4

Impact Study

How can you improve your students’

engagement and participation in
their learning of English?
Background
Smart Choice is designed to expand students’ existing knowledge of English, supported by
engaging reading, listening and practice material and the “one page = one lesson” approach. An
impact study was conducted in order to gain an in-depth understanding of how teachers perceive
that the Smart Choice series has improved students’ engagement and participation in their
learning of English.

Research Objective
We undertook an impact study to find out the extent to which Smart Choice is perceived to
improve students’ engagement and participation in their learning of English. We wanted to
understand whether its course structure helps develop the building blocks on which effective
engagement and participation can be realized in the classroom environment, and whether its
features are effective in helping students to engage and participate in learning.

Methodology
Oxford Impact is Oxford University Press’s approach to evaluating the impact that our educational
products and services have on teaching and learning. An impact study investigates a particular
change or outcome that a product or service has on the group of people it is intended to help or
benefit.

We received 106 responses from teachers in 43 countries who had all used Smart Choice for 6
months or more.

Key Findings
Teachers who took part in the impact study perceived that:

Smart Choice has a positive impact on students’

engagement and participation in the classroom. 95%

Smart Choice encourages students to cooperate

with peers in completing group tasks. 95%

Pair work and structure of the units in Smart

Choice are effective in helping to develop
students’ interpersonal and collaborative skills. 95%
Impact on students’ engagement and participation in
the classroom
We asked teachers about the extent to which they agree with the two following statements:

‘Smart Choice helps students ‘Smart Choice helps students

engage with their learning’ participate in class’

94% 99%

How does Smart Choice enable engagement and

participation in students’ learning of English?
Teachers were asked to select which particular areas of Smart Choice enabled student
engagement and participation during the learning of English.

91% of those asked agreed that Smart Choice ‘encourages students to ask their own
questions’, thereby enabling engagement and participation.

The first page of each unit is always very helpful [in getting] students to
participate [in] its new vocabulary and change of subject.

Teacher, Brazil

91% of those asked agreed that Smart Choice ‘guides students to express their
own opinions’, thus also enabling engagement and participation.

…it was the first time that the students had the opportunity to discuss the
topic in English, and I was pleasantly surprised at their enthusiasm.

Teacher, South Korea

Which of the features in Smart Choice were perceived to
be most effective in helping to develop students’
interpersonal and communication skills?
Pair work 95
Examples on the page 94
Speaking pages 92
Structure of the units 95
Video conversations 91
Relatable texts 92
Design of the materials 92

Conclusion
95% of teachers who took part in the
impact study agreed that Smart Choice
has a positive impact on students’
engagement and participation in the
classroom. An area of the course that
participants strongly perceived to enable
engagement and participation in
students’ learning of English included
how it encourages students to ask
students to express their own opinions.
The majority of participants reported
that the pair work and structure of the
units in Smart Choice had played a
major part in helping to develop
students’ interpersonal and
communication skills.

Smart Choice Fourth Edition gives students more ways than ever to get involved,
get motivated, and get speaking.
Learn more about Smart Choice Fourth Edition at www.oup.com/elt