Flow in Schools Reexamined

Abstract

The concept of optimal experience, or flow, can be used to characterize student engagement in learning, especially since its central phenomenological components of concentration, enjoyment, and interest are the foundations of meaningful learning. As flow theory would predict, student engagement in the high school classroom is greatly enhanced when the challenge of the activity is perceived to be high and students assess their skills to be equally high. Student engagement in public high school is rare; however, certain conditions make it more likely. These include perceptual factors (e.g., high challenges and skills, relevance, and control), instructional factors (e.g., activity type and characteristics of the teacher’s implementation), and factors related to the learning environment. The chief characteristic of optimal learning environments, in which research shows that engagement is high, is environmental complexity, or the simultaneous combination of environmental challenge (e.g., clear goals and importance of the task) and environmental support (e.g., motivational and relational support). Budding research suggests that educational video games have the ability to “envelop” the learner in a virtual learning environment, can be extremely flow-inducing, and can thereby increase learning. Recent research has also found that flow may play a special role in business education, especially during simulation games that can enhance learning and leadership skills. Research shows that the teachers play an important role in creating flow experiences for students, and the teachers’ flow is frequently interactive with students’ flow. Overall, creating optimal learning environments requires attention to a variety of contextual, instructional, and developmental factors.