Student Voice and Choice in the Classroom: Promoting Academic Engagement

Abstract

Centering the concept of student voice, this chapter makes three key contributions to the research on instructional practices that promote active learning and engagement. First, using research-based vignettes, it explains what student voice practices look like in the classroom and how they differ from the provision of choice. Second, it reviews the research linking student voice practices and choice practices to deeper engagement and learning. Third, drawing on original survey, interview, and focus group data, it illustrates how student voice practices and choice practices enhance affective, behavioral, and cognitive student engagement from the perspectives of both students and teachers. This chapter offers useful guidance to educators who wish to expand their active learning pedagogical repertoires to include student voice practices.

1. Introduction

I think when the teachers are more communicative with their students, their students choose to be more active in learning just because they feel comfortable with the teacher. They know that they are being listened to, that they can say their opinions without being judged, compared to a teacher that’s just kind of teaching the lesson. They’re like, “Oh, she’s just here to do her job.” There’s no relationship with the student, so they just kind of go along with the class.

In the quotation above, a U.S. high school student describes two different kinds of classroom environments: one that fosters students’ engagement in active learning and one that promotes a more passive approach to learning, where students “just kind of go along with the class.” The former classroom is characterized by open communication between teacher and students, positive relationships, feelings of comfort, and the ability for students to speak up to share their opinions. In the latter classroom, the teacher delivers content without regard for students’ opinions, ideas, needs, or preferences as learners.

A great deal of research and theory supports this student’s perspective that student voice can be a key feature of an engaging classroom environment; however, for a variety of reasons, student voice practices remain rare in secondary school classrooms [1, 2, 3, 4]. By student voice practices, we are not referring to a teacher calling on a student to answer a question about the lesson or a student participating in a class discussion; instead, we define student voice practices as strategies that invite student feedback on, input into, or collaborative decision-making about educational planning, delivery, assessment, or reform. In this chapter, we offer examples of classroom-based student voice practices (SVPs), clarify how they differ from choice practices, and explain how both sets of practices promote active learning and student engagement, drawing on extant research and our own data. It is our hope that this chapter offers educators a roadmap and rationale for incorporating SVPs into their instructional repertoires.

2. Conceptualizing student voice practices: Illustrative vignettes

2.1 Overview of student voice practices

Classrooms that feature SVPs are often marked by high levels of active learning. Active learning can be defined as activities that involve students in “doing things and thinking about what they are doing” [5]. Theorists emphasize that active learning requires higher-order thinking, including metacognition [6, 7]. Because SVPs require students to reflect on and articulate their needs, preferences, and goals as learners, active learning and SVPs go hand in hand.

Both students and teachers benefit from SVPs. These practices grant opportunities for student leadership and self-determination, as students learn to share their thoughts, opinions, needs, and preferences. Likewise, teachers can benefit from gaining a new perspective on their students and their own instructional practice [8], when students disclose information or share ideas that teachers had never considered. In this way, SVPs can help develop teachers’ habits of reflective practice. As they contemplate the ideas students share about how their experiences as learners could be improved, teachers may be inspired to question and change their approaches. Such changes may further empower and engage their students, while strengthening teachers’ own sense of efficacy as flexible adaptive educators and reflective practitioners. When teachers are receptive to students’ contributions, SVPs can also generate a shared pursuit of learning and development. Indeed, SVPs have been linked to more inclusive learning environments, a greater sense of belonging for students, and more responsive pedagogy.

Educators wishing to engage in effective SVPs can use a variety of strategies to invite their students into conversations that transform a classroom. These strategies can be discussion-based, survey-based, or more creative, involving picture drawings, skits, social media posts, or photo essays; they can target students one-on-one or in small groups, or they can engage the whole class. SVPs can focus on issues of curriculum, instruction, assessment and homework, classroom culture, the overall learning experience, or some combination thereof.

Research has found that three types of SVPs tend to show up in the classroom [9]: seeking students’ input into educational planning, delivery, or assessment; seeking students’ feedback on educational planning, delivery, or assessment; and collaborating with students to make decisions about educational planning, delivery, or assessment. While input is prospective, feedback is retrospective. Both are consultative: students offer up ideas and suggestions, teachers take them into account, and then teachers explain how students’ perspectives informed their decision-making. Meanwhile, collaborative decision-making, the rarest form of SVP [9], involves the students and the teacher making determinations for the class collectively and then taking action on the basis of those decisions. To help concretize these practices, this section offers research-based vignettes of the three different types of SVPs along with recommendations for successful implementation.

2.2 Vignette of input

The bell rings and students shuffle into Mx. Slear’s 11th grade English class. Today the class is beginning a new argument unit. Rather than give a list of topics for students to choose from, Mx. Slear invites students to the front of the class to build lists of local, national, and global issues that most concern them. Expo markers in hand, students offer responses that range from drug use to pollution, forest fires to starvation - all topics that students are curious or passionate about and many of which have affected them personally. Mx. Slear closes out their time together with a simple, yet powerful recognition of student voice: “Thank you for your brilliant responses. I will use your thoughts to select the readings for the next unit…” Students excitedly make eye contact with one another, eager to find out which of their ideas will be picked first.

The next day, desks are rearranged in small groupings to facilitate the class activity. Two learning objectives are scrawled across the white board at the front of the room:

1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

2. Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

Mx. Slear welcomes students to the class, reviews the learning objectives, and acknowledges their contributions to the day’s lesson. “Yesterday, you all helped come up with problems that matter to you. You told me these were problems you were facing that you wanted to learn more about. That’s how I came up with what we’re reading today. One of the things you identified was access to clean water, so that’s the topic for today. Take a look at this with me, team.” Mx. Slear passes out a photocopied article to the class. One student nudges another, and enthusiastic hushed whispers fill the room, as they flip to the first page.

2.2.1 Tips/application

Notice how the teacher used student input to form the curricular content of the unit, while continuing to address proscribed state standards for student learning outcomes. Instead of making assumptions about the interests of students, even from a previous semester, Mx. Slear took intentional time to ask the students to generate topics that were relevant to them. This pedagogical move initiated buy-in from students, who were more likely to have interest in the material because of having chosen it themselves. Additionally, notice how powerful it was that the teacher reminded students that the reading was selected on the basis of their ideas. This momentary acknowledgement demonstrates responsiveness to student input and indicates to students that their voice matters.

2.3 Vignette of feedback

On the first day of the school year, Ms. Perez welcomes students to her English class, introduces herself, tells them a little about the focus of the course and the exciting things they will be learning that year. To introduce her classroom procedures and student expectations, she passes out a handout to each student with her tardy policy, her cell phone policy, her expectations around homework and participation, and her grading system. She then explains that these are all in draft form and she’d like student feedback to improve them. Beside each policy is a question asking students to check a box: “keep as is” or “adapt” with space for written explanation. After several minutes, she opens dialog with the class, “Do you think these are fair procedures and expectations? Is there anything you would add? Anything you think we should change?” She allows students to offer suggestions verbally, while some choose to respond with written feedback. Rather than dismissing or disagreeing with these suggestions, she thanks each student for their idea and nods appreciatively. She sometimes asks a follow up question or two to make sure she understands. She then asks all students, “Please continue to mark up your papers with suggestions; they could be based on things you heard from classmates or other ideas you may have. Give your reasons too! Please hand them back in before the bell rings, and I will look at them tonight and fine-tune the policies based on your feedback for us to review together tomorrow.”

The next day, Ms. Perez thanks students for their insightful feedback. She projects her policies, expectations, and grading system on the smart board, with strike-throughs and different color fonts to show how she has adjusted them based on student feedback. She explains how the feedback she received caused her to rethink and modify certain policies. For example, she has agreed to limit the at-home reading assignments to 15 pages a night based on student accounts of their after-school responsibilities, and she agrees to allow students to keep their phones in their bags or pockets, rather than placing them in the pouches by the door when they enter because of student concerns about reaching their parents in the case of an emergency. She also acknowledges certain points of feedback that she was unable or unwilling to incorporate and provides her reasoning. She thanks them again for their constructive feedback and explains that if they have further suggestions as the school year progresses that they are always welcome to offer it and she will give it serious consideration. Ms. Perez closes by encouraging students to use the “suggestion box” on her desk, that is available for students to write anonymous feedback about their classroom or learning experience all year round.

2.3.1 Tips/application

Ms. Perez provided meaningful opportunities for student feedback. Most often, feedback is sought through surveys. Surveys can be given at various points in the school year, not just at the beginning or end of a term. Questions on the surveys can focus on curricular content, class structure, specific course assignments, class policies, or even teaching style. When asking more personal questions, teachers must have an established relationship with students, as students are unlikely to offer honest responses if they do not feel a sense of safety and trust. Ensuring confidentiality, explicitly stating a lack of recrimination for candid responses, and expressing a genuine desire to learn from students’ answers can help students to feel comfortable and secure as they provide feedback. In addition, circling back to students to explain how their feedback was used to inform changes moving forward is a critical part of the process.

2.4 Vignette of collaborative decision-making

It was the mid-marking period blues, and both students and teachers alike were feeling distracted. Mr. Lee’s 7th period algebra class seemed less productive than usual, as students frequently asked for bathroom passes, excused themselves to get materials, or simply stood up and wandered around the room. Mr. Lee read a recent blog post on promoting increased engagement through flexible seating, but he wanted to invite his students into the conversation before approaching administration for new furniture and rearranging the room. “After all, it’s just as much my classroom as it is their learning space.” So, at the start of class, he simply asked his students, “Why do you stand up? Is there anything in this physical space that we could change to contribute to your learning?”

Talking to students gave Mr. Lee an opportunity to learn what they needed. Students explained: “I come from straight from P.E. and this tiny desk makes my legs start to cramp;” “I get claustrophobic sometimes, so it helps me to get up and stand near the window to see outside;” “My glasses broke, so I have to get up to look at the board;” and “Sometimes after sitting all day, my legs get restless, but I don’t wanna bounce my knees on the desk and be annoying.” It was clear the students wanted a change in environment, so Mr. Lee investigated flexible seating options. After sharing which furniture options were available, he invited students to submit floor plan suggestions to their class ombudsman, who created three options for the class to vote on based on the expressed needs and preferences of all students. Students anonymously voted on which design they liked best. Then, a small group of student volunteers worked together with Mr. Lee and the class ombudsman to write a proposal to administration, which was ultimately funded.

Now, the room is a mix of high-top tables, bean bag chairs, traditional desks, and tables situated towards the front of the room. Students are not assigned seats; rather they have the agency to decide where they sit each day. “I think just talking with our kids and having kids that wanted to talk made a difference in the classroom and their learning experience.”

2.4.1 Tips/application

Collaborative decision-making rarely occurs in U.S. schools, because it requires the teacher not only to take into account the opinions and desires of the students but also to share responsibility with them. This powerful tool affirms student voice and leaves space for various needs to be shared. As in the example above, Mr. Lee knew that flexible seating could increase engagement of his classroom based on evidence-based research. However, instead of introducing new furniture and rearranging the space on his own, he first solicited student voice. With a posture of openness and curiosity, he was able to learn about the unique needs of his students. Notice also how students developed the ideas for the design of the classroom learning environment (within the bounds of what was available), rather than being given prescribed choices. Having a class ombudsman also affirmed collective student responsibility for their learning environment.

2.5 A word about choice

We argue that important conceptual distinctions can be drawn between SVPs and choice practices (CPs) in the classroom based on the ultimate goals and core processes of each. SVPs invite students to dream up possibilities and offer ideas that the teacher may not have considered, whereas CPs involve predetermined choices offered up by the teacher. When student voice is practiced, students generate ideas, reflect on their experiences as learners, and share perspectives intended to improve their learning environments and outcomes. In order for SVPs to be effective, teachers must strive to pair the practice with an openness to learning from students and a willingness to make changes based on students’ perspectives. CPs, by contrast, are means of engaging students and giving them a sense of autonomy, but they are not typically used to transform or improve the learning experience.

Although SVPs and CPs can be distinguished, they can overlap. For instance, collaborative decision-making may reflect choice when students are choosing among options that have been set by the teacher. For example, a class vote to decide which of two review activities they will do that period (a practice test or an online game), both created and proposed by the teacher, exemplifies a CP. When the options are supplied by the students, however, collaborative decision-making is better situated squarely within SVPs. Students are still making choices, but their choices are not limited to those anticipated by their teachers. Figure 1 represents the relationship between SVPs and CPs in the classroom.

Figure 1.

The distinctions and overlap between SVPs and CPs in the classroom.

We offer this Figure and argument in an effort to move the field towards greater conceptual precision and clarity; however, as will be seen in the literature review and data presentation below, many educators and researchers see choice as a form of voice and equate CPs with SVPs.

3. Review of research on student voice practices, active learning, and engagement

Much of the research on student voice focuses on school-level SVPs, what Skerrit and colleagues call “management-level consultation” [4], such as principal advisory boards, student councils, students serving on temporary student working groups, and student-led action research to drive school improvement [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15]. This research finds that such SVPs can improve learning conditions for students, as students feel “a greater sense of inclusion, validation, and agency, which increases their learning engagement” [16, p. 227; see also 8, 17]. In one study, students who felt that they had a voice in school decision-making were eight times more likely to experience engagement in school [2]. The counterfactual has also been established: when students feel they have no voice in shaping their school experience, disengagement and alienation become adaptive responses [18, 19, 20].

Research on classroom-level SVPs, what Skerrit and colleagues call “instructional-level consultation” [4], is more limited; however, some case studies in Physical Education [21, 22, 23], Arts [24, 25], and Science classrooms [26, 27, 28] illustrate how teachers can incorporate SVPs into their repertoires of practice and the effects on students when this is done. Again, most of this research emphasizes how such practices enhance student engagement. In their study of Year 5 & 6 classrooms in Australia, for example, Scarapolo & MacKinnon found that students not only reported more motivation and engagement but also better work products when voice-inclusive practices were used in concert with differentiated instruction [3]. Similarly, Seiler found “more promising patterns of student engagement emerge” when students experienced voice in the classroom [28, p. 372]. Drilling down into these relationships, Conner and colleagues found that students’ reports of being listened to by their teachers were related to greater affective engagement and stronger student-teacher relationships, which in turn, were related to higher behavioral and cognitive engagement [29].

Studies of classroom SVPs highlight some specific instructional strategies, all of which might promote active learning, though this specific term is not regularly used. These strategies include encouraging student feedback [30], deciding collectively the structure of projects and agreed assessment criteria [1], inviting students to identify potential topics in the content area and develop driving questions [28], and offering project-based learning activities [30, 31].

Choice, however, is the most frequently discussed strategy in classroom-focused SVP literature, and choice and voice are frequently conflated by scholars, blurring the boundaries between the two. For example, Baroutsis and colleagues (2015) explain that “the provision of choice and where possible, the inclusion of young people’s interest in the curriculum is an element of student ownership and of being heard in school” (p. 133). St. John and Briel assert that “instructional types of student voice” entail allowing students to choose the format to complete an assignment or a class project of interest [30]. Scarapolo and MacKinnon describe student choice of “how they worked, who they worked with, the pace they worked at, and how they demonstrated their learning” as voice-inclusive practices [3]. Studying teachers who use student voice in their classrooms, Hopkins [32] found that they routinely offer students choices and see this practice as emblematic of their SVP. CPs are seen by both teachers and scholars as prime examples of classroom SVPs.

Not as a SVP, but as an “autonomy-supportive practice,” choice has been well-researched as a driver of student engagement in the classroom [33, 34, 35, 36, 37]. Schmidt and colleagues, for example, found that having choice in the classroom is associated with greater engagement than having no choice, and that specific types of choices yield differential impacts [38]. Choosing the topic, task, or how to define the problem has the most positive effect on engagement; choosing materials, how to use their time, and how to do activities also exerts a positive influence. By contrast, choosing whom to work with did not yield greater engagement [38]. This research suggests that the choice of what matters to student engagement in the classroom.

To explore whether CPs have a different effect than the SVPs of input and feedback on student engagement, we conducted a survey study of 1751 students from two middle schools and two high schools in an urban school district serving a high proportion of low-income Latiné students [39]. Controlling for students’ school, gender identity, racial identity, grade level, socioeconomic status, and English Learner status, we found that CPs were not always a significant predictor of student engagement, but SVPs were. Furthermore, the more of their teachers who used the SVPs of seeking input and feedback, the greater academic engagement students reported [39]. In follow-up analyses, we found that seeking students’ input and feedback on how to improve the classroom is significantly associated with higher affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement, while offering students choice in the classroom is only associated with greater affective and cognitive engagement (See Table 1). In what follows, we turn to the qualitative data we collected in these same school sites to understand these relationships.

	Overall engagement β (SE)	Affective engagement β (SE)	Behavioral engagement β (SE)	Cognitive engagement β (SE)
Female	.12 (.04)***	.07 (.05)*	.17 (.04)***	.09 (.05)**
Latiné	−.04 (.04)	−.03 (.05)	−.05 (.04)	−.03 (.05)
Grade level	−.06 (.02)	−.12 (.02)**	−.04 (.02)	−.02 (.02)
ELL services	−.01 (.05)	.02 (.06)	−.08 (.05)*	.02 (.06)
FFS	.02 (.03)	−.04 (.04)	.05 (.03)	−.01 (.04)
Feedback/Input	.28 (.04)***	.30 (.04)***	.10 (.04)*	.28 (.05)***
Choice	.13 (.04)**	.10 (.05)*	.09 (.04)	.14 (.05)**
R^2	.16***	.15***	.07***	.15***

Table 1.

Relationships between soliciting student input/feedback, providing choice, and student engagement.

Note. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001; Standardized coefficients are reported; School sites were coded as dummy variables and were controlled for in analyses. ELL = English language learner; FFS = Family financial strain.

4. How and why SVPs and CPs promote active learning and enhance engagement

Our analysis draws on data collected at three high schools and two middle schools over the course of two school years: in the spring of 2022, the fall of 2022, and the spring of 2023. Across these time points, we conducted a total of 32 focus groups (with between two and five students), 41 student interviews, 39 teacher interviews, 18 administrator or staff interviews, and 54 classroom observations. Each interview and focus group was recorded and transcribed, and each transcript was coded by two separate coders, applying a jointly constructed coding schema. The data used in this chapter were all coded in Dedoose according to the code “engagement,” and then subjected to a further round of analytic coding. For more information on our data collection methods, the sample, and our analytic approach see [9, 39].

Given that prior research has found that teachers and students can differ markedly in their perceptions of student voice practices, with teachers often reporting more frequent practice than students [2], we report teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the impact of SVPs and CPs on student engagement separately; however, we conclude this section by noting important points of convergence between the two sets of respondents.

4.1 Teachers’ perspectives

When asked about how they incorporated or supported student voice in their classrooms, teachers identified four main categories or types of practice: collective decision-making (e.g., “I put it to a vote”), seeking feedback (e.g., “having those checkpoints: is what we’re doing working for you or would you rather us change something?”), and showing receptivity to student input (e.g., “I want input… If [a student] says, ‘I don’t want to do it that way. I want to do it this way.’ And it seems like that’s a good idea. It’s like, ‘Okay, let’s do that!’”). As expected, based on the literature conflating voice and choice, teachers also identified individual choice (e.g., “choices in the product that they’re going to create or the information that they have to look into”) as part of their SVP repertoire. When speaking generally about their use of SVPs and their impact on students, teachers sometimes seemed to be thinking of CPs, making it difficult to distinguish the unique effects of CPs and SVPs.

Referring to input and collaborative decision-making, one teacher made a point of acknowledging that these practices can be “hard and scary sometimes to do. Just because, to say like, ‘What do you guys want to do today?’, who knows what that’s going to end up being?” Nonetheless, she underscored the value in listening to students’ ideas and being open to their suggestions. She also stressed that when their ideas prove impractical or unfeasible, it is important to follow up with students to explain:

“Here’s why this thing isn’t going to happen. I heard what you said and here’s the reason that this isn’t here,” or “Here’s what I’m going to try,” or “Here’s why you’re only getting part of this”… because students have intensely heightened and well-honed BS detectors, and they can tell when you are messing with them, and they can tell when you are being honest with them.

Closing the communication loop and explaining to students how their feedback, input, or decisions will affect classroom practice moving forward is an important part of any SVP. It can help SVPs not to feel performative or tokenistic, but authentic and potentially transformative.

Asked why they used SVPs, teachers tended to highlight two distinct sets of outcomes. The first and most frequently referenced outcomes concerned students’ academic experiences, including improved motivation, enhanced engagement, and better learning. For example, one teacher explained, “Students do perform better when they’re given choice. I’ve seen it time and time again…The more choice that is built into a project or a lesson, the more students feel motivated and then they do better…they learn better.” Another teacher echoed, “When you give them the choice, the data shows that they are more bought in, there’s more engagement, and there’s a stronger level of understanding.”

The second rationale teachers offered for using SVPs concerned improving students’ skills beyond the classroom, particularly their ability to take responsibility for themselves and their communities. One teacher emphasized how teaching students to speak up for themselves and their needs as learners

breeds that sense of confidence… it always goes back to the self- advocacy piece. It’s like they feel more confident in their abilities to communicate their needs… Geometry, yeah. We want them to be independent when it comes to solving math problems. But at the end of the day, I want them to be independent in life.

Another teacher who engaged students in collaborative decision-making as a way to help them see the classroom as “ours” not “mine,” explained, “Whatever you take responsibility for, you will feel a sense of ownership over that.” He hoped that learning to take responsibility for their shared classroom now would transfer to taking a similar approach to their community later in their lives. “So hopefully they can feel, in their adult years, they can feel ownership in their community if they take responsibility for the excellence of that.” These teachers believed that SVPs could help build students’ capacity as confident self-advocates and engaged citizens who work to improve conditions for themselves and others.

Four mechanisms emerged in the teacher data as possible explanations for how SVPs (including CPs) led to these desired outcomes, particularly greater engagement. The first two, increased interest and enjoyment/happiness, point to affective engagement as a driver of overall engagement, while the second two, enhanced meaning and ownership, are suggestive of cognitive engagement.

According to teachers, affective engagement, (i.e., feelings of interest and enjoyment), can be strengthened through SVPs. Happiness was cited by several teachers as a byproduct of both choice and voice. One teacher said, “They’re definitely a lot happier when you let them pick stuff… If you say, ‘You could do it this way, or you could do it this way, almost instantly kids are more engaged or at least feel better about what they are doing because they have a choice in it.” Another teacher explained, “It makes class a lot more fun when students get to have more control over what’s happening…Kids are much happier when they feel like they’re getting heard.” In addition to happiness and fun, interest was emphasized by several teachers as a mechanism linking SVPs to enhanced overall engagement. As one teacher said, “If they’re allowed to pursue their own interests, then they learn better and they’re more motivated to continue.” Another teacher boasted, “My [students’] engagement is through the roof. I tell my students, ‘You chose this. Those are your topics.’ And because I’ve built the topics around their interests, they’re more involved.” By incorporating students’ preferences and interests as learners into their classrooms, teachers created environments where students felt happy and invested, thereby setting the stage for greater overall engagement and active learning.

Teachers implied that cognitive engagement, understood as students’ attitudes towards the work they were asked to do, can also be enhanced through SVPs. Specifically, teachers explained how SVPs can make the work more meaningful to students: “Student voice, the outcome would be they believe what they’re doing has meaning to them because they have power over it. They’ve helped define it. They’ve helped give meaning to it and they know it’s uniquely theirs.” Other teachers highlighted the sense of ownership, responsibility, and buy-in students have when they have a say in the classroom. One teacher offered a detailed explanation of the impact of collaborative decision-making:

When we give that student choice, kids are more bought-in and that’s obvious. If I have a choice to do something, and I make that choice, now I own it. They get to own what they are learning. They walk away saying, “I learned something today because I wanted to learn that way.” And it helps them explain it to their peers too. Everybody says, “This is what we wanted to do.” If there’s a kid at a table that has not met expectations, the other kids look at that and say, “No, no, no! This is how you have to do it” because they are the ones that are like, “We said we wanted to do it this way. We have to make sure everybody does it that way. Because if we don’t, they’re going to take the choice away.”

In this example, students take responsibility not only for their own learning but also that of their peers because they feel a sense of shared accountability as a result of having the opportunity to make a collective decision about the work done in the classroom. As they shift the classroom to a more “student led, student-driven instruction[al format] to the point where [the teacher] is just a facilitator, filling in the gaps,” SVPs help propel active student engagement and learning.

4.2 Students’ perspectives

Although they cited fewer examples than their teachers of collaborative decision-making, students indicated that some of their teachers sought their feedback, primarily through surveys, showed receptivity to students’ input and ideas for how to improve the class, and offered occasional choices of activities and assignments.

Students primarily attributed behavioral outcomes to the use of these SVPs. They explained that they were “more involved,” “more interactive,” and more likely to “pay attention” in classes where teachers used SVPs than in classes where “it’s just the teacher talking for an hour,” or the teacher says, “No! This is how it works” in response to student suggestions. One student explained how he appreciated that his math teacher gives the class the choice to work with partners or alone because when he works alone he can listen to music on his earbuds and “it helps him focus.” Students also spoke of greater engagement and greater learning. “It keeps us more engaged and less on our phones… Not allowing the classroom to get bored really benefits everybody because then they’re always engaged and always trying to learn and get better,” offered one student. Another observed, “With me being more engaged [in government class], I feel like I have learned a lot more.”

In response to questions about how teachers’ use of SVPs led to these positive outcomes, students cited four mechanisms, the first three of which concern affective engagement: fun and enjoyment; interests; comfort. The fourth mechanism, ease of learning, has more to do with cognitive engagement.

Several students explained how SVPs can make the classroom more enjoyable and fun. As one said, “Personally, when I have a voice in class, I enjoy the class a little more just because I feel like I’m being listened to and I’m more involved in the class.” Answering the question, “How does it feel when you get to have a voice and say in your classroom decisions” another student said, “It makes me enjoy it a lot more. That’s the one class I look forward to everyday.” A third student echoed this sentiment, explaining how her teachers’ responsiveness to student input “makes his class a lot funner and better and [makes me] want to go to it.”

In addition to fun and enjoyment, students, like their teachers, highlighted the way SVPs can lead to teachers incorporating their interests in the classroom, thereby enhancing affective engagement. One student hypothesized that if more teachers used SVPs, “We’d pay attention more. We’d actually be more interested in it.” Another speculated of her peers, “They’re going to be more interested and pay attention more to what the teacher is trying to teach,” in classes where SVPs are used.

Feelings of comfort arose in a few student responses. For instance, one student noted how allowing students to choose group partners for collaborative work “makes it better because I work good with people I’m comfortable with.” Another student offered that “asking students what they actually prefer, that’ll make the student more comfortable in the environment.” When teachers can accommodate the student and shift the learning environment to be more hospitable and responsive to the students’ needs, whether by adjusting the furniture in the classroom or by changing the assignments or activities (examples that came up in our data), students feel more prepared and willing to do the work asked of them. One student, Maria, gave a powerful explanation:

If there’s something maybe I do not like that we are doing or I have a different viewpoint, I know I can speak up and be like, “Hey.” And maybe it’s not always going to turn out my way, but at least he’ll hear my opinion and think about it. It makes me more engaged and ready to do the work. If I have questions or concerns, I know I can ask him and talk to him about it. He always listens to students and what they say and how they feel towards classwork and stuff. He’ll always have a lesson, but if there’s something a student says [about it], he’ll try to switch it up to make it more fun and interesting. And that’s something I love about him.

This teacher’s receptivity and responsiveness to students’ input and feedback, which allowed Maria to feel comfortable in his classroom, had a direct bearing on her engagement, her readiness to work, and her grades. She happily shared that though she anticipated the class was “going to be horrible” at the beginning of the year, she has an A in the course now.

Building on the idea of comfort, several students explained how teachers’ use of SVPs can facilitate learning by making learning “easier” and more accessible. One put it simply, “I just feel like it’s a lot easier to learn in an environment where the teachers listen.” Another explained how his math teacher’s responsiveness to student voice led the teacher to use a variety of methods to help students learn, and “the different activities and the different ways of getting to the same answer…helps me retain” the concepts. Describing a different teacher who made adjustments to his teaching in response to student feedback on surveys, another student said, “Changing the way you teach to the strengths of your classroom is going to be beneficial to the rest of the class.” This simple but profound observation about the power of teacher responsiveness to student voice underscores the value of the practice from the standpoint of students.

4.3 Summary

Students and teachers agree that SVPs (often including CPs) can improve students’ learning experiences by enhancing their engagement (See Figure 2). Both cite affective and cognitive engagement indicators as key catalysts for boosting behavioral engagement, overall engagement, and learning. Teachers and students alike point to SVPs as a means of strengthening student interest and imbuing the learning experience with greater enjoyment. Students also emphasize the way SVPs can improve their sense of comfort in a classroom. On the cognitive side, teachers point to mechanisms like ownership and meaning, while students highlight ease of learning to explain how SVPs facilitate engagement and active learning in the classroom. Importantly, both teachers and students note that soliciting and supporting student voice in the classroom does not always mean the teacher does exactly what the students request. As Maria said, “it’s not always going to turn out my way”; instead, SVPs mean having open dialog about student preferences, needs, and hopes; the rationale behind the decisions the teachers make; the constraints that limit them; and the possibilities that still exist to improve the learning environment and experience for all students.

Figure 2.

The mechanisms connecting SVPs and CPs to overall engagement and active learning.

5. Conclusion

When students engage in SVPs by providing feedback, offering input, or participating in collaborative decision-making about educational planning, delivery, assessment, or reform in the classroom, not only are they “doing something” more than listening passively, but also they are thinking about their experiences as learners: what works for them as learners and what does not, what and how they want to learn, how they want to demonstrate their knowledge and be assessed. These behavioral and cognitive activities in themselves constitute active learning. Furthermore, they are likely to propagate the use of even more active learning strategies, as students tend to prefer “hands-on activities” and interactive discussions to lecture-based instruction [40, 41, 42].

Skeptics of student voice may fear that when students have a say in the classroom, they will advocate for and select the path of least resistance: more recess, less homework, more movies and games in class and fewer lectures and assessments. Some may doubt whether students really know what is best for them and their learning. Indeed, some work finds that students’ perceptions of how much they learn under different pedagogical conditions may not be accurate [43]; however, other work shows that students’ perceptions of teacher effectiveness are accurate and powerful predictors of their achievement outcomes [44]. Student voice starts with the premise that students want to learn and to feel that they are gaining something valuable from their time in school. The more teachers can frame their SVPs with these goals in mind, the more likely students will be to participate in ways that actualize such outcomes.

Certainly, there are challenges to SVPs. Students’ educational imaginations may be limited to what they have experienced; they may need to be encouraged to stretch themselves or take a risk rather than simply work within their comfort zones; and students may offer contradictory feedback or input. However, it is in these moments that rich conversations about learning can occur and partnerships between teachers and students become possible. Partnerships focused on working together to improve the learning environments, experience, and outcomes may well be the ultimate form of active, engaged learning.

Acknowledgments

This chapter was written through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (INV-031504). Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the foundation. We are grateful for research assistance from Paula Akakpo, Ghadir Al Saghir, Bailey Bonds, Yosmary Rodriguez, Enrique Rosado, Caitlin Wilson, and Nikki Wright. We also appreciate the generous support of our school district partners.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.