Promoting Student Agency through Writing Projects: The Role of Classroom Interaction, Autonomy from the Teacher, and Control over one's own Performance
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Abstract
The concept of agency has gain increasing importance in educational research given that it refers to the capacity of students to make decisions and influence their own learning based on the resources and opportunities available to them. In our diverse classrooms, to promote agency is key as it allows each student to progress according to his or her own pace and abilities. This qualitative research, a classroom design experiment, analyzes how learning projects can favor the development of agency. To do so, writing projects were applied, in three educational establishments, to 16-17 years old students. Then, six focus groups were conducted to gain an insight about students' perspective on their learning experience. A content analysis of the transcripts was carried out and three mechanisms favoring agency were identified: (1) greater interaction among classroom members (increased student protagonism), (2) greater student control over their own performance, and (3) greater autonomy with respect to the teacher.
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