An intervention to improve students' class engagement of art department in China

Abstract

This paper aims to enhance student class engagement. The four objectives of the action research are as follows: 1)To diagnose the current situation of the focal organization on student class engagement, 2)To design and implement organizational development intervention (ODI), 3)To determine the differences between pre-ODI and post-ODI of students’ autonomy, relatedness, usefulness, interest and student class engagement, and 4)To investigate the relationship of students’ autonomy, relatedness, usefulness, interest and student class engagement. The target group is the 45 students who study “Visual Communication Design” major in Art Department of Heilongjiang International University in China. Mixed research methods are adopted to collect and analyze the data. The Pair sample T-test shows that there is significant difference in students’ autonomy, relatedness, usefulness, interest and student class engagement between pre-ODI and post-ODI. The studies show that there is a positive relationship between students’ autonomy, usefulness, interest, relatedness and student class engagement. The qualitative analysis of students’ reflection reports and classroom observation feedback by three instructors justified how the ODIs employed in this research. Based on the findings, further actions should be carried out to have a greater impact on the long-term development.