Stein Et Al 2018 Teachers Cognitive Flexibility On Engagement and Their Ability To Engage Students A Theoretical and

Teachers’ Cognitive Flexibility on Engagement
and Their Ability to Engage Students: A

Theoretical and Empirical Exploration
KRISTY COOPER STEIN

Michigan State University
ANDREW MINESS
TARA KINTZ
Background: Student engagement is a cognitively complex domain that is often oversimpli-

fied in theory and practice. Reliance on a single model overlooks the sophisticated nature of
student engagement and can lead to misconceptions and limited understandings that hin-
der teachers’ ability to engage all of their students. Assessing varied models simultaneously
frames student engagement as a dynamic process contingent upon interactions among many
contextual variables.
Purpose: We explore the relationship between how high school teachers understand student
engagement and their ability to consistently engage students in their classes. We present cog-
nitive flexibility theory and its seven reductive biases to illustrate the complexity of engaging
students across contexts and subjects. This theory makes a compelling a priori case that teach-
ers who more consistently and effectively engage students in their classes are likely to be those
who possess higher levels of cognitive flexibility in the domain of student engagement. To test
this hypothesis empirically, we asked: Do teachers who are more effective at engaging students
reveal more cognitive flexibility when discussing student engagement, as compared with teach-
ers who are less effective at engaging students?
Research Design: We present a mixed-methods case study conducted over three years at one
high school. We utilize annual student survey data to identify teachers with whom students
reported relatively more and less classroom engagement. Then, we examine the comments of
18 teachers who participated in annual focus groups about student engagement across those
three years to identify differences in how more and less engaging teachers express cognitive
flexibility in their understanding of student engagement.
Teachers College Record Volume 120, 060308, June 2018, 38 pages

Copyright © by Teachers College, Columbia University
0161-4681
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Teachers College Record, 120, 060308 (2018)
Findings: We find that teachers whom students found more engaging tended to illustrate more
cognitive flexibility in how they thought and spoke about engagement. By contrast, teachers
whom students rated as less engaging tended to see engagement in more simplistic and com-
partmentalized ways. Within these trends, the data provide evidence that individual teachers
fall along the seven theorized continuums regarding the extent to which they demonstrated
cognitive flexibility on engagement.
Conclusions: By bringing cognitive flexibility theory to the domain of student engagement,
we call for a new research agenda focused on understanding the development of teachers’
knowledge of student engagement and, in turn, engaging instruction. In place of receiving
a new model, tool, or checklist, teachers need opportunities to grapple with the complexity
of engagement, to see and analyze various cases, and to build schema in relation to their
classroom practice.
Student engagement in the classroom—including active involvement

during class, genuine interest in academic learning, and a willingness
to attempt rigorous tasks—is an essential component of education. Vital
engagement outcomes include learning, persistence in the face of chal-
lenges, academic achievement, high school graduation, educational attain-
ment, and overall well-being in life (Bundick, Quaglia, Corso, & Haywood,
2014; Shernoff, 2013). Yet findings repeatedly show low engagement in
U.S. high schools, particularly among students of color and low-income
students (Boser & Rosenthal, 2012; Lawson & Lawson, 2013). At the same
time, teachers and administrators express that they want engaged students.
They know their jobs are easier and more rewarding—and that students
learn more—when students are behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively
engaged in learning (Cooper Stein, Kintz, & Miness, 2016). Despite the
multitude of reasons to engage students, many teachers report that they
and their colleagues lack sufficient knowledge of how to engage students
(Education Week Research Center, 2014). Given that what teachers know
impacts how they teach (Wei, Darling-Hammond, Andree, Richardson, &
Orphanos, 2009), we argue that increasing engagement requires insight
into how teachers understand and think about student engagement. To
this end, we approach student engagement as a knowledge domain for teach-
ers, and we theoretically and empirically explore the relationship between
how high school teachers understand engagement and their ability to con-
sistently engage their students during class.
We begin by arguing that student engagement is a cognitively complex
domain that is often oversimplified in theory and practice. Using four
models of student engagement (Appleton, Christenson, Kim, & Reschly,
2006; Bundick et al., 2014; Cooper, 2014; Lawson & Lawson, 2013), we il-
lustrate both the multitude of dynamic factors that constitute and impact
engagement and the tendency for researchers to oversimplify engagement
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TCR, 120, 060308 Teachers’ Cognitive Flexibility on Engagement and Their Ability to Engage Students
when communicating new findings. We further argue that presenting and

analyzing several models could be a powerful strategy for illustrating the
inherent complexity of engagement. We then integrate student engage-
ment theory with cognitive flexibility theory (Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich,
& Anderson, 1988) as a framework for (1) conceptualizing how teachers
understand student engagement in relatively simplistic and/or complex
ways, (2) considering how those understandings shape teachers’ abilities
to engage students, and (3) theorizing the types of learning experiences
that could help teachers to develop an understanding that would support
more engaging practice. Building on this theoretical foundation, we then
introduce three years of empirical data from annual focus groups with 18
high school teachers discussing student engagement. Using surveys from
4,669 students collected over three years, we group teachers into those
whom students report as relatively more and less engaging, and we use
comments from two more engaging teachers and two less engaging teach-
ers to illustrate how teachers in these two groups expressed different levels
of cognitive flexibility in regards to student engagement with learning in
the classroom. Through these analyses, we demonstrate that increasing
student engagement will likely require integrating more complexity and
multidimensionality into teachers’ understandings of student engage-
ment as a domain of knowledge and practice.
MODELING THE COMPLEXITY OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Models are essential in that they approximate reality and provide possible
explanations for specific phenomena. In the case of student engagement,
researchers have developed distinct models to explain the construct and
its originary elements. In isolation, these models describe intricate fea-
tures and workings of student engagement at the individual, institutional,
and societal levels. When examined collectively, though, the varied per-
spectives on student engagement have the potential to contribute to a
more informed, accurate, and holistic understanding of the dynamic in-
teractions at play. For this reason, we argue that reliance on a single model
overlooks the sophisticated nature of student engagement and can lead
to misconceptions and limited understanding that can drastically and un-
necessarily limit teachers’ ability to engage all of their students.
We assert that reflecting on multiple models in unison is a more infor-
mative way to understand the complex domain of student engagement.
Assessing varied models simultaneously frames student engagement as
a multi-layered, dynamic process contingent upon interactions among
a multitude of contextual variables. The cognitive activity of analyzing
and integrating multiple models could support teachers in constructing
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their own complex schema and nuanced understandings of engage-

ment, which in turn could enable them to engage students in enhanced
ways (Spiro et al., 1988).
To illustrate these points, we consider four models of student engage-
ment that come from recent articles in top-tier research journals. These
models, selected for their intricateness, clarity, and overall representation
of salient themes across the literature, convey how coordinating student
engagement cannot be reduced to a single factor. Each model powerfully
explores the embedded contexts in which student engagement occurs
from a particular perspective, and collectively they capture the dynamic
and detailed processes of engagement.
Importantly, these models take varying approaches to establishing what
Skinner, Furrer, Marchand, and Kindermann (2008) refer to as the indica-
tors (attributes) and facilitators (causes) of engagement, thereby adding
further complexity to the construct of engagement. The four models rely
upon similar conceptions of what student engagement is, and this con-
sistency facilitates a natural communication between them. The models
share a core assumption that, as a meta-construct, student engagement is
composed of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional indicators. In the first
model, Cooper (2014) frames student engagement as classroom engage-
ment and operationalizes it as “an active state of responding to a class
through focused behavior, emotion, and cognition” (p. 365). In the sec-
ond model, Bundick and colleagues. (2014) categorize student engage-
ment as an umbrella construct for related concepts of school engagement,
academic engagement, and engagement in schoolwork—all of which have
behavioral, emotional, and cognitive elements. Aligned with both of these,
Appleton and colleagues (2006) also root their model in the same three
dimensions of engagement, intentionally attending to cognitive and emo-
tional engagement because such traits are less observable than behavioral
cues. Building on these conceptualizations, Lawson and Lawson’s (2013)
model identifies the behavioral, emotional, and cognitive dimensions of
student engagement as merely starting points, and uses an expanded defi-
nition of student engagement as “conceptual glue that connects student
agency and its ecological influences to the organizational structures and
culture of the school” (p. 433). This view reflects all four of the models,
in that the researchers conceive of student engagement as nuanced and
relational in practice and as the orchestration of many interrelated parts.
While the models share similar engagement indicators, they each at-
tend to different facilitators of engagement, which lend to their compli-
mentary perspectives. Focusing more closely on the classroom, Cooper
(2014) emphasizes the importance of connective instruction in elicit-
ing engagement among high school students. Connective instruction, a
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concept that emerges from the psychological work of Martin and Dowson
(2009), embodies the notion that students are more likely to feel emotion-
ally engaged in a classroom when they feel strong connections in three
domains: connections with the teacher, connections with the content, and
connections with the instructional experience. Cooper (2014) argues that
classroom contexts that engage students in these emotionally connective
ways are more engaging for adolescents than classrooms that focus merely
on academic rigor or lively methods of instruction because of connec-
tive instruction’s link to identity development. The Student Engagement
Core Model presented by Bundick and colleagues (2014) extends our
understanding at the classroom level by examining the content, student,
and teacher conditions most suited to promoting positive engagement
outcomes. These authors orient student engagement within classroom
dynamics and map engagement as an interactional process achieved
through strong student–teacher relationships, high levels of teacher com-
petence, and relevant academic experiences for students. While Bundick
and colleagues (2014) frame engagement as related to many factors such
as race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, parental support, and structural
conditions, they exclude these variables from their model because such
facilitators of engagement exist outside of teachers’ control, and they seek
to identify actionable information for educators. The intentional omission
of particular facilitators speaks to the varied scope researchers set and to
the highly nested nature of student engagement within school, family, and
social contexts.
Appleton and colleagues (2006) take up the nested, contextual nature
of engagement by focusing on facilitators occurring with the family, peer
group, and school. They illustrate the multidimensionality of engage-
ment by examining the diverse factors at play in each domain. Within
the school context, for example, Appleton and colleagues (2006) identify
school climate, instructional programming and learning activities, mental
health support, clear and appropriate teacher expectations, goal struc-
ture, and teacher–student relationships as all impacting student engage-
ment. The authors further see the family and peers as impacting engage-
ment through nine other context-specific factors. Across these contexts,
Appleton and colleagues’ (2006) model delineates academic, behavioral,
cognitive, and psychological indicators linked to engagement that are
experienced uniquely by individuals and that lead to academic, social,
and emotional outcomes. Through this complex, contextual approach,
Appleton and colleagues (2006) identify broad factors influencing class-
room interactions.
Building on the more holistic approach of the Appleton model, Lawson
and Lawson’s (2013) model advances a multilayered view of student
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engagement. Specifically, Lawson and Lawson (2013) focus on interac-

tions among facilitators that shape and are shaped by engagement in the
home and community, in the school, and in academic activities. This mod-
el recognizes that students engage simultaneously across contexts and en-
ter into these situations with particular dispositions developed through
past experiences with individuals and institutions. By accounting for the
nested experiences of students, this model frames student engagement
more holistically and challenges the notion that engagement can simply
be transmitted from teacher to student. Lawson and Lawson (2013) advo-
cate for considering the attentional, positional, and socio-cultural acts of
engagement in that these domains help explain potential influences on
individual and group engagement patterns. They thus highlight how for
each student, the experience of engaging does not reduce to a single de-
terminant, but rather can be explained within larger social systems.
Collectively, these four models illustrate that student engagement op-
erates on multiple levels for individual students. Student engagement
connects with many dimensions of students’ lives and is the product of
countless interactions between personal, psychological, environmental,
instructional, relational, and contextual factors. Each model thoughtfully
speaks to a particular level of action at the classroom or school or soci-
etal level, and contributes to our understanding of student engagement
by richly describing different indicators and facilitators of the process.
Together, these models reflect the complexity of student engagement and
the multitude of insights and understandings that could inform teachers’
efforts to engage students.
COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY
As student engagement is a cognitively complex domain, we assert that

engaging students requires teachers to possess cognitive flexibility in re-
gards to teaching for engagement. Spiro’s cognitive flexibility theory, a
seminal theory of cognition, defines cognitive flexibility as “the selective
use of knowledge to adaptively fit the needs of understanding and decision
making in a particular situation” (Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson,
1988, p. 5; reprinted as Spiro et al., 2004). Developing cognitive flexibility
in a complex—or ill-structured—domain like student engagement requires
what Spiro and colleagues (1988) term advanced knowledge acquisition,
which is the means by which practitioners develop mastery of complex
concepts and proficiency in utilizing and applying those concepts. These
theorists argue that, without advanced knowledge, practitioners illustrate
reductive biases, such that they hold oversimplified understandings of ill-
structured domains that are rife with misconceptions. Cognitive flexibility
6
theory outlines seven forms of reductive bias and provides remedies for
each. As the remedies constitute contrasts to each bias, they characterize
advanced knowledge in a complex domain. In Figure 1, we show these sev-
en reductive biases and remedies as representing endpoints along seven
continuums of cognitive flexibility. Whereas Spiro and colleagues apply
this theory to the domains of training medical students and designing
multimedia learning environments (e.g., Spiro et al., 1988; Spiro, Collins,
& Ramchandran, 2007a, 2007b), here we contextualize these seven con-
tinuums within the domain of engaging students in K–12 classrooms as a
way to bring cognitive flexibility theory to the field of student engagement.
Fundamentally, a lack of cognitive flexibility entails oversimplification
and over-regularization of complex, irregular phenomena (the reductive
bias in continuum #1). Practitioners who exhibit this bias mentally col-
lapse by standardizing divergent concepts and interpreting them as uni-
form, rather than fully grasping and embracing differences, complexities,
and interactions among concepts (Spiro et al., 1988). With student en-
gagement, we could imagine a teacher having a simple mental represen-
tation of what facilitates engagement—such as a simple understanding
of the proverbial “rigor, relevance, and relationships”—that prevents the
teacher from seeing and attending to nuances in what engages various
students, even within these dynamics (e.g., variations in the types of teach-
er–student relationships that engage different students, how students’
perceptions of rigor influence their relationships with teachers, etc.).
Such simplified understanding—without attention to variations and inter-
connections among the concepts of rigor, relevance, and relationships—
could minimize the teacher’s ability to use this model aptly and effectively
to engage all students. The teacher would incorrectly see the three con-
cepts as lacking complexity, working uniformly for all students, and sepa-
rated from one another. The remedy for this bias is to support teachers
in developing an understanding of the full complexity of engagement by
identifying limitations of simplified understandings, by identifying excep-
tions to over-regularized notions, and by exposing the superficial nature
of simple interpretations (Spiro et al., 1988).
Relatedly, practitioners who lack cognitive flexibility often rely on a
single mental representation of a concept (#2), as opposed to having mul-
tiple representations that account for variability, inherent contradictions,
and the full range of related concepts and processes that cannot possibly
be captured by one model or theory. For example, holding multiple men-
tal representations of the facilitators of student engagement could enable
teachers to draw on different engagement strategies for different purpos-
es and students, understand shortcomings and limitations in particular
approaches to engagement, or diagnose and remedy engagement-related
7
Figure 1. Seven continuums of cognitive flexibility theory
8
problems. A teacher holding just one mental representation of engage-

ment would be less able to engage in these analytic processes. To remedy
this bias, Spiro and colleagues advise exposing practitioners to integrated
multiple analogies. For example, teachers examining the potential of one
particular model to represent the complexities of student engagement
could identify the limitations and misleading elements of that model and
examine how other models might be integrated to better represent the
phenomenon. To this end, teachers critiquing the Cooper (2014) mod-
el described earlier could use the models from Bundick et al. (2014),
Appleton et al. (2006), and Lawson and Lawson (2013) to point out
shortcomings in Cooper’s model. By contrasting and integrating models
and discussing the analytic process with others, teachers would develop
a more complex—and likely, more accurate—mental representation of
engagement that would be cognitively superior to the understanding
from just one model.
Reductive bias also occurs when practitioners apply their understand-
ing of a complex domain uniformly across cases through generic, general-
ized principles (#3), and thus fail to acknowledge variability across cases.
We can envision teachers trying to engage all students in all classes and
during all lessons from one general idea of what causes student engagement.
A teacher might believe, for example, that all students find “fun in-class
activities” engaging and so focus on integrating such activities into most
lessons. Yet it is unlikely that activities are highly engaging for all students
or the most engaging way to deliver all content. And the teacher could
uniformly integrate activities without understanding the more abstract el-
ements of why some students find activities engaging (e.g., as opposed to
having the entertainment value the teacher assumes is engaging, it might
be that activities engage some students because they clearly illustrate con-
crete connections across academic concepts). To counter such general-
ized thinking, Spiro and colleagues (1988) advise case analyses and case-
based discussions to develop practitioners’ understanding of variability
across individuals and instances. In one application, Spiro and colleagues
(2007b) describe multiple analyses of video excerpts. For engagement,
teachers could (a) watch four video segments to deeply analyze thought-
provoking questions as an engagement strategy, or (b) watch one video
segment four times to look first at questioning, then at student-to-student
interactions, then at relevance, and finally at teacher wait time—all with
the intention of building a complex understanding of patterns and varia-
tions across and within cases.
Reductive bias also appears in a tendency to generalize across contexts,
such that practitioners rely on prepackaged prescriptions that are context-
independent (#4). So, a teacher might attempt to engage students in all
9
subjects every year with the same “prepackaged prescriptions”—perhaps,

for example, opening every new unit of study with an instructional video.
But, the teacher’s understanding of why a given approach engages stu-
dents could be simplistic (e.g., that a video sparks students’ interest), and
the teacher might not understand why the prescription does not engage
students in every subject, class, school setting, and generation. So, when a
video fails to engage a class, the teacher may presume the group is unmo-
tivated or the video is ineffective, when it may be that instructional videos
are outdated in today’s multimedia environment. Overreliance on pre-
scriptions can lead to teachers ignoring disengaged students because they
cannot figure out why the prescription does not apply in a given context.
Spiro and colleagues (1988) pose the remedy of helping practitioners de-
velop knowledge-in-use—that is, knowledge gained in practice by attending
to variations across contexts (e.g., examining how contemporary students
engage with media content). Developing knowledge-in-use requires expo-
sure to many cases and contexts and deductive learning from those cases
and contexts.
Similarly, a lack of cognitive flexibility often leads practitioners to rely
on rigid, precompiled schema (#5) that serve as “recipes” for what to do
in various situations (Spiro et al., 1988). Yet complex domains require
practitioners to possess what Spiro and colleagues refer to as “flexible, re-
combinable knowledge structures” (p. 8) that allow practitioners to draw
on a variety of insights and strategies that can be applied differently across
cases and contexts. The theorists assert that such knowledge structures
develop when practitioners actively assemble their own schema, as op-
posed to having “precompiled” knowledge structures handed to them. If
we think of the example of integrating multiple engagement models, we
can expect teachers to develop a more complex understanding if they
participate in the integration of models themselves. Simply attending a
professional development session in which an “expert” explains how vari-
ous models capture the limitations of others, and then presents a broader,
integrated model, will not lead to the development and application of
flexible schema on engagement.
Reductive bias also occurs when practitioners compartmentalize knowl-
edge components (#6), as opposed to seeing concepts and cases as inter-
connected. With complex domains, Spiro and colleagues (1988) note that
abstract concepts are woven together in multiple interconnections that
manifest differently across cases and examples. Given these interactions,
although cases might be analyzed independently during the learning pro-
cess, practitioners must be supported in seeing connections across cases.
This perspective will enhance their understanding of how learning from
past cases can be applied to future cases that are “kind of like this earlier
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one, kind of like that one” (p. 9). Through making connections across
concepts and cases, practitioners develop a stronger understanding of the
complexity of all cases.
Finally, Spiro and colleagues (1988) note that reductive bias often oc-
curs as a result of passive transmission of knowledge (#7) from train-
ers to practitioners, such that personalized knowledge gained through
experience and analysis is lost in favor of more simplified, communi-
cable means of explanation. Instead, cognitive flexibility theory favors
practitioners actively participating in the learning process and receiv-
ing tutorial guidance from expert mentors, as well as adjunct support
in the development and management of complexity. This final concept
from cognitive flexibility theory mirrors findings from the learning sci-
ences, which assert that individuals learn best by constructing their own
knowledge (Piaget, 2000; Sawyer, 2006). If empirical evidence supports
our hypothesis that more engaging teachers tend to hold more complex
understandings of student engagement, then concerted efforts must be
made to help all teachers actively construct these more complex, multi-
dimensional understandings.
RESEARCH METHODS
Cognitive flexibility theory makes a compelling a priori case that teach-

ers who more consistently and effectively engage students in their classes
are likely to be those who possess higher levels of cognitive flexibility
in the domain of student engagement. To test this hypothesis empiri-
cally, we asked: Do teachers who are more effective at engaging students reveal
more cognitive flexibility when discussing student engagement, as compared with
teachers who are less effective at engaging students? To answer this question,
we draw on two forms of data collected over three years at one high
school. First, we utilize annual student survey data to identify teachers
with whom students reported relatively more and less classroom engage-
ment. Then, we examine the comments of 18 teachers who participated
in annual focus groups about student engagement across those three
years to identify differences in how more and less engaging teachers ex-
press cognitive flexibility in their understanding of student engagement.
In prior analyses of these data, we focused on how more and less engag-
ing teachers described their teaching practice and efforts to engage students.
We found that more engaging teachers expressed stronger agency over
engagement, which manifested in reflectiveness (continually assessing
and improving practice for engagement), adaptivity (modifying instruc-
tion midstream in response to disengagement), and support (helping
students manage threats to engagement) (Cooper Stein et al., 2016).
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In this second analysis, we turn our attention from teachers’ practice

to their understandings of what engagement is and what causes student
engagement. Using the framework of cognitive flexibility theory, we
seek to theorize about the types of learning experiences that could
potentially scaffold teachers to a more sophisticated understanding of
engagement and thus increase every teacher’s ability to engage stu-
dents to high levels.
Research Site
We collected data at Lincoln High School,1 a large comprehensive high

school located on the periphery of a large city in Texas. During the three
years of this study, Lincoln served a diverse student body of approximately
2,380 students annually (about 39% White, 29% Latino, 16% Asian, 14%
Black; about 27% receiving free and reduced-price lunch). The school was
working to increase student engagement through a number of initiatives,
including a book study of Schlechty’s (2002) Working on the Work, which
33 teachers volunteered to read and discuss. Through this avenue, the
principal attempted to shift focus from what teachers were doing to what
students were doing. The principal also noted efforts to align professional
development to address student engagement through improved technol-
ogy use, the teaming of teachers, instructional rounds, and a focus on
best practices (talking to learn, writing to learn, scaffolding, collaborative
group work, etc.), as well as the collection and distribution of annual stu-
dent engagement survey data, which our team provided. We also provided
brief professional development on engagement to the full staff when we
delivered annual survey results.
Participants
Student participants were those who completed engagement surveys. In

November 2011, our first year, we had a low student response rate of only
49% (n = 1,261). In subsequent years, November 2012 and 2013, we short-
ened our survey and the response rates increased to 71% (n = 1,726) and
72% (n = 1,682), respectively. In total, we collected 4,669 student surveys
over the three years. The demographics of respondents were fairly similar
each year. In all three years, students were 49% male and 51% female.
Racial and ethnic distribution was fairly representative of the student
body, with an average of 39% White, 22% Latino, 17% Asian, 11% Black,
and 8% mixed race.2
Teacher focus group participants included 29 total teachers across
the three years, with participation by 21 teachers each year. We asked
the principal to recruit teachers who were representative of the staff in
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regards to gender, experience, content area, responsiveness to school

initiatives, and perspectives on teaching and learning. All teachers who
were referred by the principal agreed to participate in focus groups.
However, some teachers were not able to participate all three years due
to a change in their assignment, no longer teaching at the school, or a
scheduling conflict. Eighteen teachers participated for at least two years,
with 13 participating in focus groups for all three years. In the present
study, we focus on comments from the 18 teachers who participated for
at least two years. As shown in Table 1, those teachers included 12 wom-
en and six men teaching in a variety of subjects, with three to 33 years of
experience at the beginning of our study. After collecting our data, we
calculated the mean student engagement survey scores for each teacher
each year, and we used standardized means to group teachers into those
whom students deemed relatively more engaging (consistently above the
school mean), relatively less engaging (consistently below the mean),
and transitional (sometimes above and sometimes below the mean).
Despite subject-area patterns among focus group participants (i.e., three
science teachers in the higher group, three math teachers in the lower
group), this pattern is not reflected among all teachers in the school.
This suggests that the groupings evident in Table 1 are merely a result of
our sampling procedures.
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Table 1. Overview of Teachers Participating in Focus Groups for Two or

More Years
Years of Standardized Mean

Teacher Gender Experience Subject Engagement Scores
(Year 1) Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Highly Engaging Teachers
Mike male 4 English, History 0.29 0.37 0.47
Alicia female 5 Sign Language 0.42 0.41 0.40
Tina female 5 Science 0.35 0.14 0.31
Natalie* female 6 Science 0.36 0.25 —
Celia* female 6 Science 0.29 — —
Oscar male 11 Art 0.65 0.48 0.58
Pam female 33 Drama 0.59 0.52 0.26
Transitional Teachers
Charles male 5 English –0.20 0.05 0.04
Jocelyn female 7 Spanish –0.20 0.01 –0.37
Ken male 12 Chemistry –0.02 0.28 0.13
Ruth female 32 English 0.25 0.01 –0.18
Less Engaging Teachers
Sandra female 3 Math –0.08 –0.32 –0.08
Kayla female 5 History –0.53 –0.27 –1.03
Connie* female 11 Math –0.08 –0.43 —
Dawn female 12 History –0.24 –0.15 –0.32
Sean male 17 Math –0.51 –0.55 –0.32
Barbara female 24 English –0.43 –0.31 –0.22
No Survey Scores
Paul* male 12 Special Ed — — —

*Missing scores are due to teachers not working with the district at the time of
a survey administration (Natalie, Connie), being promoted to an instructional
coaching position (Celia), or not having scores due to the nature of their assign-
ment (Paul).
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Data Collection
In November of 2011, 2012, and 2013, teachers administered student sur-

veys during advisory classes to assess students’ perceptions of their engage-
ment in various classes. In the first year, we asked students to report on
all seven of their classes. Given the low response rate that year, in 2012
and 2013, we randomly assigned students three class periods on which
to report. Students completed the same 19-item survey for each class on
which they reported. This produced a total of 4,651 reports on classes
in 2011, 4,659 reports in 2012, and 4,600 reports in 2013. For each class
report, we used six survey items modeled on items used by the National
Center for School Engagement (2006) to assess students’ self-reported en-
gagement in that class: How often do you do all of your work in this class? How
happy are you when you are in this class? How excited are you about what you are
learning in this class? How much do you feel like this class is worth your time? If
you don’t understand something in this class, how often do you try to figure it out?
When you are doing assignments in this class, how often do you concentrate? In
the present study, as in prior work (Cooper, 2014), internal reliability for
the classroom engagement scale was quite high (a = 0.89). Upon comple-
tion of the survey, these items were averaged to create an engagement
“score” for each student in each class on which they reported. In addition
to reporting their engagement in each class, students also reported their
perceptions of teachers’ practice in 13 areas known to impact engagement
(e.g., how often the teacher challenged them, how often they worked in
groups, how much they perceived the teacher cared about them). These
items were not used to measure engagement, but rather to provide teach-
ers with student perception information that could inform their practice.
In February each year, we provided 1.5–3 hours of professional devel-
opment to share school-wide and department-level survey results with
Lincoln’s staff of 165 teachers. As three former educators and now re-
searchers (one professor and two graduate students) with expertise in stu-
dent engagement, we presented strategies that teachers could employ to
increase student engagement as well as the aggregate engagement data
for the school. Teachers reviewed their department-level data in depart-
mental teams and identified potential areas for further development. At
the end of the sessions, teachers received confidential, sealed envelopes
containing aggregate survey results for students reporting on their classes.
Teachers were advised of the percentages of respondents who reported
that each item was “quite often” or “always” true (the top two responses
out of five Likert-style options).
Following the professional development session each year, two mem-
bers of our research team convened three focus groups of 5–8 teachers
15
each for 40–45 minutes per group. We attempted to compose the focus
groups so that each group represented the sample as a whole. We used
semi-structured protocols addressing teachers’ practice and thinking in
regards to indicators and facilitators of student engagement. A number of
questions linked clearly to concepts within cognitive flexibility theory. For
example, teachers’ understanding of variability across cases and contexts
was assessed through the questions, “Does your ability to engage students
differ across the classes you teach? If so, how? Why do you think this is?”
and “To what extent do you believe a given student’s engagement changes
from class to class? What explains these differences?” As another example,
we asked teachers how their thinking on student engagement was chang-
ing over time and what they saw as contributing to those changes. This was
a means of assessing whether and how their understanding of engagement
grew through experiences of knowledge-in-use and flexible schema assem-
bly. Each year, the protocol followed the same structure with three main
sections: (a) student engagement, (b) student engagement research, and
(c) change in instructional practice. From year to year, some questions
remained the same, others changed slightly to assess how participants’
views may have changed over time, and a few questions were different. For
example, over the three years we asked: “Is there anything you might do
differently as a result of what you’ve heard today?” (Year 1); “Did you do
anything differently over the past year as a result of the survey results you
received last year?” (Year 2); and “As you look at the change in your per-
sonal results from last year to this year, what are your reactions, and what
do you think explains any difference or lack of differences?” (Year 3). The
facilitator provided the opportunity for all participants to respond to a
given question. When there were no more responses, the facilitator would
move on to another question. At times, the facilitator would prompt an
individual who had not responded as much, to be sure to include the
perspectives of all individuals in the focus group. Verbal affirmations such
as “yeah” and other indicators of agreement or disagreement were noted
in the transcription of each focus group. All focus group sessions were
recorded and transcribed.
Data Analysis
For the present analysis, we created individual-level focus group transcripts

for the 18 teachers with at least two years of focus group data by creating
one Word document containing all of their comments across their two or
three years of participation. We then had a third party create pseudonyms
for each teacher to blind ourselves from what we knew about each teach-
er to the extent possible, particularly in regards to their survey scores.
16
Individually, each member of our research team then read through all 18
transcripts to assign codes. We used the seven forms of reductive bias and
the seven remedies described in cognitive flexibility theory (see Figure 1)
to create our codebook. Our process included an initial analysis and dis-
cussion of the codes of six teachers to calibrate our understandings of the
codes and to establish at least an 80% coding reliability among the three
members of our research team. Analyses and discussions centered on dis-
tinguishing among the seven continuums of cognitive flexibility theory
by examining how individuals demonstrated cognitive flexibility and so-
phisticated understanding in their comments, and whether they were rela-
tively high or low on those continuums. We also identified the domains of
influence—or facets of students’ lives and schooling experiences—to which
each teacher attributed student engagement (e.g., characteristics of stu-
dents, of families, of classroom instruction, of teachers, etc.). Within each
domain, we then teased out the different factors to which each teacher at-
tributed engagement (e.g., within the domain of instruction, engagement
factors might include hands-on activities or differentiated assessment).
Ultimately, we compared our codes and came to agreement about how
each teacher fared in regards to the seven continuums.
We then un-blinded the transcripts and used teachers’ standardized
mean student engagement survey scores to identify each teacher as being
“more engaging,” “less engaging,” or “transitional.” Our goal in creating
these groups was to examine teachers’ relative abilities to engage students,
as compared with one another. For this exploratory study, we began with
this straightforward approach to identifying teachers as relatively more or
less engaging, and then we sought to complicate that notion by delving
into the intricate differences in teachers’ underlying understandings of
student engagement as a domain of knowledge. In this way, we attempted
to move from a simple and concrete conception of a teacher’s ability to
engage students to one that is more abstract, nuanced, and complex over
the course of our analysis. Using standardized mean scores for teachers in
the same school enabled us to keep the context and research conditions
stable, thereby allowing us to better isolate actual differences in teach-
ers’ personal understanding and knowledge of engagement. In creating
the three groups, we excluded one teacher who taught special education
through immersion and so did not have individual-level survey scores.
Classifying the 17 other teachers into the three groups, we then looked at
patterns in how teachers in the three groups understood student engage-
ment and examined their responses according to the seven continuums of
cognitive flexibility theory.
17
Limitations
We acknowledge a number of potential limitations to this study. First, al-

though our professional development was brief and limited in scope, there
were a variety of efforts to increase student engagement at the school, so
it is possible that activities within the school may have influenced teach-
ers’ conceptualizations of engagement. However, our primary focus was
on differences in how teachers demonstrated their understanding of the
indicators and facilitators of engagement, regardless of what influenced
their thinking. Second, the use of a single school site could be a limita-
tion given the lack of a comparison group and the potential for factors at
the single site to have contributed to how participating teachers thought
about engagement. Nonetheless, our primary intention was to utilize the
mean split to identify differences within this group of teachers in how they
thought about engagement, and to distinguish potential ways in which
cognitive flexibility theory may apply to such differences in teachers whom
students rated as more and less engaging. Third, focus groups have limi-
tations as a means of data collection. We used focus groups to provide
an opportunity for teachers to participate in the natural evolution of a
free-flowing conversation that could include topics we may have not an-
ticipated, but it is possible that some responses were influenced by prior
comments. Given the nature of a focus group as a conversation with col-
leagues, we also acknowledge that an individual’s full understanding of a
concept might not be revealed in this setting. Regardless, we did find a
number of interesting patterns in our focus group data.
FINDINGS
We found that more engaging teachers more consistently provided evi-

dence of cognitive flexibility, such that they grappled with complexity in
regards to student engagement, entertained multiple representations of
engagement, and appeared to construct their own schema around the fac-
tors that shaped student engagement in their classes. By contrast, less en-
gaging teachers appeared to possess less cognitive flexibility, as they held
more consistently to a handful of notions about engagement, and their
comments showed less evidence of a willingness, tendency, or ability to
see variability across cases or interconnections among elements of engage-
ment. Comments from transitional teachers fell somewhere in the middle,
although those who became more engaging over time reflected levels of
cognitive flexibility more similar to those of the more engaging teachers.
Of course, we did not find that more and less engaging teachers were at
opposite ends of the continuum for each of the seven forms of reductive
18
bias. Naturally, the differences were subtler and more nuanced, and we
infer that different teachers are lying at different points along each of
the seven continuums, with more engaging teachers tending to be further
along the continuums in the direction of the remedies to reductive biases.
To illustrate these variations, we present two pairs of teachers, with each
pair containing one relatively more engaging teacher and one relatively
less engaging teacher who are at similar points in their lives and careers.
The contrasts within the first pair effectively illustrate the reductive bi-
ases and remedies related to singular representation, oversimplification,
and prepackaged prescriptions. The second pair more adequately dem-
onstrates the biases and remedies related to generalized principles, rigid
schema assembly, and compartmentalization of concepts. Both pairings
illuminate the critical contrast between passive and active knowledge ac-
quisition in the domain of student engagement.
Tina and Kayla
The first pair includes Tina and Kayla3, both young women who appeared
to be in their late 20s or early 30s and who were in their fifth year of
teaching during the first year of our study. Tina taught Integrated Physics
and Chemistry, Aquatics, and Advanced Placement (AP) Environmental
Studies. Across the three years of our study, average composite engage-
ment scores for Tina’s students were 0.35, 0.14, and 0.31 standard de-
viations above the school mean, making Tina a relatively more engaging
teacher. Representing the perspective of a less engaging teacher, Kayla
taught U.S. history to 11th grade students and coached volleyball and soc-
cer. Her average student engagement scores over three years were –0.53,
–0.27, and –1.03 standard deviation units, all well below the school mean.
Here, we contrast these two teachers to illustrate how they differed in the
extent to which they held singular or multiple representations of student
engagement, the levels of simplification or complexity they attributed to
engagement, the extent to which they relied on prepackaged prescrip-
tions or knowledge-in-use, and whether they demonstrated passive or ac-
tive acquisition of knowledge on engagement.
The first point of contrast—singular versus multiple representations—
comes through in the explanations these two young teachers provided
when they discussed the domains of students’ lives that influenced en-
gagement, and the more specific factors that facilitated engagement with-
in those domains. In Table 2, we present a summary of these domains
and factors for each teacher, along with some of the language they used
to describe their understandings. The first contrast immediately evident
in the table is that Kayla attributed student engagement to influences
19
in two domains of students’ lives, while Tina considered five domains.

Additionally, Kayla cited more factors across those domains, eight as com-
pared to five. Given these differences, we infer that Tina’s mental repre-
sentation—or schema—for student engagement likely consisted of more
representations than Kayla’s. Tina seemed to see student engagement as
having layered dimensions—operating in the family, in the student, in the
student’s interactions with the teacher, in the nature of the instruction,
and in the school structures that group students in large or small classes.
Kayla’s focus on just the student and the instruction suggests that she saw
fewer dimensions to engagement than Tina. Just the same, Tina’s under-
standing did not appear to be so sophisticated as to include interconnec-
tions among various factors (such as a relationship between a student’s
openness to being engaged and their sense of personal connection with
the teacher). However, she was certainly conscious of more layers of influ-
ence shaping student engagement, and so likely held more mental repre-
sentations of the construct, as compared with Kayla.
In digging into the language the two teachers used, there is evidence of
the second point of contrast—oversimplification versus complexity. Tina’s
language revealed that she was grappling to understand the complexity of
engagement, whereas Kayla saw engagement in more simplistic terms. For
instance, in Tina’s first comment listed in Table 2, she asserted that she
found it “very challenging” to challenge simultaneously “a range of high-
performing to low-performing students all in one class,” and she reported
wanting to improve in that area. For instruction, Tina noted that hands-on
activities could be engaging because students were “actively doing some-
thing,” but she acknowledged variations in the extent to which various
lab activities were “really great” for engagement. In these comments, Tina
illustrated her understanding that attempting to engage all students dur-
ing all lessons was complex due to variations across students and academic
activities. By contrast, Kayla seemed content with simple explanations for
how to engage students—such as through hands-on History Alive lessons,
group work and group tests, and pacing that gave students “a chance” to
get engaged. Similarly, Kayla’s first comment in the student domain was
a globalized statement about static differences between AP and non-AP
students, with non-AP students being less likely to engage or have “high-
level conversations.” In her next comment, she described the prior year’s
entire junior class as unwilling to do “really, really basic stuff like complete
a worksheet.” Kayla did not attend to variations or complexities, but only
referred to students collectively as “they” or “most of my classes” and as-
serted that certain groups uniformly had tendencies to engage or pref-
erences for what they found engaging. Her phrasing suggested that she
saw the “class,” not individual students, as the primary unit of variation,
20
Table 2. Factors That Tina and Kayla Described as Contributing to Student Engagement, Along With Their
Comments
Domain of
Tina’s Factors and Comments Kayla’s Factors and Comments
Influence
Students Ability level and appropriate challenge Academic level
“We have a range of high-performing to low-performing “If I was to compare my third period to my sixth period, ugh,
students all in one class, and so it’s very challenging for us night and day. There’s no AP kids in [sixth period]. No pre-AP
to make it challenging for all those students, all in one class kids in there and I kinda have to remind myself I might have to
period. That’s something I would like to work on that I’m slow down a little bit because you’re not gonna have the same
not really sure how [to do].” kind of class engagement and high-level conversations.”
Openness to being engaged Student participation
“I think the determining factor is how open that student is “Last year’s class of juniors was literally the most challenging
to being engaged in what I’m trying to engage him or her class I’ve had. . . . It was like pulling teeth sometimes to get
21
in and to wanting to learn or to listen to what I have to say.” them just to do really, really basic stuff like complete a work-
sheet by the end of class.”
Instruction Labs and hands-on activities Fun, hands-on lessons
“I do a lot of hands-on stuff. . . . Students are engaged be- “I have included a lot more History Alive [hands-on] lessons . .
cause they’re actively doing something. But there are always . and they seemed to like it so that’s good.” “A lot of the more
the lab activities that you thought would be really great, and fun lessons that I got to do last year I just literally need to cut
then they’re not so great at all.” completely because we simply don’t have the time to do.”
Group work and group tests
“I restructured some lessons. . . . Stuff where they would usually
just be working individually, I tried to restructure it to where
they have to work in a group. . . . Most of my classes said they
really liked me throwing in group tests every now and then.”
Table 2. Factors That Tina and Kayla Described as Contributing to Student Engagement, Along With Their
Comments (continued)
Domain of
Tina’s Factors and Comments Kayla’s Factors and Comments
Influence
Pacing of content
“The curriculum has changed and U.S. history is getting bom-
barded with standards. . . . I feel like we’re going so fast that
the kids don’t really get a chance to get as engaged as they
normally would.”
Structures Class size
“Class size has incredibly made a difference.”
Teacher Teacher’s level of energy
22
“Sometimes I’m just not feeling it. My lecture, my energy
level’s not where it needs to be. Some days, we just gotta get
through this information so we gotta get through this infor-
mation. And their engagement is not as good as it could be.”
Connecting personally with students
“I did try the positive feedback, to talk to them more, to make
more of an effort to go, ‘You have a game tonight, right?’ or
‘What’s going on?’ To make a little more connection.”
Family Basic needs and well-being
“If they come into my class happy and fed and warm and
slept the night before [as opposed to] had a fight with mom
and dad last night or didn’t have any breakfast this morning
or there’s nothing in the fridge for the past three days.”
Parent involvement
“The parent involvement . . . I’m wondering if that engage-
ment is continuing at home.”
whereas Tina referred to variation at both the class and individual levels.
In these ways, Kayla’s conceptualization of engagement revealed more of
the types of oversimplification and over-regularization found in reductive
bias, as compared with Tina.
In contrasting this pairing, we also highlight differences in two addi-
tional facets of cognitive flexibility—prepackaged prescriptions versus
knowledge-in-use and passive versus active acquisition of knowledge. As we
have seen in Table 2, Kayla clearly held some prepackaged prescriptions
for engagement, such as believing that hands-on History Alive lessons and
group work would engage most, if not all, students. Elsewhere in her com-
ments, Kayla also made it clear that she was trying to determine “who to
listen to” when seeking guidance on what she should do in her classroom.
In the first year of the study, she stated:
As a faculty, we’ve been told, “Step away from the lecture style. It
doesn’t engage students.” OK, when you get to college, that’s all
it is, is lecture style. I’ve gotten four emails from four different
students who are now in college saying thank you so much for
teaching me how to take notes because that’s all we do in college.
Who do you listen to?
Two years later, in the third year, Kayla was still struggling with this same
conflict:
We’ve been told we want to do more group work, we want to do
more this and this, and that’s great and all. But if my kids leave my
classroom and they don’t know how to take notes, I’m doing them
a disservice. That’s what I’m worried about. Are you taking away
necessary skillsets to help you succeed later in life? So engage-
ment, yes I would like that to be a good focus. However, skillsets
I feel like is a little more important and applicable to your life.
Kayla was clearly conflicted about whether to abide by her administra-
tors’ edicts not to lecture or follow her own belief that lecturing was im-
portant for preparing students for college. Her phrasing opposed develop-
ing students’ skillsets to engaging students, and she appeared to believe that
only one of those goals could be the right one. We did not see evidence
that Kayla understood the inherent complexities in student engagement,
such that multiple realities could be true and that the ideas she described
were not necessarily competing. For example, it was unclear whether
Kayla recognized that there are ways to engage students in lectures, that
she could help students develop note-taking skills outside of lectures, and
that engagement is a conduit for student learning regardless of the form
of instruction. Further, she did not reference the possibility that different
23
students might have benefitted from lecture more than others, different
classes might have responded more to a lecture format, and different
content might have been better delivered through different instructional
formats. While we did not ask Kayla to comment on these possibilities ex-
plicitly, her comments suggested that she relied on prepackaged prescrip-
tions for engagement that were generalizable, context independent, and
situated in the knowledge of “experts” other than her.
By contrast, Tina indicated that she was constantly and actively working
to develop knowledge-in-use by looking for differences (e.g., in students’
ability levels, in lab activities, in her energy level, etc.) that accounted for
the variations in engagement that she observed. In her second-year focus
group, she explained, “You’re always kinda guessing, going, ‘Well, I think
[the lesson] didn’t work, but what do the students think about that? How
do they really feel about that? Are they getting it, or are they just kinda
staring at me?’” This comment suggested that Tina looked for evidence
from students to make assessments about the engagement and learning
potential of her instruction. It also revealed that Tina had an inquisitive,
growth mindset (Dweck, 2006) about her teaching, which emerged in
other comments as well. For example, Tina noted in the third year of the
study, her seventh year as a teacher, “Maybe I’m still figuring stuff out as a
teacher, trying to figure out who I am and what I’m doing.” She also said
to the researcher leading the focus group, “I’d like to email you and see
if I can get [survey results for] the two different classes in a breakdown,
because one’s an upper level course and one’s a lower level, and I’d like
to see how I approach the two differently.” This continual effort to try to
understand engagement and how to maximize it illustrated the complex-
ity Tina attributed to the domain, her tendency to reflect and inquire in
ways that developed knowledge-in-use, and the active role she played in
developing her own knowledge on engagement. In all of these ways, we
found Tina to possess more cognitive flexibility in regards to engagement
than Kayla.
Ken and Sean
Our second pairing illustrates the differing viewpoints of Ken and Sean,
both second-career male teachers who appeared to be between the ages of
50 and 60. In the first year of our study, Ken was in his 12th year of teach-
ing, and Sean was in his 17th. Ken taught Chemistry and AP Chemistry
and had average composite engagement scores close to the school mean
in the first year (–0.02 standard deviation units) and above the mean in
the second two years (0.28 and 0.13). We classified Ken as a transitional
teacher because he technically went from relatively less engaging to more
24
engaging over time. However, the insights revealed in his comments dem-
onstrated a high level of cognitive flexibility, and so we present him here
as demonstrating the perspective of a more engaging teacher. His counter-
part, Sean, was a math teacher who taught Pre-AP Algebra, Pre-Calculus,
and Pre-AP Pre-Calculus. Sean’s engagement scores across the three years
were –0.51, –0.55, and –0.32, all well below the school mean. Thus, Sean
represents the perspective of a relatively less engaging teacher. In Table 3,
we present the domains and factors to which Ken and Sean attributed en-
gagement, along with their comments on each factor. The table shows that
Ken noted eight factors across three domains of influence and Sean noted
seven factors across five domains. Unlike in the prior pairing, here the
less engaging teacher, Sean, referenced more domains of influence than
the more engaging teacher. At first glance, this might suggest that Sean
held a more complex mental representation of engagement. However,
in comparing these teachers’ comments within the domains they cite, it
is apparent that Ken had a much more sophisticated understanding of
the indicators and facilitators of engagement than Sean, even if he cited
fewer domains of influence. We use this pairing to illustrate how these two
teachers differed in (1) whether they drew on generalized principles or
noted variability across cases; (2) the degree to which they perceived
concepts of engagement to be compartmentalized or interconnected;
(3) the extent to which they were rigid or flexible in their schema assem-
bly; and (4) whether they were more passive or active in acquiring knowl-
edge on engagement.
The first two differences—generalized principles versus variability of cas-
es and compartmentalization versus interconnectedness—are evident in
how Ken and Sean talked about the factors they saw as impacting engage-
ment. As their first factor in the student domain in Table 3, both Ken and
Sean described how they saw the academic level of students and classes as
impacting their ability to engage students. While both acknowledged some
variability, Ken’s attention to variation was more nuanced and showed in-
terconnections across domains of influence, which Sean did not identify.
Making a stark generalization, Sean described students in pre-AP classes
as “the ones that are putting out the most effort” because they aspired to
become doctors or engineers, and he credited the switch to having all
pre-AP classes as the sole reason his survey scores increased. Ken similarly
compared classes with pre-AP students to classes with students who were
deemed academically “at risk,” but his comments revealed more mindful
attention to how variations in students’ academic needs had implications
for engagement. Ken observed that, because students in lower-level classes
needed more time and support to understand academic concepts, there
was a danger of having less personal student–teacher interactions and thus
25
Table 3. Factors That Ken and Sean Described as Contributing to Student Engagement, Along With Their
Comments
Domain of
Ken’s Factors and Comments Sean’s Factors and Comments
Influence
Students Academic level Academic level
“In at-risk classes, you’re dealing with students who need a “This year I have all pre-AP pre-calculus classes, and my
whole lot of work, basic things. With pre-AP students to a [survey] scores all went up. . . . They’re the ones that are
large degree, not all of them, but an awful lot of them, they’re putting out the most effort, because they want to go to
gonna get this. So how much time [and] detail you’re gonna medical school, they want to be an engineer. They see col-
spend on mechanics of doing the work is different. You can lege as the means to get there.”
change the way you’re interacting with students. . . . If you’re
not careful, [the at-risk class] becomes less personal.”
Variations in students’ needs Variations in students’ needs
26
“I don’t believe there is one thing that’s most important “If you’ve got a mixed [ability] class, where you’ve got the
because of the tremendous diversity in a class: the people that entire spectrum of students, it’s not just one motivational
. . . finish everything in the first 10 minutes and now they’ve technique. You have to figure out how to try to get every-
become a problem because you’re not challenging them . . . body focused. On a typical day, I will rewrite my lesson plans
all the way to students who need to be hand-held and shown three times.”
they can do it.”
Instruction Differentiation Fixing what does not work
“I’m reading about 10 books right now on differentiating “What you’re putting forth to the faculty [regarding en-
curriculum, differentiating assessment . . . and that has huge gagement], there’s not a good teacher in this building that
impacts on . . . how you present material and what your expec- does not already do it. When a test doesn’t work, they redo
tations are. . . . It has to do with autonomy and self-directed the test. When a lesson plan doesn’t work, they redo it.”
learners and relationships between teachers and students.”
Domain of
Influence
Self-directed learning opportunities
“The way we’re going to get engagement, I think, is a lot
different than what people think. . . . It’s going to be a lot
tougher. It’s not a matter of playing games every Friday. It’s
gonna be authentically handing this process over more and
more to students so it’s self-directed.”
Attention to relevance of content
“We will see significant improvements when we start attacking
why [we teach particular things], and I mean that from the
students’ point of view.”
Teacher Attempting to interest students Relationships with students
27
“Teaching a core science class, . . . a huge number of students “You have to have relationships with the students, but I
don’t want to be there at all. The approach to teaching don’t think it’s exclusive to the classroom. . . . If you want
under that kind of condition is completely different than them to get involved in your classroom, you get involved
[when] people want to study that subject. That’s a whole big in their activities . . . because a lot of the students’ parents
piece of the puzzle: trying to engage their interest, their real won’t do that.”
involvement.”
Relating to students Professional history with some students
“The old saying, ‘They don’t care how much you know until “The times that I’ve had previous students in my class, those
they know how much you care.’ I do believe that and so I try to are the most enjoyable classes because they understand
relate to the students.” what I expect of them, and I know them because a relation-
ship has already been formed. From those kids, it’s a whole
lot easier to generate a relationship with the entire class.”
Table 3. Factors That Ken and Sean Described as Contributing to Student Engagement, Along With Their
Comments (continued)
Domain of
Influence
Giving students attention
“Much of the time, the top students get attention and the
bottom students get attention, and in the middle, I’ve got this
group of students. . . . I would like to spend more time trying .
. . to make sure I’m engaging them and they’re not just name-
less, faceless.”
Peers Peer conflicts with classmates
“You can’t negate the effect of the other students in the

class. I’ve had cases where students have come into class
28
and they’ve had conflicts with not just one student, several
students. . . . They’re still learning the correct way of rectify-
ing interpersonal relationships.”
Family Family as source of motivation
“The majority of teachers know that the motivation for
education comes from the home.”
a less personal classroom climate. It was this difference in climate to which

Ken ultimately attributed varying levels of engagement. Further, Ken not-
ed variations within groups, particularly among pre-AP students, and he
corrected himself when he realized he was starting to generalize. Ken’s
comment also illustrates his attention to connections across domains of
influence—in this case, how academic ability shaped student–teacher rela-
tionships, which shaped the classroom climate. This insight demonstrated
a more nuanced, sophisticated, and interconnected understanding of en-
gagement, as compared with that held by Sean.
These same two points of contrast also come through in how Sean and
Ken described instructional factors related to engagement. Sean told the
researchers conducting the focus groups that “There’s not a teacher in
this building that does not already do” the engaging practices we advo-
cated in our presentation and assessed in our survey. He went on to say:
“The majority of what was presented is easily implemented because the
teachers are already doing the hard part. It’s the implementation, maybe
some additional praise in the classroom, things along that line.” Despite
the fact that his student engagement scores were considerably below the
school mean, Sean vastly oversimplified what it would take to increase
engagement throughout the school. In this and other comments, Sean
suggested that he and other teachers possessed the necessary knowledge
for engaging all students; they just needed to determine which strategies
to use on a given day or for a given lesson. He suggested that “redoing”
lessons and tests or “rewriting” lesson plans would resolve any disparities
in engagement. In such statements, Sean asserted that engaging students
was relatively simple and could be achieved through a series of general-
ized practices that teachers already knew. He saw only minimal need for
attending to variability across cases, and he made no references to connec-
tions across factors that impacted engagement.
By contrast, Ken’s comments on instruction demonstrated understand-
ing of overlapping, interconnected issues and the need for differentiation
to accommodate variability across cases. He linked differentiated curricu-
lum and assessment with the needs for student autonomy, self-directed
learning, and student–teacher relationships. He also referenced the need
to acknowledge students’ points of view on the content they were learning,
and emphasized that until students saw content as relevant there would be
no “significant improvements” in engagement. In his comments, Ken re-
vealed an understanding that engagement was complex, that it would be
“tougher” to increase than people expected, and that it was a “puzzle” with
multiple pieces. He also noted that, even with 12 years of teaching experi-
ence, he was still working to develop his practice around engagement. In
his comment on giving students attention, his final comment in Table 3,
29
Ken noted that he would like to do more to engage students “in the mid-
dle” of the academic hierarchy so they are “not just nameless, faceless.” In
this and other statements, Ken clearly refuted the notion that engagement
could be elicited through simple, generalized principles, and he asserted
that engagement required teacher action on multiple, complex fronts.
The third and fourth key differences across these two teachers—rigid
versus flexible schema assembly and passive versus active acquisition of
knowledge—came through in many comments, and in the fact that only
Ken referred to acquiring new knowledge on engagement. Sean’s com-
ments described above—that he and other teachers were “already doing”
what they needed to do to engage students and perhaps needed only “some
additional praise in the classroom, things along that line”—illustrated his
sense that he already possessed the knowledge for engagement. As Sean
was never specific about the types of engaging teaching practices he used,
we cannot determine if they were strategies he developed and flexibly
combined and recombined to fit the needs of various students, topics, or
lessons, or if they were strategies he received as precompiled “recipes” for
engagement. But we can conclude that Sean did not see his practice as
continuing to evolve at that time, despite having relatively low scores on
the student engagement survey. Ken, on the other hand, described read-
ing “about 10 books right now” that were expanding his instructional skill-
set and informing his thinking about teaching for engagement. As a way
to integrate his new learning into his evolving schema, he also identified
connections between (1) what he was learning about differentiating cur-
riculum and assessment from those books and (2) engagement practices
and concepts. This active acquisition and integration of new knowledge
demonstrated how Ken was building his own understanding of engaging
practice in ways that would allow him to be more flexible in his application
of his knowledge.
DISCUSSION
Through theoretical and empirical lenses, we have attempted to illus-

trate that teachers’ understanding of the indicators and facilitators of
student engagement has implications for their ability to engage students.
Theoretically, cognitive flexibility theory provides seven reductive biases
and remedies that can help us understand how teachers’ conceptualiza-
tions of student engagement can appear to fall short of the complexity
needed for teachers to enact advanced knowledge in flexible ways that en-
gage students across contexts and subject areas. Empirically, our research
findings suggest that teachers whom students found more engaging tend-
ed to illustrate more cognitive flexibility in how they thought about and
30
spoke about engagement. By contrast, teachers whom students rated as

less engaging tended to see engagement in more simplistic, singular, and
compartmentalized ways. Within these trends, the data provide compel-
ling evidence that individual teachers fall along the seven theorized con-
tinuums in terms of the extent to which they demonstrated cognitive flex-
ibility regarding engagement. By applying cognitive flexibility theory to
student engagement through these lenses, we feel convinced that efforts
to increase student engagement must include active professional learning
experiences for teachers that provide them with a deep and sophisticated
understanding of student engagement so that they can consistently and
expertly apply that knowledge in practice. In turn, we argue that a goal
of such professional development efforts would be to progressively move
people along the continuums from less to more cognitively complex think-
ing about engagement. To this end, we believe our findings raise the ques-
tion: How did more engaging teachers develop deeper, more complex understanding
of student engagement? We present several possibilities to explain how these
differences may have emerged naturally, as a way to theorize how all teach-
ers might acquire a more complex understanding of engagement.
One potential explanation is that some teachers gained cognitive flex-
ibility regarding student engagement through experience if they were
prone to certain habits of mind, such as being reflective. In prior analy-
ses of this data, we found that more engaging teachers were more likely
to be reflective about their teaching practice and adapt their teaching
midstream if they sensed that students were disengaged (Cooper Stein et
al., 2016). From the perspective of cognitive flexibility theory, we might
assert that these tendencies to respond to evidence about one’s teaching
may promote deductive learning from experience, which can lead to the
development of knowledge-in-use. Teachers who are not prone to reflec-
tive ways of thinking seemed to be less likely to develop cognitive flex-
ibility through experience. It is possible that these less reflective teachers
developed a tendency toward oversimplification in response to the com-
plex challenges of trying to engage students. Their reductive worldview
(Feltovich, Coulson, & Spiro, 2001) could be a response to repeated diffi-
culties in attempting to engage students and an effort to develop general-
ized principles to guide their practice instead.
Cognitive flexibility theory also suggests that more engaging teachers
developed a complex understanding through exposure to different repre-
sentations of engagement in various settings. Such experiences may have
promoted their understanding of variability across cases and contexts, and
supported their development of complex, flexible schema. These teachers
may have had opportunities to observe other teachers engaging students
in ways they had not previously encountered; they may have heard about
31
experiences in which teachers were effective in different ways; and they

may have worked with students with a wide range of backgrounds, needs,
dispositions, and orientations. As these teachers experimented with new
approaches, they may have been able to make connections among mul-
tiple alternative understandings. They may have been exposed to more
experiences that cultivated their flexible and complex understanding of
student engagement. Or perhaps they had both: exposure to different
representations of engagement in various settings and the habits of mind
to learn from that experience.
Another possibility is that cognitive flexibility was cultivated through
professional development and structured opportunities for coaching and
support. Some training or professional development programs may have
fostered the more engaging teachers’ schema assembly through mean-
ingful learning experiences involving application and synthesis of new
knowledge, rather than the memorization and retrieval of rigid or exist-
ing schemas. More engaging teachers may also have had opportunities for
participatory learning in which they were involved in active collaboration
and constructive experiences that required them to draw on multiple rep-
resentations to acquire new knowledge. These teachers may have been ex-
posed to different case studies of engagement to expand their awareness
of multidimensionality and variability of representations. Furthermore,
other individuals may have directly supported these more engaging teach-
ers in managing complexity by their own example or through mentoring,
guidance, and ongoing support. That less engaging teachers did not have
a similarly complex understanding suggests that teachers who do not gain
cognitive flexibility through experience require scaffolding to develop a
more complex understanding of how to engage students.
By bringing cognitive flexibility theory to the domain of student engage-
ment, we are setting a new research agenda focused on understanding how
to support the development of teachers’ cognitive flexibility regarding
student engagement and, in turn, engaging instruction. The understand-
ing that teachers are at different places in their development of cognitive
flexibility is critical for the design of future professional development to
enhance student engagement. The differences among teachers’ cogni-
tive flexibility and their abilities to engage students in the classroom indi-
cate the need to find ways to reconceive how we think about the purpose
and structure of professional development. In place of receiving a new
model, tool, or checklist, teachers need opportunities to grapple with the
complexity of engagement, to see and analyze various cases, and to build
schema in relation to their classroom practice. At the same time, it is im-
portant to address the contextual elements of teaching today. Rather than
placing another expectation on teachers, our intention in introducing the
32
notion of cognitive flexibility is to support teachers’ capacity to manage

the demands of teaching and their potential to promote meaningful en-
gagement in learning.
One implication from this theoretical and empirical examination is that
cognitive flexibility theory could guide the design of interventions that
promote teachers’ advanced knowledge acquisition in the domain of stu-
dent engagement. Cognitive flexibility theory asserts that re-presenting
the same information in different contexts and from different perspec-
tives can promote a more complex understanding and counter tendencies
toward oversimplification (Spiro & Jehng, 1990). We beseech researchers
and practitioners to develop intervention designs in which teachers study
different models of engagement through multiple mental and pedagogi-
cal representations. Teachers could collaborate with colleagues to critical-
ly examine and discuss multiple alternative student engagement models
and make connections among knowledge elements as well as applications
to teaching practice. Rather than the common approach of presenting
one model or conceptualization of engagement and then providing a list
of ways to change instruction, we advocate for teachers to be involved in
their schema assembly through a process of analyzing multiple models
in light of their perspectives on engagement and in the context of valid
learning purposes and tasks. The intention would be to present the com-
plexity of engagement as it naturally occurs so that teachers may acquire
knowledge of that complexity.
As part of these interventions, cognitive flexibility theory asserts teach-
ers best develop functional, conceptual understanding by looking at cases
of application with examples of engaging instruction and discussing mini-
cases drawn from full cases of instructional practice (Spiro et al., 2007b).
Effective interventions would thus include examination of mini-cases,
which could serve to consolidate the processes of acquiring experience,
analyzing teaching, and promoting teachers’ development of their own
schema. Teachers’ participatory learning and the opportunity to acquire
more case-processing experience could promote teachers’ capacity in the
ill-structured domain of engagement. In turn, the examination of knowl-
edge in many different ways could enhance multidimensional knowledge
representations regarding student engagement, and teachers’ capacity to
form complex and varied understandings incorporating other aspects of
existing knowledge, especially in new contexts that require knowledge use.
Furthermore, effective interventions would be ongoing and involve
structured support for teachers (Wei et al., 2009). Many teachers require
tutorial guidance, adjunct support, and coaching to develop the cognitive
skills needed to adapt, assemble, and apply knowledge in response to new
situations and different contexts (Spiro et al., 1988). There is a wide range
33
of variability in the way new knowledge may be used in the classroom,

and teachers need ongoing, structured support to be able to indepen-
dently apply their knowledge, rather than rely on prescribed tips and tech-
niques. In turn, it is essential that teachers have guidance, coaching, and
opportunities to collaborate over time as they learn about and critically
reflect on multiple representations of engagement and discuss the variety
of possibilities for knowledge use. School-wide examination of different
engagement theories and a focus on promoting student engagement in
the classroom, while acknowledging the important role of family, peers,
and broader socio-cultural contexts, could promote advanced knowledge
acquisition about student engagement without sacrificing complexity.
A second implication is the need for further research to determine fac-
tors that promote teachers’ development of cognitive flexibility over time
and ways to intentionally foster this development in school settings. In ad-
dition, the acknowledgement of the inherent simplification in student en-
gagement models, as well as relationships among different models, could
facilitate the use of engagement research in interventions for teachers.
We call for a synthesis of the different ways in which student engagement
is being studied and an organization of the types and purposes of various
models to support the use of this research in interventions designed to
promote teachers’ open and flexible knowledge structures regarding stu-
dent engagement.
CONCLUSION
Across the evidence presented here, we argue that cognitive flexibility the-
ory provides critical insight for conceptualizing how teachers understand
and enact classroom strategies for engaging students. The phenomenon
of “being engaged” with school and learning has extensive benefits for
all students (Shernoff, 2013), and thus efforts to increase and enhance
students’ experiences of engagement should be central to efforts to im-
prove teachers’ practice. To this end, we acknowledge the disservice to
teachers and students when teachers are presented with a list of tips or
techniques for engaging students through one model, conceptualiza-
tion, or tool for engagement. The tendency to simplify engagement for
educational practitioners undermines the often involved and challenging
work of cultivating rich, meaningful, and engaging classrooms and learn-
ing experiences for students. These experiences must be relevant to stu-
dents’ lives and provide them with opportunities to participate in discus-
sion, construct knowledge, and develop appreciation for the complex and
multidimensional nature of learning. Future research and practice will
not only benefit from, but also require, approaches to enhancing student
34
engagement that represent the complexity of engaging students and offer

a professional learning environment that promotes teachers’ deep learn-
ing experiences based on conceptual mastery, knowledge application, and
cognitive flexibility.
Notes
1. The name of the school and all participants are pseudonyms.

2. Compared with the school enrollment data, the survey option allowed stu-
dents to report as mixed race, so the smaller percentage of Latino and Black re-
spondents in the survey data are likely due to the 8% of students who self-identi-
fied as mixed race.
3. In a prior publication from this study (Cooper Stein, Kintz, & Miness, 2016),
Kayla was identified by the pseudonym Tiffany. However, to prevent readers from
confusing Tina and Tiffany, we have changed Tiffany to Kayla here.
35
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37
KRISTY COOPER STEIN is Assistant Professor of K–12 Educational

Administration at Michigan State University, where she teaches courses on
instructional improvement. Her research examines systematic approaches
to increasing student engagement in K–12 classrooms, with the ultimate
goals of enhancing student learning and increasing high school gradua-
tion rates.
ANDREW MINESS is a doctoral candidate in the educational policy

program at Michigan State University. In addition to exploring student
engagement, he is passionate about understanding the relationship be-
tween social studies education policy and practice in K–12 classrooms and
communities.
TARA KINTZ is the Director of the Fellowship of Instructional Leaders in

the Office of K–12 Outreach at Michigan State University. She specializes
in developing the capacity in principals, teachers, and leadership teams to
promote instructional improvement and student engagement, particular-
ly in reform contents and urban areas. Her interests include educational
policy and leadership, innovative practices in professional development,
and enhancing student engagement in learning.
38

Stein Et Al 2018 Teachers Cognitive Flexibility On Engagement and Their Ability To Engage Students A Theoretical and

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Teachers’ Cognitive Flexibility on Engagement

and Their Ability to Engage Students: A

KRISTY COOPER STEIN

Background: Student engagement is a cognitively complex domain that is often oversimpli-

Teachers College Record Volume 120, 060308, June 2018, 38 pages

Student engagement in the classroom—including active involvement

when communicating new findings. We further argue that presenting and

MODELING THE COMPLEXITY OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

their own complex schema and nuanced understandings of engage-

engagement. Specifically, Lawson and Lawson (2013) focus on interac-

As student engagement is a cognitively complex domain, we assert that

problems. A teacher holding just one mental representation of engage-

subjects every year with the same “prepackaged prescriptions”—perhaps,

Cognitive flexibility theory makes a compelling a priori case that teach-

In this second analysis, we turn our attention from teachers’ practice

We collected data at Lincoln High School,1 a large comprehensive high

Student participants were those who completed engagement surveys. In

regards to gender, experience, content area, responsiveness to school

Table 1. Overview of Teachers Participating in Focus Groups for Two or

Years of Standardized Mean

Paul* male 12 Special Ed — — —

In November of 2011, 2012, and 2013, teachers administered student sur-

For the present analysis, we created individual-level focus group transcripts

We acknowledge a number of potential limitations to this study. First, al-

We found that more engaging teachers more consistently provided evi-

Tina and Kayla

in two domains of students’ lives, while Tina considered five domains.

Teacher Teacher’s level of energy

Ken and Sean

Variations in students’ needs Variations in students’ needs

“You can’t negate the effect of the other students in the

a less personal classroom climate. It was this difference in climate to which

Through theoretical and empirical lenses, we have attempted to illus-

spoke about engagement. By contrast, teachers whom students rated as

experiences in which teachers were effective in different ways; and they

notion of cognitive flexibility is to support teachers’ capacity to manage

of variability in the way new knowledge may be used in the classroom,

engagement that represent the complexity of engaging students and offer

1. The name of the school and all participants are pseudonyms.

KRISTY COOPER STEIN is Assistant Professor of K–12 Educational

ANDREW MINESS is a doctoral candidate in the educational policy

TARA KINTZ is the Director of the Fellowship of Instructional Leaders in

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