Silver Linings and Storm Clouds: Divergent Profiles of Student Momentary Engagement Emerge in Response to the Same Task

Previous research has demonstrated that student motivation and engagement can take different forms across a variety of tasks at school or college. However, no research has yet examined the forms of student momentary engagement that emerge in response to a single task. Adolescent students (N = 196) from two low-income secondary schools in Dublin, Ireland were given the same English grammar task to complete in a 10-min period. We used systematic observation and posttask self-report measures to collect data on momentary cognition, emotion, motivation, and behavior. Using latent profile analysis, we discovered seven main forms of momentary (dis)engagement: fully engaged, attentive but amotivated, attentive but disinterested, attentive but disaffected, distracted but motivated, disengaged, and deeply disengaged. Gender, ethnicity, academic self-efficacy, peer support, and classmate cognitive engagement were notable predictors of group membership. The results should be useful to educators wanting to understand why students in their classrooms have a variety of responses to the same task. Educational Impact and Implications Statement When teachers give a class of school students the same academic task, this can provoke many different types of engagement and disaffection that are linked to students' individual characteristics and the motivation of other students in the class. Students who appear to be attentive while doing an academic task can simultaneously be demotivated and disaffected with the task. Peer support for learning and social inclusion, and individual self-efficacy, are important and malleable protective factors for momentary engagement in classwork. The design of academic tasks should ideally be calibrated for individual students in the classroom to promote momentary engagement.