How should researchers in Education operationalise on-task behaviours?

Abstract

On-task and off-task behaviours have been used in educational research either as independent topics of interest or as dependent variables. In clinical research, there is general agreement about what constitutes off-task behaviours but no such agreement exists for on-task behaviours. This paper reviews 54 studies spanning the last 22 years in order to examine how on-task behaviour has been defined in the educational literature. From the 54 studies, 25 different on-task behaviours were identified. The 25 on-task behaviours were assessed to see if they could be allocated to a category. Four categories of behaviours were identified: task-related, teacher-related, social and miscellaneous. Building on the analysis from the identification and categorisation of the behaviours, the paper suggests a checklist of behaviours that differ in degree of how necessary they are to include in research when using on-task behaviours as a dependent measure. The paper concludes by suggesting that, although on-task behaviours can be highly and appropriately idiosyncratic, educational researchers can achieve some systematicity of measurement by using the guidelines presented.