Abstract

In this paper we aim to investigate learner engagement and how it can be evaluated, in the context of higher education research. Specifically we consider learner engagement evaluation in Arts Education, where the educational focus is on the process, rather than the product – drawing on music and drama in education research and practice. First, we position the notion of evaluation as opposed to assessment, with attention to its etymological roots. Second, we discuss the multifaceted notion of engagement as process, exploring the nature of learner engagement and a number of possible engagement indicators. We then synthesize these categories into descriptors which, we argue, can be useful to evaluate learners’ engagement in arts education practices. Third, we ground theory into practice by offering two examples drawn from the authors’ PhD case study research, respectively in music education and drama in education. We conclude that engagement is a multifaceted construct, which we frame as a mutual exercise of agency – whereby the teacher and the students act in a partnership as co-artists.

Highlights

  • In this paper we set out to investigate the nature of learner engagement and how engagement can be evaluated in the context of higher education research

  • The discussion on engagement and its evaluation is situated within the context of Arts Education, within music and drama in education, where the educational focus is on the process, rather than the product

  • Within this general definition of engagement, our research focuses on a particular aspect of learner engagement within the arts, and that is, engagement with language – where language is intended in its verbal and non-verbal domains

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Summary

Introduction

In this paper we set out to investigate the nature of learner engagement and how engagement can be evaluated in the context of higher education research. In process music the focus is on practicing and listening to explore meaning transactions and possibilities (process) rather than music reading and performing skills to create recital events (product) In these contexts, as well as other arts-based practices, where the nature of the artistic form summons a process-based pedagogy, the need to evaluate engagement as/within the process clashes with the psychometric requirements of the academic assessment system. As well as other arts-based practices, where the nature of the artistic form summons a process-based pedagogy, the need to evaluate engagement as/within the process clashes with the psychometric requirements of the academic assessment system This paradox opens up a number of questions, paved by key educational theorists like Dewey (1934), and more recently Kress (2009) and Fautley (2010), related to the effectiveness of contemporary assessment. In this paper we subscribe to a ‘process’ vision of evaluation, within the construct of learner engagement, as illustrated below

Defining Learner Engagement in Arts Education
Case Studies
Case Study One
Case Study Two
Conclusion
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