Executive Summary In recent years, there has been growing awareness on the importance of student engagement for learning

and achievement. The likelihood of successful school completion is maximized by student involvement and participations with the schooling process that fosters a sense of commitment and belongingness. Phenomenological aspects of high involvement in classrooms include concentrated attention, interest and enjoyment as opposed to apathy and lack of interest with instruction. High engagement during tasks in classrooms has been significant predictor of continuing motivation and commitment as well as overall performance in the school. Student engagement is influenced by a variety of aspects such as Phenomenological factors including relevance of instruction and perceived control. It can also be affected by contextual and classroom factors such as instructional format and school subjects. Student engagement is defined as attention, interest, investment and effort put forth toward learning by students, implying both affective and behavioral participation in the learning experience which is consistent with students involvement with school, mastering the knowledge, skills or crafts that academic work is intended to promote, and their motivation to learn. Just as important is that, while student engagement is linked to higher achievement in relation to learning goals, if it is lacking, student achievement suffers and retention can be spiral downward. The major sub areas of student engagement include instructional design, pedagogy, and teaching as performance.

With the concern about the components of student engagement and their indispensable relationship, the present study entitled Student Engagement in Teaching Learning Process at Primary Level Schools in Andhra Pradesh was

aimed to observe various processes of the classroom and the implementation of innovative programs for the sustained student engagement and meaningful learning. The study was conducted in sixty schools drawn from three districts of Andhra Pradesh. The types of schools selected for the study were rural, urban and tribal schools from Mahaboob Nagar, Ananthapoor and Vizianagaram Districts. The rationale behind the selection of the districts was the region wise variation viz. Telangana, Rayalaseema and Andhra. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were employed to collect and analyze the data. In the present study attempt was made to observe different aspects of classroom processes like teacher planning, management and instruction which in turn will influence student engagement directly. A comprehensive analysis of the results reveal the facts which cause worry in the wake of growing emphasis on quality education from parents and growing societal pressure towards universal access to quality education. This is especially in the context of increased competition from private schools in Andhra Pradesh. One of the major objectives of the study was to find how well the teacher planned and prepared for the teaching learning process so as to engage the students to the maximum extent. The results revealed that majority of the teachers hardly had any planning and preparation either for the instruction or for the students to be on task. There was no idea for teachers about the essential aspects like allocated time, time on task and student engagement. The development of objectives was not appropriate to the learning and most of the teachers developed objectives from their perspective i.e. teaching objectives rather than learning objectives from the students perspective. Only 21.6% of the school teachers had lesson plan with regard to the competencies to be elicited after the lesson has been taught, but they were not clear
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about what to do or what activities to provide students to reach the goal. Almost none of the teachers had a series of priorly prepared questions to induce higher order thinking among the students. In only 25% of the schools students were clarified why they are being taught the particular content. Majority of the teachers didnt assess the preexisting knowledge of the students before the instruction. There was no stress on the major concepts of the lesson in many schools. Clear instructional goals suitable for diverse students were observed in only 8.3% of the schools and evaluation methods congruent with the instructional goals were found in only 6.6% of the schools. On the whole it can be said that there was lack of focus on the content to be coved and as well as on students needs. Another objective of the study was to observe various classroom activities during the teaching learning process. The results indicated a significant relation between the teacher behavior and student engagement. Though in many schools (76.6%), teachers encouraged students to participate actively in the process, learning was very less as teachers were unsuccessful in connecting the students to the learning objectives. Questions framed by the teachers were of lower level and they didnt evoke any curiosity among the students about the content covered. Teachers supervision on students to be on task was observed in 71.6% of the schools but the relationship among them was not positive enough where students were hesitating to verbalize their learning back. No congenial environment was provided to the students for the classroom discussions; only 5% of the schools did it. Project work was encouraged in 35% of the schools but the students were not clear about its purpose and appropriate feed back was not provided to the students. No proper methodology was followed for the project work. Different types of task in which students were engaged during the teaching learning process as its third objective, the study revealed the following facts. Mostly students were engaged (91.6%), in mass answering to teachers questions.
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Brainstorming was observed in only 30% of the schools. Tasks in which students were engaged like contribution to the group work (6.6%) and rising doubts/asking questions (1.6%) were very less observed. It was evident that the concept of student engagement was not clear to the teachers and care has to be taken by the authorities to make the concept understood. It was also observed that in most of the schools the teachers are still acting as sole disseminators and students are still in the role of recipients. The results clearly indicate that opportunities for active participation of the students have to be enormously increased for the improved and meaningful engagement of the students. Next objective was aimed at various interactions of the classroom viz. teacher-pupil, pupil-teacher, pupil-pupil, and pupil-material. Instructional explanation by the teacher was evident in 78.3% of the schools, which is almost common among all the schools with regard to the teacher-pupil interaction context. Other interactions include discussion, reviewing assignments, questioning and dictating steps to complete the given task but they were very less frequent. Pupilteacher interaction was little except students answering the teacher posed questions. Exploration, demonstration and clarification of the content on the part of the student were not worth noticeable. There were no opportunities created for pupil-pupil interaction during the teaching learning process. And the learning objectives were not communicated at all for the pupil-material interaction. There was no clarity to the students about what to learn and what they gain by interacting with the TLM. One more objective of the study was the nature and role of teaching learning methods and materials for sustained engagement of the pupils in the learning process. In this aspect, only in 58.3% of the schools, teachers used TLM in sync with the content to be covered but in only 51.6% of the schools, teachers used them efficiently. Child centered methods / activity based teaching methods involving pupils participation was followed in 61.6% of the schools. Alternative methods like
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media and questioning was used by 68.3% of the schools. The most important and essential teaching aid, black board was efficiently used in 31.6% of the schools. Teachers could use students work for further lesson explanation in only 5% of the schools. The present study was also intended to focus on the present status of the innovative programs implementation in schools. The findings revealed that most of them were being implemented foe names sake. Wall magazine was present in 83.3% of the schools .Though diaries were observed in 78.3% schools, not all students are encouraged to write and the way of expression denoted that they were dictated by teachers and were very monotonous. Post box (71.6%), classroom libraries (85%) and children committees (78.3%) were observed. On the whole, in this aspect also the purpose of the programs was not communicated to students and they were unaware of the relationship of these programs with that of their learning. The critical analysis of the data drawn from the present study implies that there is radical change which is required to improve the student engagement in order to offer a meaningful learning to the students. The teacher behaviors like planning, management and instruction have direct implications for quality of education. Students engagement has a direct and corresponding relation to the teacher behavior, thus the quality of learning and performance of the student is linked to the effective teaching learning process.