A plan to prevent disengagement

We have all been guilty of “daydreaming” during a conversation, Zoom meeting or lecture. There are times when our mind seems to have a mind of its own. This is also true for students in university classes. They get distracted and their minds wonder from the demonstration, discussion or PowerPoint presentation. But sometimes students fall into a state that is more serious than mere distraction, they become disengaged.

Disengagement is defined as a conscious or unconscious posture in which the learner is no longer trying to apply the focus needed to make sense of the material being taught. Disengagement is not to be confused with distraction. Although it may lead to disengagement, distraction is a short-term loss of focus that results in the learner missing parts of a lecture and having difficulty making sense of what is presented consequently. Brief moments of distraction may have internal causes, such as one’s emotional state or physical health, or external causes, such as the room being too hot, too cold, too crowded, excessive movement, sudden and unnecessary sounds, or the weapon of mass distraction – the cell phone – ringing and pinging.

Although distraction and disengagement both result in a loss of attention to what is being presented, disengagement tends to be continuous and gets progressively worse. A disengaged students may start out simply feeling and looking bored and disinterested. This may escalate to reduced class participation, increased absenteeism and, finally, failure or withdrawal from the programme altogether. Disengagement is a progression in behaviour on a continuum towards giving up. We will look at three instruction-based causes of disengagement in university classrooms, and remedies for them.

• Resource collection: how to reconnect in a changed world
• What’s in a name? The importance of getting students’ names right
• Relationship-building: the key to effective teaching

Make connections

The educational theorist Jean Piaget, in his equilibration theory, advanced the notion that when presented with new information, students first attempt to make sense of the information by aligning it with their pre-existing thoughts and knowledge banks in a process that is called assimilation. But when students are unable to assimilate new information, they experience disequilibrium. During disequilibrium, which is characterised by frustration and confusion, students feel unable to make meaning from what was presented. Repeated episodes of disequilibrium often lead to disengagement.

Lecturers can reduce the incidences of disequilibrium among students by applying one of the steps in Gagne’s nine events of instruction – make connections. Lecturers should be deliberate in helping students to tap into their existing knowledge and experience about related topics, then connect it to new concepts being presented. By presenting contextually relevant real-world examples, lecturers can help students recognise the link between beliefs, practices and generalisations with which they are already familiar, and the new concepts being presented.

Set appropriate learning levels

In reading development, there are three main levels of reading:

• the independent level – the reader can successfully navigate the text unassisted
• the instructional level – the text is suitably challenging for the reader and provides opportunities for the teacher to introduce new elements for growth in skills
• the frustration level – the text is too challenging relative to the ability of the reader.

If university course content is classified using these levels – independent, instructional and frustrating – ideally, lecturers should strive to ensure that course materials and lectures are always set and delivered at the instructional level. That is, the material presented is sufficiently challenging to students based on the foundational knowledge that they possess, and there is scope for the lecturer to introduce new and related concepts that build on what is already understood.

Universities can address this curricular issue at the departmental level and the lecturer level. Academic departments should conduct periodic reviews of course sequences used for degree programmes to ensure that the order of the courses adequately equip students with the prerequisite knowledge and skills needed to successfully navigate successive modules and courses. In the delivery of content, lecturers should ensure that their technical language, explanations and topics remain at the appropriate instructional level for students.

Set a clear road map

Some students report that although they understand individual lessons in a course, they are lost in relation to the big picture learning expectations. Not knowing the overarching “what” and “why” of learning in a course can lead to disengagement.

Gagne’s nine events of instruction recommends that lecturers provide a road map of every lesson by explicitly sharing the main objectives with students. This allows students to match the content being presented with the targeted learning, so they understand “what” they should know. Lecturers can help students see the bigger picture by leading discussions about why each aspect of the course is significant to the overall learning process and desired outcomes.

Competing with the internal and external distractions that students face can be a challenge for any educator. And while the choice to disengage during a course ultimately rests with students, as educators we must reflectively assess whether our classroom practices minimise or contribute to disengagement. Regardless of the quality of content and creativity in its delivery, if students become disengaged our teaching will be ineffective.

Adeola Matthew is recruitment officer at the University of the West Indies Five Islands Campus.

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