Labels and low student engagement: How activity categorization impacts students' perception and engagement of learning activities

Abstract

Students’ engagement with learning activities and the type of attributions they make about their performance in these learning activities play a key role in their educational experience and success. The current Ontario high school applied and academic course curriculum is associated with lower educational success for students enrolled in the applied courses. This study used data from 213 undergraduate students to assess participants’ perception about the applied and academic courses and the impacts of applied/academic labels on students’ engagement and their performance attributions. A within-group design repeated measure ANOVA comparing the means of difficulty-level ratings of applied and academic courses indicated that participants perceived applied courses to be significantly less difficult than academic courses. The study did not, however, find any significant impact of the applied/academic label on participants’ engagement and attributions in online test activities labelled “applied” or “academic”.