Grant recipients:
Daniel Smilek, Department of Psychology
Jeffrey D. Wammes, Yale University
(Project timeline: January 2018-December 2019)
Description
Preliminary findings from our in-class studies suggest that students’ engagement varies systematically as course content changes, and that there might be a disconnect between what instructors think students find engaging, and what students actually find engaging. We propose to develop software applications that will monitor student engagement during lectures in real-time, together with the visual and auditory content being presented by the instructor, and instructor-perceived estimates of student engagement. These applications will then be implemented in several large undergraduate courses. By merging data from the foregoing applications, we will be able to provide instructors with a clear picture of what specific content is associated with high and low levels of student engagement, and to what extent students’ reports of their engagement match the instructors’ judgments. This will give instructors a tool to maximize student engagement by helping them make targeted changes to their lecture content.