Measuring Meaningful Student Involvement

There are particular measures that should be evident when we measure the meaningfulness of student involvement. However, these measures are not quantitative metrics dependent on highly entwined outcomes that can be attributed to interventions, strategies, and approaches throughout the education system. Instead, the measures used here are larger systematic developments, qualitative processes, and procedural developments designed to acknowledge specific actions as well as generalized outcomes.

3 Areas to Measure

There are three primary areas to measure in Meaningful Student Involvement. They are:

1. Measuring the People in Meaningful Student Involvement

Measuring the people in Meaningful Student Involvement means looking at the whole person, including Motivation, Student Readiness and Adult Readiness.

2. Measuring the Activities in Meaningful Student Involvement

Measuring the activities in Meaningful Student Involvement means including Culture, Action, Barriers and Evaluation.

3. Measuring the Outcomes of Meaningful Student Involvement

Measuring the outcomes of Meaningful Student Involvement means including Relationships, Rigor and Relevance.

Conclusion

The effect of Meaningful Student Involvement on student learning is key to assessing opportunities. So is examining the effects of Meaningful Student Involvement on relationships among students, between students and adults, and on the culture of schools.

Programs, classrooms, schools, districts, agencies and other places promoting Meaningful Student Involvement should create specific policies in order to sustain Meaningful Student Involvement. Additionally, every formal and informal procedure within educational environments should be reformed in order to embrace and encourage Meaningful Student Involvement. This could include curricular approaches, student development processes, adult professional development; formal school improvement planning; and other avenues.

Each of these evaluative measures and assessments are important for examining the depth, breadth, and power of Meaningful Student Involvement.