Mathematics Education Research Journal 2001, Vol. 13, No.

2, 133-153

Identifying Cognitive Engagement in the

Mathematics Classroom
Sue H e l m e and David Clarke
University of Melbourne

This paper reports an analysis of videotape and interview data from four Year 8
mathematics lessons from the perspective of student cognitive engagement. The
study extends our understanding of cognitive engagement by locating empirical
evidence for its occurrence within the classroom. On the basis of the data we have
examined, it appears that cognitive engagement can be consistently recognised by
specific linguistic and behavioural indicators and is promoted by particular aspects
of the classroom situation, the task, and the individual.

Interviewer: So can y o u tell m e w h a t m a d e it, w h a t w a s g o o d about it, w h a t

w o r k e d for y o u ?
Student: Uh, I think, u m , it w a s just that w e all really p u t in together, w e really
p u t o u r m i n d s to it, t h o u g h t a b o u t it.

In this paper, we undertake an analysis of videotape and interview data from

four mathematics lessons from the perspective of student engagement. Our focus
on the nature, role, and significance of engagement stems from our concern that
the literature on learning has not provided a satisfactory empirical demonstration
of the role played by engagement in the learning process. Our primary purpose
was to identify indicators of cognitive engagement in a mathematics classroom, as
an initial step in exploring the relationship between cognitive engagement and
learning.
The term engagement usually refers to the extent to which a student is actively
involved with the content of a learning activity, where active involvement suggests
that the person acts to maintain or extend their contact with the object in order to
increase their knowledge of it (Ainley, 2001). The quality or level of this
involvement is generally believed to have a profound effect on learning outcomes,
in that students who "really put their minds to it" are much more likely to learn
successfully than students whose engagement with the subject matter is low.
The term engagement has been used by researchers to encompass both the
motivational and cognitive aspects of the construct, encompassing students'
initiation of action, effort, and persistence on academic tasks, as well as their
ambient emotional states during learning activities (Skinner, Wellborn & Connell,
1990; Skinner & Belmont, 1993). There seems to be general agreement in the
literature about this definition. In a recent review of the literature, Stipek (1996)
describes actively engaged students as approaching challenging tasks eagerly,
exerting intense effort using active (that is, deliberate) problem-solving strategies,
and persisting in the face of difficulty.
Various studies have found that motivational and cognitive components of
student engagement do not operate in isolation from each other, but rather support
and complement one another in a synergistic manner. Pintrich (1989) explored the
 134 Hehne & Clarke

interactive relationships between students' motivation and cognition and found

that students who were more mastery and challenge oriented used more cognitive
strategies and engaged in more metacognitive activities than students who were
less intrinsically oriented. He concluded that motivation and cognition were
interdependent and proposed a multivariate contextual model of student learning
which stressed the importance of the pattern of relationships among the various
cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational components of learning, particularly
emphasising "the dynamic interplay between motivation and cognition" (Pintrich,
1989, p. 153).
The interdependence of cognition and motivation is a key feature of notions of
self-regulated learning (Corno & Mandinach, 1983; Zimmerman, 1990).
Zimmerman described such learners as "metacognitively, motivationally, and
behaviourally active participants in their own learning" who "set goals, organize,
self-monitor and self-evaluate at various points during the process of acquisition"
(p. 4). According to Zimmerman, self-regulated learners have a greater sense of
control over their learning processes and outcomes than their more passive
counterparts. Skinner et al. (1990) explored the notion o; perceived control in more
detail. They found that children's perceived control influenced academic outcomes
by promoting or undermining the effort children exerted in performing cognitive
tasks.
A number of studies have attempted to clarify the relationship between the
motivational, cognitive, and behavioural aspects of engagement. Fullarton (1996)'
studied students' belief structures over the primary - secondary school transition
with the aim of identifying students whose belief structures put them at risk by
undermining their engagement with the subject. She identified an underlying
construct of control and confidence, and found that a substantial proportion of the
students showed a decline in both their perceived control and their engagement (as
rated by teachers) over the transition from primary to secondary school.
The concept of flow, which has been theorised and researched in many
different settings (Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Csikszentmihalyi &
Rathunde, 1992), also underscores the dynamic interplay between cognition and
motivation. The notion of flow refers to an individual's experience of an activity in
which they are intensely involved. The flow experience is usually associated with a
high degree of control, enjoyment and cognitive engagement with activities which
are just within the limits of an individual's capacity, and a dynamic balance
between the challenge of the task and the individual's skill level.
Ainley (1993) examined the interaction between motivation, learning
strategies, and achievement. Three general styles of engagement with learning
(deep, achieving, or surface) were identified from questionnaire data and
combined with information on examination preparation strategies and
achievement outcomes. Students with a stronger orientation to performance and
mastery goals were more likely to use transformational, rather than reproductive,
learning strategies, highlighting the association between students' goals and the
type of learning strategies they adopted. The study lends support to the notion that
"characteristics that the individual learner brings to the learning context shape and
combine with the learner's construction of the task and its demands, to influence
the strategies adopted and the learning outcomes" (p. 395). These associations