Cognitive engagement and online learning in higher education
Professor Petrea Redmond (University of Southern Queensland), Stephanie M. Foote (Vice President for Teaching, Learning, and Evidence-Based Practices, Gardner Institute and Lecturer, Stony Brook University)
Over the past decade, there has been a substantial increase in research related to engagement in online and blended environments in higher education. There are a range of frameworks or models that exist to assist in the planning and auditing of engagement in courses or units. In most frameworks concepts such as social engagement, cognitive engagement, behaviour engagement, collaborative engagement and emotional engagement are discussed, and examples or alternative terminology are provided (see Redmond et.al., 2017).
This blog post focuses on cogitative engagement, which, for most educators, is perceived to be the most important form of engagement, yet there is less research on cognitive engagement in online learning environments compared to other forms of engagement. Cognitive engagement is the mental effort and actions of students in coming to know complex new ideas or master new skills. Where they make meaning, make links to current knowledge, think deeply about the content, think critically, reflect and justify answers or ideas. When teaching online educators will use different pedagogical practices to engage students in cognitive engagement.
Other terminology has been used in the research to mean the same or similar idea or are closely related. These include academic challenge, cognitive dissonance, paying attention to learning, intellectual engagement, cognitive presence, motivation, metacognition, self-regulation, learning strategies or disciplinary engagement.
When students engage in cognitive engagement, they use interdisciplinary skills to understand discipline specific knowledge, skills, and metalanguage. Further, students who demonstrate cognitive engagement are actively engaged in deep and integrative thinking—incorporating what they are learning into their existing knowledge. In an online learning environment, care must be given to the design and delivery of activities and assignments to help students engage more deeply in learning in the course.
To help students learn more deeply, Redmond et al., (2018) propose six indicators of cognitive engagement. While this is not an exhaustive list, it provides instructors ideas of how they might approach course design and delivery to foster cognitive engagement.
- Thinking critically – Designing assignments and activities that encourage students to pause and reflect, as well as make and defend a decision
- Activating metacognition – Encouraging students to become aware of gaps in their knowledge and understanding of key concepts and ideas in the course and seeking out sources to help fill those gaps
- Integrating ideas – Asking students to synthesize, compare and contrast, and explain the relationships between ideas and concepts in the course
- Justifying decisions – Supporting a viewpoint or decision, sometimes activated through the use of case studies, can help students learn to justify their decisions
- Developing deep discipline understandings – This indicator draws from all of the previous indicators to help students consider the connections to disciplinary knowledge and ideas
- Distributing expertise – Creating and applying new knowledge to demonstrate mastery of a concept or idea
If you are interested in more information related to Cognitive Engagement in higher education from a researcher, academic or 3rd space instructional designer perspective, consider the , HERDSA Guide – Enhancing Online Engagement in Higher Education
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References
Redmond, P., Heffernan, A., Abawi, L., Brown, A. & Henderson, R. (2018) An online engagement framework for higher education. Online Learning Journal, 22(1), 183-204. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v22i1.1175
Brown, A., Lawrence, J., Redmond, P., Cohen, J., Foote, S.M., & Stone, C. (2023). HERDSA Guide: Enhancing Online Engagement in Higher Education. HERDSA. https://www.herdsa.org.au/publications/guides/enhancing-online-engagement-higher-education