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The Research Behind Decision Based Learning

This year I embarked on two rounds of action research aimed at better understanding the relationship between student engagement and self-determination theory. A summary of both rounds of research as well as my research poster, paper, literature review, and presentation, can be found below.

*Click on the graphs to see an enlarged version.

Round 1

Question: What impact does providing more opportunities for student choice have on student engagement?

Introduction: This study is contextualized in the present and ever-changing landscape of education. Technology has brought changes to society that are not only happening faster and with greater importance, but are undoubtedly impacting students' futures. Commonly discussed among educators dedicated to providing students with a 21st century education is the fact that students need to be prepared today for the unknown possibilities of tomorrow. The school system being used now was established at the dawn of the industrial revolution, and was designed to provide students with the knowledge needed to work in factories. This educational model is now antiquated and unable to provide students with the skills they need in order to be successful in the modern world.

Context: Within both my class and the nation there are ever increasing numbers of students who struggle to engage with content material and have therefore been declining academically. This problem is especially pronounced in California because a lack of engagement has been shown to be prominent among English Language Learners, a growing population not only in the state, but in the country as well.

Results: At the end of my first round of research I had promising, but somewhat vague results. The data showed a very slight general rise in student engagement, but the shift was not large enough to be statistically significant. I decided to implement another round of action research The second round would be implemented for longer in the classroom and decision making opportunities would be better structured in order to better support my students.

Academic Growth From Both Rounds of Research

Student Interest From Both Rounds of Research

Daily Engagement From Round 1 of Research

Round 2

Question: What impact does providing structured opportunities for student choice have on student engagement?

Introduction: Barry Schwartz's article Can There Be Too Many Flowers Blooming? introduces an idea Schwartz calls choice overload. Choice overload is a negative reaction people have when they are presented with too many choices. While he concedes that having limited choices is important to a person's sense of freedom and agency, Shwartz describes how an abundance of choice is often accompanied by an abundance of stress.

I believe that my students were experiencing choice overload during the first round of action research and so I wanted to discover what the right amount of choice was for my students. I created a unit which provided opportunities for students to choose between a number of resources to inform research projects they would present to the class at the end of four weeks. Each week students were given an increased amount of resources to choose from. I then, using daily engagement self-assessments tracked how their engagement changed over the course of the unit.

Results: My second round of action research yielded positive and exciting data. Students were most engaged when they were given three or four different sources to choose from, but showed a decrease in engagement above that amount. The data also showed an increase in student engagement compared to the first round of action research. This means that providing students with structured opportunities to make meaningful decisions raises their engagement dramatically.

Daily Engagement From Round 2 of Research

Engagement Relative to Choice Abundance
From Round 2 of Research

Poster

Research Paper

Click here to open my research paper in a Google Doc.

Literature Review

Click here to open my Literature Review in a Google Doc.

Round 1 Research Presentation

Design Process

Support and Next Steps