Abstract

Young people today are increasingly disengaged from their education. Studies indicate that of all school subjects, American students struggle to engage in STEM subjects more than others. For decades, we have known that student engagement/disengagement impacts teachers. Researchers have also claimed that engagement/disengagement can be described as a construct made up of affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions (ABC). However, we do not understand how teachers experience student disengagement in these three areas. At a crucial time in education, investigation into the experiences of teachers with disengaged students is needed to uncover insights which may help us understand how teachers interpret student disengagement as well as how they cope with or mitigate it. In this study, we report findings from interviews with STEM teachers where they used an operationalized form of the ABC disengagement construct to interpret previous experiences with disengaged students. We discuss their recommendations for coping and mitigation. Chief among our findings is that when our subjects were introduced to the construct, they were then able to identify strategies to help address student's disengagement patterns. An operationalized form of the ABC disengagement construct may be useful for practitioners to diagnose and remedy student disengagement.

Degree

MS

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Instructional Psychology and Technology

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2023-12-12

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd13023

Keywords

phenomenology, STEM, disengagement, engagement, teaching

Language

english

Included in

Education Commons

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