question of educational aims can be framed in much the same way. In fact, the case for emphasizing strengths, positive human attributes, and positive emotions is perhaps more compelling for education, since building personal strengths, assets, and potentialities is undeniably an educational process.
Emerging research is beginning to demonstrate the role of positive emotions in simultaneously contributing to both meaningful forms of learning and present and future wellbeing (Pekrun, this volume). Positive emotions can broaden capacities and personal resources to meet future challenges, manifesting in increased resiliency and coping skills (Fredrickson &
Joiner, 2002). Frederickson (2001) refers to this dynamic as the “broaden and build” theory of emotions because positive emotions provide a condition for the broadening of momentary thoughtaction repertoires and the building of personal enduring resources. Just like the opening of a flower in the warmth of sunlight, those with positive emotions are more open to new experiences, including social interactions and learning new things. Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and cognition, activate creative thinking, and foster social competencies like conflict resolution, forging an upward spiral of development. Rechly, Huebner, Appleton, and Antaramian
(2008) recently found not only that the frequency of positive emotions were associated with student engagement, but also, in support of the broaden and build theory, that the association was mediated by broadened cognitive (i.e., problem solving) and behavioral (i.e., social support seeking) coping strategies.

Engagement 13
In sum, engagement has been characterized as a meta-construct, one which is an essential ingredient for learning that develops into meaningful life achievements and contributions, as well as for psychological well-being and healthy development. Because positive and engaging experiences lie on the bedrock of both learning and well-being, learning environments that are designed to engage youth are essential to promoting both of these aims.
FLOW THEORY AS A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR ENGAGEMENT
The experience of heightened engagement is characterized by the feeling of being fully alive or uplifted in an emotional or aesthetic sense (Dewey, 1934). This type of experience frequently occurs as one becomes engrossed or entirely taken up with objects or activities of interest, often resulting in a creative or scientific attitude towards the activity, somewhat set apart from the ordinary range of experience (Henri, 1923/2007). Phenomenologically, extra-ordinary states of intense concentration and enjoyment in intrinsically interesting activities have been described as flow or optimal experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988).
For example, composers have described a shift in consciousness when music is “flowing” from the depth of their souls, stirred by inspiration, like being part of a river (Custodero, 2005). The subjective experience of flow, according to Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) theory, is enhanced by certain experiential conditions or properties of the task. Perhaps the most central condition for flow experiences to occur is that the individual uses a high level of skill to meet a significant challenge.
The activity is therefore not too easy for one’s skills, nor is it impossibly difficult. Reaching the goal is doable: one has a reasonable chance of success with sincere and concerted effort. Other conditions characteristic of flow experiences are that goals are clear, feedback with respect to meeting those goals is immediate and forthcoming, and the activity is regarded as autotelic , or a goal in-and-of-itself, performed for the sheer experience of it (i.e., intrinsically motivated).

Engagement 14
Flow experiences are valuable for learning and development because they are not only enjoyable in the moment, but each instant of enjoyable engagement adds to the complexity of the developing self. Flow has been related to school performance and talent development in adolescents specifically (Carli, Delle Fave, & Massimini, 1988; Nakamura, 1988). Flow is thus extremely useful in guiding a conceptualization of student engagement. However, flow is conceptually distinct as a heightened state of engagement, and one that occurs in many diverse activity types including athletic and artistic activities. Student or school engagement refers to involvement in the learning or schooling process specifically. Unlike many flow activities, engagement in school work is compulsory, involves significant mental effort, and is often passive due to its cerebral nature (Brophy, 1983). It does not include the type of psychological arousal that accompanies athletes who get “psyched up” for peak performances or flow experiences.
Phenomenological Components of Engagement in Learning
Student engagement has been conceptualized phenomenologically, based on flow theory, as the experience of simultaneous, heightened concentration , enjoyment , and interest
(Shernoff, Csikszentmihalyi, Schneider, & Shernoff, 2003). Because all three components are strongly related to learning (Shernoff & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009), engagement defined in this way is very close to learning itself, or at least he experience of learning . This conceptualization combines enjoyment typical in voluntary activities with the focused concentration exacted in productive and skill-building activities, culminating in a state engagement that feels like both work and play. This combination is not only the essential experiential criterion for fostering positive youth development (Larson, 2000), but may also be the vital experiential condition for learning to occur, since learning is not always enjoyable, but can be. According to cognitive scientist, Willingham (2009), thinking for

Engagement 15 humans is slow, hard, and effortful, such that conditions have to be just right for thinking or concentration to be pleasurable. For example, a problem must not be overly complicated or contain an unmanageable amount of information, and the correct solution must be perceived as attainable, or most people will give up. At the same time, there is little pleasure obtained if the correct answer is simply given. Thus, as has been empirically demonstrated, engagement in learning is activated when the conditions necessary for flow are satisfied, including that the challenge of the task is appropriate for students’ skill level, the goals are clear, and performance feedback is present (Shernoff et al., 2003). Based on flow theory, we may regard such episodes as optimal learning experiences.
As a state of heightened engagement, it may be unrealistic to conceptualize adolescentaged students as routinely in flow during school; and indeed our research has demonstrated that they are not (Shernoff & Csikszentmihalyi). As stated by the National Research Council
(2004), however, the flow model provides an image of engagement that is a useful ideal:
“We are not proposing that all high school students be in a constant state of flow, but we have seen youth deeply and enthusiastically engaged in schoolwork and we believe that this high standard should be our goal” (p. 32). That is, deep problem-solving, authentic interest in a topic, and enjoyment in creating “works,” as encapsulated by the concept of flow, is a useful way to conceptualize ideal engagement in learning.
Measuring Flow and Engagement in Learning
The Experience Sampling Method (or ESM; see Hektner, Schmidt, & Csikszentmihalyi,
2007) has been used as an effective instrument to gather direct measures of student’s emotional and cognitive engagement in the moment when engaged in natural or formal learning environments.
To carry out the ESM, study participants carry a paging device (usually a

Engagement 16 programmable wristwatch), which signals them at random moments. Each time participants are signaled, they complete a brief questionnaire in which they answer open-ended and scaled questions about the day and time of the signal, their activities and thoughts, as well as the cognitive, affective and motivational qualities of their experience. Items include: “As you were beeped, how well were you concentrating
?” “Did you enjoy what you were doing?” “Was this activity interesting
?” A composite of all three of these items reported in learning environments is employed to measure student engagement (Shernoff et al., 2003). In addition, participants complete an open-ended item on the contents of their thoughts, which can be utilized as a measure of student attention in classrooms.
These repeated snapshots of subjective experience “in the moment” address the problem of recall and estimation errors inherent to surveys and interview measures. In addition, capturing repeated measures of engagement over time allows researchers to examine engagement both as a situational state that varies from one instance to another, and as a trait that individuals carry forward.
Even though engagement is a complex construct influenced by multiple factors
(Appleton, Christenson, & Furlong, 2008; Steinberg et al., 1996),
studies analyzing ESM measures of engagement with multi-level models have found that only 25% of the variation in student engagement exists between individuals, potentially explainable by cultural/ethnic, community, peer, or family variables. In contrast, a full 75% of the variation in engagement fluctuated as students moved from one situation or learning environment to another, potentially explainable by instructional or other malleable contextual factors (Shernoff, 2010b).
INFLUENCES ON ENGAGEMENT IN ESM STUDIES
Schools have been observed to contain remarkable degrees of excitement and activity.
Hallways, lunch areas, and after-school programs brim with energy; intense interactions

Engagement 17 characteristic of flow are exhibited during sports, extracurricular and non-academic classes.
However, that is rarely the case in academic classrooms (Shinn & Yoshikawa, 2008). Often, teachers would like to know if students are paying attention at all, and if not, what they are thinking about. Nationally representative ESM studies of high school students found that students were less engaged in their academic classes than when in other environments outside of school
(Shernoff & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009). Measures of attention revealed that students’ thoughts were completely unrelated to academics approximately 40% of the time on average. When not thinking about academics, students were often thinking about their social lives outside of school, outside activities and events, and a variety of inner feelings and sensations. Much as Jackson (1968/1990) observed, even when teachers acted as broadcasting stations, they appeared to be communicating with some students for brief, sporadic periods of time, while the rest of the time students were interacting with other stimuli, both internal and external. Fortunately, the ESM method has been just as useful in identifying factors by which students become more engaged in classrooms.
Perceptual Factors Influencing Engagement
Although the general tendency is for students to report low engagement in high school classrooms, a number of perceptual, contextual, and instructional factors can have strong influences on improving engagement (Shernoff et al., 2003). For one, students became significantly more engaged and concentrated much harder when challenged in classrooms.
Students become more interested, and thus pay better attention, when invited to engage in complex problem solving instead of confronting topics only superficially (Newmann, 1992). Supporting
Newmann’s conception of “authentic” curriculum and instruction, ESM studies in classrooms have found that perceptions of challenge and importance load highly onto the same factor that is also strongly predictive of engagement and attention (Shernoff, 2010b). Students also reported being

Engagement 18 significantly more engaged and having higher self-esteem when they perceived their own skills to be high. This suggests that many students may feel at least somewhat uncomfortable or insecure as a function of perceived incompetence, likely resulting in a reluctance to take risks. As flow theory would predict, students’ engagement was especially maximized when challenges were high enough to obtain students’ interests, but also well matched to their skills, thereby providing the enjoyment inherent to a reasonable chance of success (Shernoff et al., 2003).
Several other perceptual or phenomenological factors have strong influences on engagement in high school classrooms, as reported in the ESM (Shernoff & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009). These included perceptions importance, control, and being active. Because knowledge taught in school is often decontextualized and isolated from real world applications (R. M. Ryan & Powelson, 1991), and students are unlikely to connect with content unless reasons to do so are both clear and important , connections must be made with the value or ends of learning activities for effort and interest to continue. Students are also theorized to be more engaged and perform better in school when they report being in control of their academic involvements and outcomes (Skinner,
Wellborn, & Connell, 1990). Perhaps one reason that perceptions of control and autonomy have received a great deal of attention in motivational theory is that adolescents generally feel a lower sense of control in schools than almost any other setting (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984).
Adolescents also reported more enjoyment and intrinsic motivation as they are increasingly active
(Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984), and classrooms characterized by a high level of action and emotional energy are no exception (Olitsky, 2007). From the standpoint of engagement, then, optimal learning environments activate perceptions of importance, control, and activity in addition to other conditions for flow experiences such as the appropriate match of challenges to students’ level of skill, clear goals, and timely feedback. These environments were more likely to be

Engagement 19 encountered in individual and group work formats than the more common instructional formats of teacher lectures, when watching a video, or taking a test (Shernoff et al., 2003), but the data from these previous studies did not include measures of instructional methods beyond these crude categories.
CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT
Based on our ESM studies of engagement in classrooms (Shernoff et al., 2003; Shernoff &
Hoogstra, 2001; Shernoff & Schmidt, 2008), a conceptual model of optimally engaging learning environments emerged. A consistent finding was that students frequently reported experiencing a high level of academic intensity (e.g., high level of concentration in challenging and important activities), but little enjoyment; or they report just the opposite: a positive emotional response (e.g., level of enjoyment, positive affect, and intrinsic motivation), but low academic intensity. High academic intensity may lead to high levels of attention and short term achievement (e.g., on a standardized test), but not necessarily a longer term motivation. Positive emotions may not always be highly correlated with standardized test performance and grades, but is a primary predictor of longer term continuing motivation and academic performance (Shernoff & Hoogstra). Combining both aspects of experience are of utmost importance, however, because these experiences of meaningful engagement in high school lead to positive outcomes both in the short term (e.g., course grades in high school; see Shernoff & Schmidt) and in the longer term (e.g., continuing motivation in the subject, grades in college; see Shernoff & Hoogstra).
How can teachers facilitate both a positive emotional response from their students while simultaneously creating academic intensity? Teachers facilitate the positive emotions of their students by modeling their own enthusiasm, but mainly by supporting their students and their needs. This is done by providing choice, affirming students’ abilities, scaffolding, expressing care,

Engagement 20 and otherwise providing a positive learning environment (Patrick & Mantzicopoulos, this volume).
Teachers solicit academic intensity by holding high expectations for critical thinking and rigorous work, and challenging students to meet them. A fairly consistent finding throughout the engagement literature is that teachers who positively and meaningfully engage students combine support and challenge dimensions .
In other words, they support (i.e., emotionally, interpersonally) their students to meet the challenge of high level thinking or completing high quality work.
A variety of studies of engagement utilizing detailed classroom observations similarly reveal that a combination of environmental challenge and emotional support provided by the instructor is optimally engaging for students (Dolezal, Welsh, Pressley, & Vincent, 2003; Lutz, Guthrie, &
Davis, 2006; Skinner & Belmont, 1993; J. C. Turner & Meyer, 2004). For example, optimally engaging teachers might require fewer problems, but challenging ones, and support the competence necessary to solve them independently (J. C. Turner & Meyer). These teachers also ask questions for higher order conceptual understanding, combined with emotionally supportive provisions for scaffolding, feedback, strategies, and encouragement to take risks (Dolezal et al.,
2003; J. C. Turner & Meyer). Engaging teachers also model emotional supportiveness through enthusiasm, humor, and risk-taking.
The importance of combining challenge and support dimensions for promoting engagement was illustrated in Skinner and Bellmont’s (1993) study. Teacher involvement, found to be central to student engagement, included a balance of autonomy support, on the one hand, and provisions for structure on the other. Involvement reflected a supportive relationship between teacher and student, such that the teacher was attuned to and made time for the student, and enjoyed their interactions. However, equally important was providing structure, which included communicating high expectations and responding consistently and predictably.

Engagement 21
Recent initiatives to apply positive psychology to educational practice (Gilman, Huebner, &
Furlong, 2009) deepen the potential meaning of both challenge and support dimensions. For example, teachers can stimulate student’s emerging sense of self by challenging students to imagine possible selves, or to develop new capacities for gratitude, hope, creativity, and optimism.
In the process, they can not only support but uplift students through effective encouragement, specific and well-timed positive feedback, celebrating personal achievements, speaking authentically about students’ strengths, and modeling humility (Brophy, 1981; Dweck, 1999;
Nakamura & Shernoff, 2009; Shernoff, 2001).
CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING ENGAGEMENT RESEARCH
Psychological principles (e.g., American Psychological Association, 1997) to engage youth in learning inevitably center around supporting the emotional needs, interests, aptitudes, and goals of individual students. Teachers, however, deal with large groups . Based on extensive observations of school classrooms, Jackson (1968/1990) observed that motivation and learning lay more in the periphery than the in the focus of a typical school teacher’s vision while teaching compared to the balancing acts of leading the curriculum, managing the class, and assessing content. These realities inevitably may make even the most sincere teachers compromise their ideals in terms of how much individualized attention they can provide each student (Sizer, 1984). Past research and related theory, therefore, frequently does not account for the practical problems teachers encounter in facilitating and maintaining engagement due to the necessity of managing large groups of students, with increasing accountability pressures to teach and evaluate specific content (Reeve, 2009;
Sizer). Furthermore, most motivational theories were not developed in classrooms and tested for teacher implementation (J. C. Turner, 2010).

Engagement 22
To address this problem, research on evidence-based models for promoting engagement, i.e., programs or learning environments for youth with research evidence demonstrating high student engagement, would be of maximum benefit to practitioners. Descriptions of relevant programmatic features and their effects on students would help to illuminate not only what promotes engagement but also how to it can be fostered. One strategy, helpful to teachers, would be to identify and describe empirically-based models of engaging learning environments in which the conditions are as close to possible as ordinary public school classrooms. A second strategy, more helpful to policy makers, would be to provide evidence-based examples of learning environments that are alternatives to mainstream public education, including private schools, charter schools, and alternative public schools. Even youth programming in out-of-school time, especially those offering academic enrichment or informal learning, can provide valuable insights to policy-makers to understand some of the systemic and programmatic conditions surrounding environments that engage youth and propel them to continue learning in domains of interest. Both strategies are important to pursue. Teachers need illustrative descriptions of engaging youth in similar conditions to their own teaching environments in order to overcome the barriers of implementation. At the same time, alternative models are important in order not to ignore the preponderance of evidence suggesting that historically-rooted and firmly entrenched practices of the public school model has proven to produce pervasive disengagement for large percentages of youth.
Brief, modest examples of both strategies are now presented. We begin with summarizing a recent study linking instructional methods in traditional public high school classes with student engagement through a combination of ESM and video, as well as studies reporting the effects of immersive technologies on student engagement in public school classrooms. Next, a case study of an alternative public school is presented with discussion points on its key features fostering

Engagement 23 engagement, followed by after-school time program models illustrating the importance of intentionally designing programs to engage youth.
INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES PROMOTING ENGAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
In a recent study, Shernoff and Tonks (2010) investigated the following question: What is the immediate impact of the various instructional practices used by teachers in high school classrooms on student engagement?
Student engagement in high school classes was captured by the
Experience Sampling Method (ESM) and linked to instructional practices from videoed classroom observations. Seven class sessions in two Midwestern high schools were observed with 9 th
-12 th grade student participants ( N = 140) taught by teacher participants ( N = 5) of the following subjects: English, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Spanish. The videos were coded for instructional practices, including main instructional format, and specific instructional features (e.g., rules of activity or task-specific instructions), as well as for student behaviors and student engagement, yielding an acceptable interrater reliability (i.e., Cohen’s Kappa > .80 for all coding categories).
Overall, 332 self-reports were collected from the 140 student participants, who were signaled two or three times in the observed classes (depending on class length), and approximately eight hours of video material was captured. Nevertheless, results were preliminary considering the low number of participating teachers and classes observed. Somewhat unexpectedly, the predictive power of instructional method on the ESM measure of engagement, as assessed by regressing 25 instructional practices coded from the videos onto engagement, was high (Adjusted R
2
= .87).
There were also significant differences in student engagement and perceived learning (as also measured by the ESM) by teacher/subject and class. While results may be partially explained by the small number of teachers and the large number of predictors associated with their specific

Engagement 24 instructional styles, instructor appeared to be a very powerful factor influencing both engagement and perceived learning.
Based on previous studies (e.g., Shernoff et al., 2003), we expected engagement to be high during small group work and large group discussions; and we expected low engagement during lectures and videos that tend to be more teacher-centered. In many cases, results revealed the opposite of our expectations. Some of the highest levels of engagement were reported during lectures in all three classes using lecture, while some of the lowest levels of engagement and perceived learning occurred during large group discussions featuring a high level of discourse (e.g., supporting verbal arguments with evidence, etc.). As hypothesized, sustained student engagement and perceived learning were created most commonly through optimal learning environments , or those creating several simultaneous conditions that stimulate flow experiences. These conditions included optimal challenge, a complex task often involving the use of materials, clear and important student goals for the activity, teacher monitoring and feedback, high teacher expectations, and good rapport between teacher and students (see Table 1 for the characteristics and the associated subjective experiences of optimal learning environments, with illustrative scenarios). This basic finding was consistent with Dolezal et al.’s (2003) main finding in their classroom observation study that students were more motivated as teachers used more empirically-based motivational strategies at once; in this sense, optimal learning environments were marked by complexity in which a variety of engaging dynamics were in play simultaneously. Optimal learning environments were frequently created through structured tasks in individual or small group work with teacher monitoring. Other instructional practices that increased engagement were varied and subject-specific. One instructional practice that enhanced engagement during direct

Engagement 25 instruction, for example, was teacher instructions directing concurrent student action (e.g., solving board problems with a calculator simultaneously with the teacher). Analyses also revealed that the perception of importance (i.e., the student regarding the activity as personally important) was the most strongly related to engagement and perceived learning of all the perception items measured (e.g., control, activity level, belongingness, etc.). Overall, findings suggested that it was not so much the choice of main instructional format, but rather how the activity was implemented including the rules of the activity, task-specific instructions, and seating arrangement, that was the critical factor for students’ engagement.
Although the reasons for relatively low engagement, perceived learning, and perception of importance during group discussions that had yielded a high level of discourse were left open to interpretation, it was clear that an optimal learning environment was not established.
Upon close observation of the video data, it was apparent that student contributed to the discussion only several times during the class, and spent the rest of the time listening to other peers. Most of this time, they were not engaged in a complex task exacting high concentration, receiving performance feedback, nor clear on their goals (despite the fact that the teacher skillfully and repeatedly expressed her goals for the activity). Consistent with the
ESM data, subtle signs of straying attention and disengagement could be observed in the video data.
Because multiple components of engagement were measured both with the ESM and by observation, we were interested in the relationships among the measures. The ESM measure of engagement was more strongly related to perceived learning and attention than any of the observational measures of engagement. The observational measures of cognitive and behavioral engagement (adapted from Lutz et al.’s 2006 study), were bimodal and strongly

Engagement 26 correlated with each other. They appeared to be limited primarily to the observer’s judgment of whether the student was on/off task, but had little relation to self-reported engagement including students’ level of concentration, interest, and enjoyment.
Overall, these findings were preliminary but highly suggestive that instructional approach is a major factor with the potential to highly engage students in traditional public school classrooms. We next consider a study suggesting that immersive technologies can also be used to great effect towards engaging students within the context of public school classrooms. Although the study focused on undergraduate classes in mechanical engineering in a Midwestern public university, the findings may be applicable to all students old enough to play complex educational video games utilizing significant domain skills, including high school students.
Engagement in Educational Video Games
Computer games created for instructional purposes, such as mathematics computer games, have been found to create dynamic and motivating learning environments at many grade levels including high school (Squire, Giovanetto, Devane, & Durga, 2005). Coller and colleagues (Coller & Shernoff, 2009; Coller, Shernoff, & Strati, n.d.) assessed the engagement of university students who used an innovative approach to taking a challenging engineering course, Dynamic Systems and Control . Instead of using the traditional approach based on problem sets from a textbook (control year), a comparable cohort of students taking the same course in an experimental year learned relevant principles of mechanical engineering by playing an educational video game in which they raced a virtual car around a track for all of their lab exercises and homework. Results revealed that students who had completed their coursework using the instructional video game reported greater flow-like engagement, intrinsic motivation, positive affect, and creativity than and the students who completed their

Engagement 27 coursework in the traditional way. Indicative of flow experiences, students taking the gamebased course more frequently reported that their experience felt like both work and play, whereas the students in the control year more frequently reported their experience to feel like work only. Engineering courses typically offer a high level of intellectual intensity, in which students feel that materials are challenging and important. The video game approach maintained the high level of rigor inherent to the challenging engineering course, while adding the perception of feeling active, creative, and in control characteristic of flow activities. The student s who interacted with the video game also demonstrated greater depth of knowledge and better performance in the course, which appeared to be related to their enhanced engagement in the course.
Flow theory has been a theoretical base for exploring the implications of “e-learning” through educational video games due to participants’ sense of immersion or being enveloped in a virtual reality, which can precipitate a deeper engagement with learning. (Hedley, Billinghurst,
Postner, May, & Kato, 2002; Scoresby & Shelton, 2007; Witmer & Singer, 1998). E-learning games are aimed at the achievement of learning goals through flow experiences (Fu, Su, & Yu,
2009), and are particularly useful for modulating the optimal level of challenge to keep players immersed and on the edge of their abilities (Gee, 2007). Scales developed for evaluating enjoyment in playing e-learning video games, called “GameFlow” or “EGameFlow,” help designers to identify strengths and flaws in their programs from the learner’s point of view (Fu et al., 2009; Sweetser & Wyeth, 2005). They consist of eight dimensions supported by factor analysis and achieving satisfactory validity and reliability (Fu et al., 2009): immersion, social interaction, challenge, goal clarity, feedback, concentration, control, and knowledge improvement. Perhaps because video games is a large commercial industry, e-learning is therefore one area highly

Engagement 28 interested in creating optimal learning environments, even if virtual ones: those presenting multiple, simultaneous conditions for flow in order to facilitate engagement in learning.
We now turn to engagement in several alternative learning environment models to traditional public school classrooms.
EVIDENCE-BASED ALTERNATIVE MODELS FOR PROMOTING ENGAGEMENT
Murray High School: A Case Study of an Alternative High School
As studied by Jones (2008a, 2008b, 2009b), Murray High School in Charlottesville, Virginia serves primarily students who have dropped out in other public high schools. Despite a student population at high risk for poor academic outcomes, it has a graduation rate of 93%, higher than the state and district average. It also outperforms schools in the rest of its district and state on average standardized achievement test scores. The school’s philosophy is based on William
Glasser’s (1998) Choice Theory. Though Choice Theory asserts a variety of principles and beliefs beyond the scope of this chapter, among its 10 axioms are: “The only person whose behavior we can control is our own” and “All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems”
(also see Wubbolding, 2007). The school program was designed to safeguard the developmental needs of the students. For example, it offers students choices to support freely chosen behavior, and mediation to support vital relationships within the school. Choices are designed to help students make their own plans for action in order to promote individual responsibility in the context of a strong support system. When there are relational conflicts, mediations are initiated, which consist of a small, safe and supportive group of staff and students focusing on the causes of behavior (rather than on only the consequences of behavior) in the context of students’ needs.
Promoting student needs of personal freedom and positive relationships were intentionally designed to be cornerstones of the school’s climate.

Engagement 29
Results of Jones’ (2008a, 2008b, 2009b) qualitative studies combining interpretive ethnography and interviews reveal that, grounded primarily in the quality of the relational environment, students experienced a dramatic improvement in their level of engagement at Murray compared to their previous schools. Many students shared the general perception that nobody cared about them in their previous schools, but they felt that, at Murray, staff got to know them individually, making them feel like part of a family. As a result, students felt as though they completely “turned themselves around” (Jones, 2008b), p. 27). They directly testified to feeling more engaged; unlike in their previous schools, many were participating in all of their classes and a variety of extracurricular activities (Jones, n.d.).
Additionally, the learning goals at Murray are geared towards achieving mastery in their subjects, not merely to pass them. Assignments are individualized to the abilities and styles of the students in order to reach these mastery goals. The objective is to support the whole student, including learning and competency goals. Rather than leaving the extent of student learning to vary in a pre-determined amount of time, mastery is a firm expectation and the amount of time it takes to achieve it may vary by student. This approach virtually eliminates failure as an acceptable option, and in the process also assures a deepened engagement and quality of learning. Several of the key issues related to high engagement at the Murray School are now discussed.
Relationship Support as Key to Engaging Environments
Jones’ case studies of Murray High School illustrate that supportive relationships with peers and adults are an integral feature of settings promoting the motivation and development of youth (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). Developmentally speaking, adolescents are fully embedded in a world of interpersonal relationships (Kegan, 1982). As students enter middle school, their social networks have an increasingly important social-emotional influence on their attitudes

Engagement 30 towards school and motivation to succeed (Furlong, Whipple, St. Jean, Simental, Soliz, &
Punthuna, 2003). Due to the pervasive influence of relationships on multiple facets of student motivation, Martin and Dowson (2009) recently demonstrated how most of the dominant motivational theories may be conceptualized in primarily relational terms. A growing number of studies support this view.
Voluminous and remarkably consistent research findings support the proposition that the quality of student-teacher relations, or relational support from the teacher, is positively associated with the quality of students’ engagement in school or classrooms (Furrer & Skinner,
2003; Hughes & Kwok, 2007; Kalil & Ziol-Guest, 2008; Klem & Connell, 2004; Meyer &
Turner, 2007; Skinner & Belmont, 1993; Wentzel, 1997). These findings were also reflected in
Roorda, Koomen, & Oort’s (2009) meta-analysis. Various studies have found that when students believe that the teacher is warm and caring, is understanding and dependable, and supports their autonomy, they are more likely to feel accepted, have more positive affect, work hard, persevere in the face of difficulty, accept direction and criticism, seek help more, cope better with stress, and are more attentive (e.g., Hughes & Kwok, 2007; Martin & Dowson,
2009).
For many students at Murray, improved school performance can also be at least partially explained by enhanced teacher support, which studies have found to lead to student achievement (Roorda et al., 2009). Indeed, studies have shown that the relationship between teachers’ academic support and achievement is mediated by engagement (Hughes & Kwok,
2007). This may be because when students feel that their relationships with their teachers are emotionally supportive, they report more interest and enjoyment in school work, have more positive self-concept and higher self-efficacy, and are more likely to use self-regulatory

Engagement 31 strategies (Patrick, Ryan, & Kaplan, 2007). Teachers can also facilitate a positive social environment and promote interaction among peers which includes the mutual exchange of ideas, perspective taking, and reflective thinking (A. M. Ryan & Patrick, 2001).
The Relationship Between Engagement and Achievement
Although a good deal of research has shown that student engagement is positively related to achievement, (Kelly, 2008; Marks, 2000; Sirin & Rogers-Sirin, 2004; Voelkl, 1997), a variety of studies also suggest that engagement is not the same thing as achievement. For example, the tendency for there to be many high achievers who are not highly engaged, as well as many low achievers who are, is a significant trend internationally (Organisation for Economic
Development, 2003). Furthermore, an emphasis on achievement and accountability through normative evaluations may do much to undermine both engagement and meaningful forms of learning (Kohn, 2000). When classes become unidimensional in what is evaluated based on a narrow set of criteria, students display failure-avoiding behavior such as withdrawing effort to protect their sense of self-worth (Rosenholtz & Rosenholtz, 1981). The predominance of standardized evaluations has been observed to produce a climate that frequently demoralizes rather than inspires. J. E. Turner and Waugh (2007) documented student reactions of devastation upon receiving unfavorable test results. Shell-shocked by the prospects of failing their class, students become not only disengaged in learning, but experience a sense of disassociation profoundly impairing their ability to attend in class.
Finn’s (1989) participation-identification model suggests that a history of school failure is a key factor in a continuing cycle of disengagement often culminating in dropout. Thus, for some youth, chronic disengagement and school failure may be rooted in the lack of a reasonable chance to succeed. Students’ beliefs about what they can accomplish are shaped, at least in part,

Engagement 32 by prior levels of success (Bandura, 1997). In addition to one’s expectancy for future success, one’s value on schooling may be strongly influenced by prior performance, both predicting subsequent motivation (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000; see Graham &Weiner, Volume 1). Glasser
(1975), has argued that failure is built in to traditional schools for substantial number of students who consistently score towards the bottom of the achievement distribution, thus undermining both expectancy and value motivational components.
Glasser Institute schools like Murray address this problem by instituting mastery by force of school policy. Rather than a curricular unit and a standard amount of time being the constant for all students, with mastery vs. failure the variable, Glasser schools do just the opposite: mastery is the constant for all students, and the time it takes for individuals to achieve it varies.
Is such a system tenable, or even desirable, for the larger educational system? Perhaps not, but to the extent it is not, we must come to grips with the reality that one function of schools is as a sorting mechanism of students into a competitive economy, with winners and losers, largely serving to reproduce the socioeconomic status quo (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977/1994; Bowles
& Gintis, 1976). In the current system, we believe that students should not be shielded from failure, but rather that they must learn to respond to failure with increased effort and better strategy use. While this is ecologically adaptive, we must also consider if it is really true that all students would succeed with high effort and effective strategy use, or if success is at least partially defined by others failing.
Ironically, a highly ambitious attitude and behavioral pattern towards achievement can also interfere with authentic engagement in the learning process. For some students, the imperative or pressure to achieve detracts from authentic interest. For example, school was little more than a grade game in Pope’s (2001) study of high-achieving students. Meanwhile, their drive to

Engagement 33 achieve in school exacted a psychological toll on their disposition towards learning, which degenerated into academic dishonesty for several youth. In fact, two-thirds of all high school students state that they have cheated on a school test, and 90% say they copied someone else’s homework, within a single academic year (Steinberg et al., 1996). In a recent study of 1,669 high school students in three top-performing schools in the Bay area, Conner, Pope, & Galloway
(2010) found that two-thirds of the sample were high on behavioral measures of engagement, but only one- third exhibited a deeper emotional and cognitive engagement with learning. The
“behaviorally engaged only” group mirrored the students in Pope’s (2001) earlier study of highachieving students who were merely “doing school”: they reported higher levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms, experiencing higher academic stress and anxiety. Damon (2008) has recently argued that educational environments emphasizing testing and superficial markers of success draw attention away from other areas of meaningful activity supporting lifelong engagement and learning.
ENGAGEMENT IN SCHOOL-BASED AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Community organizations providing services for youth as well as school-based after-school, mentoring, or volunteer community service programs are believed to be optimal contexts for promoting engagement and positive youth development (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Mahoney,
Larson, & Eccles, 2005). Such programs provide a safe environment with adult supervision, supportive relations with peers and adults, and skill-building opportunities, all of which can support success in school (Larson, Hansen, & Moneta, 2006). Empirical studies have consistently shown that the influence of such programs on developmental and motivational outcomes including engagement is positive. Studies suggest that participation in after-school programs, especially to the extent that they are school-based, may increase a sense of school belongingness through

Engagement 34 positive relations with school teachers, staff and peers (Fredricks, Alfred-Liro, Hruda, Eccles,
Patrick, & Ryan, 2002; A. M. Ryan & Rodkin, this volume). Because extracurricular activities and after-school programs promote academic, social-emotional, and behavioral functioning, students may become more competent, successful and engaged in schooling through such involvement
(Darling, 2005; Durlak & Weissberg, 2007; Larson & Brown, 2007; Shernoff, 2010a).
Using the ESM, we contrasted middle school students’ experiences while in after-school programs with their experiences in other settings during weekday, after-school hours (Vandell,
Shernoff, Pierce, Bolt, Dadisman, & Brown, 2005). Adolescent participants reported higher quality of experience (e.g., feeling more challenged, utilizing more skills, and having more positive mood states) when in after-school programs compared to other settings after school. The combination of higher concentrated effort and intrinsic motivation suggested that after-school programs may be an ideal environment for stimulating meaningful engagement (Shernoff & Csikszentmihalyi, 2009).
Following up on this study, we found that when in the after-school programs, students were most engaged during sports and arts enrichment activities, and least engaged when in homework help sessions (Shernoff & Vandell, 2007). Affect was significantly higher while engaging in academic enrichment activities compared to homework. This may have been due partly to the mandatory nature of homework; however, a positive emotional response appeared to be stimulated when academic work was approached as a group activity with frequent feedback that allowed students to demonstrate their skills and initiative. These results corroborated research findings that after-school programs provide a context in which adolescents become engaged due to a diversity of enriching activities in the context of frequent interaction and caring relationships with both peers and adults (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). Furthermore, they supported meaningful engagement

Engagement 35 through an appropriate balance between challenge, structure and supervision on the one hand, and the choices and freedom to support intrinsic motivation on the other.
More recently, we found that participation in after-school programs not only impacts students’ engagement, but that the enhanced engagement experienced in after-school programs was a mediating variable leading to positive developmental outcomes like social competency
(Shernoff, 2010a). In addition, students who were more engaged in an after-school program compared to alternative out-of-school environments earned higher end-of-year grades in math and
English, with students who perceived program activities as relatively important and challenging improving in those subjects over the course of one year. Such findings were consistent with those of Mahoney, Parente, and Lord (2007) demonstrating that students in higher quality after-school programs displayed higher competencies and better adjustment than those in lower quality programs. High quality programs were those in which provisions of support and challenge (i.e., a well-structured organization, a positive social climate, and opportunities for skill-building) led directly to high energy and engagement among the participants.
Lessons from After-School Programs
After-school programs supporting positive youth development usually possess developmental intentionality , or the intentional focus on design and implementation to support the development of youth (Walker, Marczak, Blyth, & Borden, 2005). Compared to traditional schooling, high quality after-school programs are intentionally designed to promote a wider range of 21 st
century skills such as self-determination, good work habits, emotional adjustment, identity development, optimism towards the future, and other developmental capacities of a well-rounded person (Lerner,
2004). Students’ engagement in programs is central to developmental intentionality. The goal in designing effective programs is not merely participation, but also for the participants to be focused

Engagement 36 and excited – that is, to have optimal experiences – as they are engaging in them. Especially because after-school programs are voluntary, engagement is the essential ingredient for continued participation.
To move beyond content delivery that frequently fails to engage youth, there must be an intentional strategy to infuse curricular content with engaging activities for enrichment (Noam,
2004). For example, informal learning at science museums, extracurricular art programs in which students work alongside adult artists, or involvement in studio work with musicians can provide alternative ways of meeting learning goals by applying knowledge in the real world (Pittman, Irby,
Yohalem, & Wilson-Ahlstrom, 2004). One illustrative model comes from Yates and Youniss’s
(1997) classic study of students who volunteered to work in a soup kitchen in the context of a course on social justice. The study found not only that the youth’s experience stimulated their political awareness, identity, and sensitivity for community problems, but also that many of the participants continued along a path of interest that originated in the social justice course. Similarly,
Brophy and Leach’s (2010) found that for 74% of their sample of history experts, the formative, catalytic experiences for developing a lifelong, career interest in a discipline as academic as history occurred during childhood or before high school in informal, out-of-school environments, with inschool experiences becoming more salient in their later development of history interest.
The high level of engagement reported in organized after-school programs is particularly significant in light of the pervasive lack of engagement in classrooms and unstructured activities outside of school. It is interesting to consider that school-based programs occur in the same place as classrooms – schools – and often with overlapping students and staff. How can it be that one context provides a peak in students’ engagement compared to daily alternatives, while the other – the place students are supposed come together to learn – provides the trough? Regardless of the

Engagement 37 answer, one implication is that engagement inside and outside of classrooms need not be conceptualized and approached as completely separate entities. Many educators would like students to experience a similar quality of engagement in academic tasks or classroom activities that are frequently reported in after-school programs, and this may be achieved by understanding and applying the conditions that creates the engagement. Another implication of the after-school model is considering the role of setting in youth engagement (Yonezawa et al., 2009). Although students can experience high engagement in or out of classrooms and schools, activities in the most engaging settings usually are not perceived merely as school work or only as academic exercises completed for the purpose of being evaluated by an instructor. Rather, participants find an authentic role and keep each other accountable in tasks that the group agrees has meaning.
Learning in academic and arts enrichment contexts, especially compared to that reported in academic classes or homework help sessions, is highly engaging because it is often project-based, relevant to the lives of youth, and includes fluid and ongoing feedback from peers and adults.
Only when the features of settings that support youth engagement are better understood, however, will policy makers and educators be able to systematically alter educational environments to produce positive youth outcomes. To be useful to educators, researchers interested in youth engagement will need to improve on the dearth of rich, ethnographic descriptions of educational youth programs and the practices empirically found to engage youth.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Research converges on the observation that meaningful engagement is composed of two independent processes—academic intensity and a positive emotional response—and that optimal learning environments combine both in order to make learning both playful and challenging, spontaneous and important (e.g., Rathunde & Csikszentmihalyi, 2005; Shernoff et al., 2003; J. C.

Engagement 38
Turner & Meyer, 2004). Educators facilitate meaningful engagement by virtue of combining high challenge and expectations for mastery ( challenge dimension) with emotional supportiveness and scaffolding ( support dimension). Engaging youth through principles for supporting and challenging them have been advanced through a number of frameworks, such as the authoritative parenting (Steinberg et al., 1996) and differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, 1999). Approaches such as these make central the learner’s background, level of development, needs, interests, and capacities, and therefore aims toward the ideal of individualized instruction. While a great deal of research in educational psychology, as summarized by the APA (1997) Learner-Centered
Psychological Principles, suggests that instruction should be individualized, it is appropriate to question how realistic such an ideal is – especially because schools, both historically and in the present day, were designed largely to serve masses of students (Tyack, 1974).
What to do, then? Should we expect Sizer’s (1984) fictitious character, Horace, symbolizing the plight of many teachers, to spend even more time reading and making individualized comments on customized writing assignments? Like many principles of educational psychology, it is their implementation in group settings that has remained the greatest challenge for practitioners. In this chapter, it was suggested that practitioners would be aided by identifying and describing models and practices that have been empirically shown to engage youth in group settings. Are we suggesting, then, that the goal of individualizing instructions must be abandoned?
Some of the most observant and original educational thinkers suggesting alternative systems of education to the traditional model –such as John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and William
Glasser – converge on the insight that it is not individualizing instruction per se so much as meeting all individual’s needs that is important (“MAIN theory” may be a useful acronym). For example, Dewey (1896/1973) consistently wrote about the importance of a pupil’s interests as an

Engagement 39 organic outgrowth of self-expression, but he clarified that the implication of this principle for the teacher was neither to create artificial inducements to attract interest nor to develop an individualized curricula tailored to each child’s interests. Doing so would be aiming directly for a child’s interests; rather, he suggested aiming at the conditions that, in a sense,
lie in back of them .
This could be achieved by providing an environment with the physical, social, and intellectual resources supporting the child’s underlying impulses, desires, and needs. Such an environment would allow interests to grow naturally along side other processes of development (Dewey, 1975).
Such an insight foreshadowed self-determination theory, which argues that when basic human needs are fulfilled, motivation then flourishes (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 1985).
Indeed, an examination of empirically-supported educational environments that promote engagement are often those for which provisions of safety and positive relationships build a foundation to successfully move into engaging activities and group interaction. Montessori (1967) and Glasser (1998) methodically observed, studied and classified the developmental and psychological needs of children, and focused on building educational environments around fulfilling those needs. This created educational traditions with track records of supporting both the developmental and learning needs of students, thus achieving both important educational aims.
Implications for Educational Practice
High quality alternative schools, after-school programs, and immersive technologies may be important models of alternative educational approaches, especially where engagement has been empirically demonstrated. In such learning environments, particularly those with concrete learning goals, students’ engagement in learning is frequently supported when the conditions for flow are salient, and meaningful engagement is fostered through the combination of a high challenge for mastery and supportiveness.

Engagement 40
Based on the principle of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation alone (R. M. Ryan & Deci,
2000), there can be little question that the involuntary nature of school is a motivational chip stacked against classroom engagement compared to engagement in voluntary settings. However, it is also clear both that a) there is a great deal that classroom teachers can do to compensate in order to dramatically increase perceptions of autonomy in classrooms (Black & Deci, 2000; Reeve,
2009), and that b) the involuntary nature of out-of-school time and other informal learning environments is far from the only factor contributing to high engagement in them. Recent research is beginning to demonstrate that such optimal learning environments also characterize peak engagement in traditional public school classrooms, and to identify characteristics of such environments building on and extending flow theory. For example, optimal learning environments typically create the perception that the activity is personally important to participants, foster belongingness and relatedness in the context of strong student-teacher relationships, stimulate interactivity among both the instructor and peers, and facilitate the building of new skills through working with domain-specific materials.
Transforming Schools and Communities: Towards Cultivating Youth Purpose
Engaging tomorrow’s youth must include intentionally-shaped learning about the real world in the context of purposeful activities. For example, in order to investigate how water pollution affects fish and wild life, students might find themselves researching salmon cycles from multiple sources, and creating articles on what they have learned combining text and images with a variety of multi-media. New directions for engaging youth in the future may go beyond merely attempting to simulate
“real life” as a response to the isolation of schools from the community. Rather, students may engage with community life as they pursue projects with real community value, forging a variety of partnerships between the school and its surrounding community. One

Engagement 41 exemplary and inspirational model of this is the PeaceJam program ( http://www.peacejam.org/ ) uniting youth with Nobel Laureates who create a curriculum for service called their “Ten Global
Calls to Action,” such as addressing issues of poverty, disease, famine, violence, civil or political unrest, and discrimination. Youth volunteer for community, national, or international service initiatives of choice serving one or more of these goals, and present their service projects to a
Nobel Laureate an annual conference. Thus, both the curriculum and activities are centered around fostering youth purpose, with research demonstrating high engagement and a strong sense of purpose among participating youth (Jones, 2009a).
Although PeaceJam typically operates as a club in the out-of-school context, it illustrates that schools and community organizations will need to become more deeply informed about each others’ structures and operations, and more directly invested in each other’s efforts, if schools are to serve the educational aim of thriving, or helping students to cultivate of a larger sense of purpose (Lerner, 2004). When schools and communities become stakeholder’s in each other’s affairs, students may become engaged by the world outside school walls rather than the tendency for some to feel to be imprisoned within them (Schutz, 2006). Research has shown that the positive development of youth occurs through a constellation of resources including families, schools, and communities; collectively these resources provide physical safety and security, developmentally appropriate structure and expectations for behavior, emotional and moral support, and opportunities to make a contribution to one’s community (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). These resources and provisions need to be considered highly in planning school and community transformation supporting the education and development of youth. In grappling with how the inschool and out-of-school time worlds may be better integrated, schools may find that a blended approach becomes an ideal: one in which traditional academic goals intentionally interact with

Engagement 42 youth engagement activities (Noam, 2004). This could profitably take the form of extended-time school programs in which a variety of academic, extracurricular, technological, physical, and enrichment activities are intentionally blended in both formal and informal environments.
Flow, Engagement and Well-Being
Flow, or becoming totally absorbed in an activity to the point of losing self-consciousness and a sense of time, is a central experience of “The Engaged Life,” one of three paths to human happiness (Seligman et al., n.d.). A key recognition of the positive psychology movement is that engagement is clearly synergistic with well-being for all ages. In youth in particular, engagement is positively related to resiliency, and negatively related to behavioral difficulties (Battistich &
Hom, 1997). If education is to be concerned with the happiness and well-being of the younger generation, then engagement and purposeful activity would need to be at the center of efforts to build such “positive education” (Seligman et al., n.d.). The positive psychology movement can thus be of maximum benefit in rethinking the aims of education. It suggests that in addition to addressing students’ needs, education can also have a significant role to play in the recognizing and building of students’ strengths. Once basic needs have been met, engaging contexts proceed to awaken yearnings and callings, stimulate excitement, facilitate personal discoveries, and thereby invigorate self-esteem and individual strengths. By serving the aims of meaningful, long-term learning and psychological well-being, the propensity towards meaningful engagement in enjoyable and rewarding activities may be one of the most important outcomes of a good education.

Engagement 43
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Table 1.
Optimal Learning Environments: Characteristics and the Quality of Associated Experience
1
Characteristics
1. Environmental Complexity : Combines environmental challenge
(e.g., high task challenge and expectations for mastery) with supportiveness (e.g., relationship support, autonomy support)
Subjective experience supporting learning
1. Meaningful engagement : Experience of challenge, concentration, and importance simultaneous with positive emotions (e.g., enjoyment, self-esteem, control, intrinsic motivation, interest, creativity, and/or excitement); merging of work and play; in retrospect, happiness and fulfillment, leading to continued motivation and commitment.
Other elements that are often present:
2. Importance of activity are made clear
3. Complex task usually involving the use of materials: solving problems or fashioning products
2. Perception of activity as personally important; sense of purpose
3. Deep concentration; immersion
4. Positive relations/rapport with instructor and peers
5. Goals of the activity are made clear
4. Feelings of belongingness, acceptance, and self-esteem
5. All attention is focused on relevant stimuli towards reaching
6. Interactivity with peers and adults; opportunities to contribute or take initiative the goal.
6. Use of skills, enjoyment, self-esteem, spirit of cooperation and/or collaboration; involvement
7. Feedback from instructor and/or peers; effective scaffolding 7. Perceived learning and building of skills
8. Challenge appropriate for skills (challenging but not impossible)
8. Concerted effort: sustained concentration, interest, and enjoyment; self-efficacy; skill building; knowledge accumulation; gratification upon successful effort
1 Environmental complexity is the most fundamental and global characteristic of optimal learning environments, and several of the subsequent characteristics are also present. Not all characteristics and associated experiences are always present.

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Illustrative scenarios
1.
Every student is assigned complex science lab problems involving measurement and drafting with a mutual larger goal; work occurs in small groups for peer consultations and support; students use necessary lab materials to complete the project; the instructor is monitoring all groups and is also providing feedback. Work is expected to be submitted for review at the end of class. Students are highly involved.
2.
The activity is a whole-class Jeopardy or other trivia game on history facts and knowledge using PowerPoint or the board.
Teacher is enthusiastic and animated. Questions are interesting and pertain to important, relevant historic events or issues.
Students both ask each other and answer the questions while the teacher moderates. Rules for playing and winning the game are clear. Many choices are inherent to the game. Students are extremely attentive and intrinsically motivated. Information learned is deeply encoded.
3.
Teacher is making a presentation on the board (e.g., solving math problems) or showing a video (e.g., foreign language featuring vocabulary words). Students are provided with the materials to complete an activity concurrently – for example, math problems to be solved with a calculator simultaneously with the teacher, or vocabulary words with definitions and examples to be completed that are contained in the video. The teacher is interactively asking questions to students during the presentation, and providing feedback with respect to answers. This is preparation for an upcoming test or quiz, and students should continue to work on similar problems for homework until mastery is achieved. Students are quiet, but wheels are turning.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE
This research conducted with colleagues reported in this paper was supported by a variety of funders in grants to multiple investigators. Research on engagement in high school classrooms was supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to Charles
Bidwell, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Larry Hedges, and Barbara Schneider. Research on engagement in after-school programs was supported by a grant from the C.S. Mott
Foundation to Deborah Lowe Vandell, Principal Investigator. Research on engagement in a video game approach to mechanical engineering education was supported by several grants from the National Science Foundation to Brianno Coller and David Shernoff.
Opinions are those of the authors and not those of the funding agencies. In addition to the
Principal Investigators of these studies and coauthors in papers stemming from them, I wish to thank the many people who assisted in working on these studies, though they are too numerous to mention by name here. Correspondence may be addressed to David
Shernoff, Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations, Graham
Hall, DeKalb, IL 60115-2854 or dshernoff@niu.edu
.