A tool for assessing engagement in instructional contexts

Engaging activities are enriching ones. To determine whether an instructional activity is engaging, it helps to divide an activity into separate domains, and to rate the activity for the degree to which it fosters engagement in each of the domains. A tool made up of six domains of instructional practice is described in this article, based on the literature of teacher-child interactions in classrooms. The tool's domains are: the challenge of the activity, level of implementation, quality of instructional discussion, quality of instructional feedback, and quality of procedural and substantive involvement. The tool is offered as a way to evaluate and enhance engagement of children in classroom interactions as well as of adults in clinical interactions. After examining samples of engagement taken from children in classroom activities according to this construct, the observational tool is then applied to the analysis of a therapy session involving an adult with aphasia.