- Agency is defined as the ability to exercise control over thought processes, motivation and action. Seen as a central skill in today's information age. - World Economic Forum notes that resilience, flexibility, agility, motivation and self awareness are key skills associated with agency and are vital for success in the work force. - Other definitions include concepts of autonomy, free will, voice, choice and mastery over self. - Different learning theories have shaped the idea of agency - Cognitive constructivist - Student constructs knowledge through interaction with their environment (Piaget). Agency in this context is defined as the student's ability to make meaning, accommodate new information, experiment and problem solve. - Sociocultural - Agentic potential in a social and cultural context (Vygotsky). Here agency is the "socio-culturally mediated capacity to act" with emphasis on dialogue, collaboration, language interaction. - Social Cognitive - Integrates both of the above (Bandura). Agency is defined as the individual's capacity to control their learning through self regulation, motivation and self efficacy. Involves ability to set goals, make plans, adjust strategies and navigate challenges - According to Bandura (2006) there are four properties of agency - Intentionality - Capacity of individuals to imagine a future state, establish a goal and plan a course of action - Forethought - Ability to anticipate, plan and adjust for future events - Self Regulation - Process where individual controls their own behaviour, thoughts and emotions to achieve a goal. - Self Reflectiveness - Ability to consciously consider one's own thoughts, actions and motivations, and evaluate their capabilities and effectiveness. - Associated concepts with agency can often overlap and confuse practitioners - Autonomy - Learner's ability to take charge of their own learning. Autonomy emphasises independence while agency emphasises interdependence. - Self Regulation - Ability to monitor and manage thoughts, behaviours and emotions. Self regulation is only a component of agency. Agency also focuses on the ability to decide and act as they progress toward a goal. - Self Efficacy - Ability to successfully complete a task or achieve a goal. Though ability is core to agency it is not enough for individuals to possess knowledge and skills to achieve a task; they also need motivation, belief, plan etc. - Motivation - There is no clear definition for motivation but it is clear that motivation influences and is influenced by agency. Motivation is the primary driver for students to exercise agency. - Self Directed Learning - Defined as taking the initiative without the help of others to identify needs, set goals, and implement strategies to learn. Closely related to agency but self directed learning is more a process through which agency is expressed and observed. Agency is more the underlying ability. Evidence of agency is demonstrated through the self-directed learning process. - Self Determined Learning - Similar to self directed learning but also where students have control over what, how and why to learn. Self directed is often in school but self determined learning is more relevant in informal learning environments with minimal constraints. - Agency can develop through many factors - Environmental factors. One example is teachers can foster agency by meeting students' emotional and psychological needs and allowing students voice and choice - Co-regulation - warm responsive support from an adult to bridge gap between child's current and potential capacity to self-regulate. - Structure learning environments - Turn taking, problem solving, goal setting, guided practice. - Personal factors. Students' knowledge, skills, ability to self regulate, working memory, self control etc. - Executive function - Working memory - hold distinct pieces of information over short periods of time - Mental flexibility - ability to sustain or shift attention when circumstances change - Self control - ability to set priorities and resist impulsive actions - With ACEs more support is needed to improve executive function - Executive function builds into self regulation - Observed behaviors. Tangible manifestations of student's ability to exercise control over their learning experiences - goal setting, seeking feedback, initiating collaboration, reflection. - Belief. Without belief that success is possible no amount of environmental or personal factors can influence a student's sense of self efficacy and agency. ![[Theory of Student Agency Development.png]] - Advanced strategies to build self regulation - identifying and labeling complex emotions - employing strategies to manage frustration - using internal dialogue to self soothe - considering multiple perspectives - seeking solutions to problems - Self regulation tends to develop in tandem with language skills. When children can express themselves verbally they are more likely to control emotions and regulate behaviour. - When it comes to school core academic knowledge and skills, FLN, are critical pre-requisites to build agency in skill. Cognitive load reduces when students have these basic skills thereby allowing them to build more complex skills. - Self efficacy - Mastery experiences - Repeated successes build confidence in ability and thereby self efficacy - Vicarious experiences - Watching others successfully complete a task can boost an individuals belief in their own abilities - Social persuasion - Encouragement from others can strengthen self efficacy - Emotional and physiological states - Feelings of stress, anxiety or fatigue might lower self efficacy while a state of relaxation can enhance it - High parental self efficacy directly supports children self regulation skills. In teenage years friends become a source of self efficacy. - Motivation - Develops along a continuum - amotivation -> lack of motivation -> extrinsic motivation -> intrinsic motivation - As students build more autonomy and competence they tend to internalise extrinsic motivations. This is only possible when there is a sense of safety, love and belonging. - Research shows that student motivation is high and in intrinsic in the primary grades and gradually reduces and becomes more extrinsic as they go through school with more emphasis on grades and narrow curriculums. - Research gaps in agency - No developmental trajectories for how agency emerges or develops - How does self regulation, efficacy, motivation influence agency in K-12 - No empirical research on instructional and environmental factors that build agency - No valid measures of student agency development, particularly ones without bias - Most measures are self-report and subject to social desirability bias - Too many definitions of agency tends to cause jingle-jangle problem - Cultural variation - No global consensus and lot of variation across contexts, regions and cultures - Often times there is no direct translation as well and cultural differences in interpretation - What school and classroom interventions have been used to enhance agency? - Problem and Project Based Learning. Allows students to practice agency by making them identify a goal, make and execute plans, present findings and reflect. - Social Emotional Learning Interventions. Support agency by building skills such as self awareness, self management and decision making. - Executive Function and Self-Regulation Interventions. Conversations, role play, imaginary play, music, singing, dance, mindfulness etc are activities that build executive function and self-regulation. - Mastery Learning. Mastery learning assumes that learning outcomes should be the same for all students, but the time needed to become proficient in these skills varies across students. Typically incorporates - explicit goals, instruction that is responsive to student differences and assessments with timely feedback. - Self-Efficacy Interventions. The four categories described above can all be worked on individually through methods like skill building exercises, setting incremental goals, reflecting on past experiences, observing role models, motivational talks, stress management strategies etc. - Studies show that the interventions above improve outcomes known to correlate with student agency such as academic performance, collaboration, attitudes towards schooling etc. However directly comparing these interventions to agency is quite scarce. - Teacher development program that influence student agency. While there's no direct research linking teacher development to agency there are programs that are generally found to be effective that can be organised into four purposes. - Instil insights. Provide teachers with a deeper understanding of how students learn and new instructional practices. - Motivate change. Build teachers' willingness to adopt new practices. - Develop techniques. Support teachers in experimenting new practices in their classroom. - Embed practice. Encourage teachers to integrate new practices in their routines. - Agency manifests both across domains and in domain specific ways. Core components like intentionality, forethought, self regulation and reflection can be practiced across a range of domains and environments. - For domain specific agency to manifest it's important to remember that students must have the core competencies and skills necessary to exercise their agency. - Measurement - Standardized measure. Most measures have been used only for research papers and haven't been used in practice. Usually these are surveys of self reporting. Some schools use larger school climate surveys. - Performance tasks and Portfolios. Useful to assess students' application of knowledge and skills to new or novel situations. This is typically done by allowing students some choice within the task. - Behavioural checklists. Enable educators to convey to students hard-to-observe skills and attitudes. Used during, after instruction to monitor progress. - Anecdotal records. Brief qualitative descriptions of student behaviors. Only possible when there is an environment where students can demonstrate agency. - Self and peer assessment. Self and peer assessments could be useful feedback and reflection tools. Journals and logs are another form of documenting behaviour. - Issues in measurement - Definitions vary. Huge differences how researchers define and study agency. - Development trajectories are broad and based on theoretical conjecture. - Assessments should account for mediating factors such as environment, content knowledge etc. - Assessing agency requires multiple sources of evidence. - Balancing sufficiency of evidence with generalised ability requires thoughtful design. - Principles of assessment design - Base assessment decisions on a clear definition of student agency - Utilise principles of evidence centred design - Ensure assessments align with curriculum goals and learning outcomes - Account for content and context - Review test materials for face validity - Conduct cognitive laboratories - Conduct small scale pilot studies - Conduct a field trial - Principles for assessment use - Use multiple assessments to evaluate and cultivate agency - Incorporate assessments and portfolios into classroom practices - Provide frequent opportunities for students to practice and demonstrate student agency. - Use assessments to improve environmental conditions to support student agency. ---- Brandt, W. Christopher. "Measuring Student Success Skills: A Review of the Literature on Student Agency. Competencies of the Future." _National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment_ (2024) - [Link](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED671663.pdf)