Measuring engagement structures in middle-grades urban mathematics classrooms

Abstract

Engagement structures are idealized psychological constructs that have been proposed as a way of understanding students’ affect in classroom situations involving conceptually challenging mathematics. Efforts to infer and measure such structures were based initially on classroom videotapes and retrospective interviews with students. Here we focus on the design of and preliminary results from a questionnaire administered immediately following problem solving activity. Encouraged by our findings to this point, we describe the design for an improved, more comprehensive instrument to assess the activation of various engagement structures in mathematical contexts.