I think that the issue of measurement of engagement is difficult to solve
without defining the sociocultural context, purpose, and nature of the
engagement. For example, if the engagement is forced on a child (or adult),
the engagement in foced activity means conformity and, thus, conformity
should be measured (including the discussion of the question how deeply
child comforms). If the engagement is child's choice, child's management of
choices is pure manifestation of engagement and, thus, child's management of
choices should be measured. If the engagement is collaboration with other
participants (including adults), negotiation of the goal(s) and the activity
is manifestation of the engagement and, thus, it should be measured. I
guess my point is that there is no value- and context- free measurement of
engagement (and maybe other constructs).
Let me tell you story about my "engagement" in how to measure engagement.
Several months ago people from Microsoft approached to me to ask how I'd
measure engagement of children in educational software that Microsoft is
designing. The ocassion was half job interview (and, thus, test of my
"professional competence") and half genuine consultation. I told that if I
were them (i.e., Microsoft) I'd be more concerned with parents who buy or
can buy the software than with kids who use it -- parents' opinions and
concerns are more important for profit making Microsoft than children's
engagement. To my big surprise, this "bottom line" and "common sense"
mentality does not subscribe the representative of an usability group who
interviewed me. She told me that they measure children's engagement by
memory tests that they employ to children in lab conditions after they
"play" with Microsoft educational software (also in the lab conditions). I
share my own memory strategy to remember unpleasant events (in order not to
repeat them), so my (voluntary) memory reflects disengagement rather than
engagement. I suggest that it would be more reasonable to measure how often
children return back to working with software in home conditions (the
conditions that Microsoft seems to try to market) and how the children
integrate their involvement in the software with the rest of their lives
(e.g., their parents, peers, homework). The Microsoft representative was
not enthusiastic to my proposal because, I guess, the proposal sounded for
her not being very scientific (too "common sense"), not being very practical
(they are working in assembly-line regime), and being non-conventional.
This episode reminds me that measurement often is a social and institutional
order. This interview was the end of my engagement in Microsoft (so far,
but I hope "we" may re-instate it in future).
Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz
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Eugene Matusov
UC Santa Cruz