Student engagement : the research methodology and the theory

The project Teachers for a Fair Go set out to pay close attention to exemplary teaching practice in low SES school communities. What successful teachers in such schools do in their classrooms is an important story that needs to be told in a thorough and comprehensive way. In fact, Teachers for a Fair Go sits within a larger program of research that we have come to call the Fair Go Program (FGP). The Fair Go Program of research has investigated the relationship between teachers' pedagogies and student engagement for over ten years. The stories about teaching reported in this book reflect this research concentration on the practices of teachers identified for their engaging pedagogies, and who have committed themselves to improved social and academic outcomes for students who live in poverty. There are three sections in this chapter. The first is a description of the research processes used in the collection and analysis of data in Teachers for a Fair Go. The second is the story of the historical development of theory on student engagement and the framework that was used in the collection and analysis of data in the Teachers for a Fair Go project. The third section describes how this theoretical framing was used in Teachers for a Fair Go.