Learner’s commitment: behavioral, cognitive and emotional

We are all trying to improve our “learners' commitment”, right? But what exactly do we mean by “commitment”? It is one of these fashionable words that is so often used that meaning becomes a little vague. In Elearning, we often focus on clicks and interaction. This is part of behavioral commitment. We don't have to stop there. We can also support the cognitive and emotional dimensions of commitment: how people think and feel.

Behavioral engagement

Behavioral engagement is the actions and behaviors that people take during learning, which can support or hinder learning. Different researchers have identified different behaviors as showing a commitment, but it seems relevant for the work link.

• On the task: working on elearning
• Conversation on the task: Talk to someone about the elearning
• Conversation Hors task: Talking about any other subject
• Solitary behavior out of task: any behavior that did not involve working on elearning or another person (such as reading a magazine or online research)
• Inactivity: look in space, lower your head on the desktop
• Gaming the system: guess without reflection

I adapted this from a coding scheme developed by Baker et al (2004), as mentioned in Baker et al (2010). The version of Baker et al (2010) refers to specific educational software for students; I did it more general in Elearning.

A participant can show behavioral commitment by clicking on Elearning. It would be a behavior “on the task”. However, behavioral engagement alone, in particular at this superficial level, is not enough to develop new skills.

Cognitive commitment

Cognitive commitment Can be defined as “mental effort and thinking strategies”. This may include the use of learning strategies and persist through challenges.

Deep cognitive engagement implies development processes, while under deeply involves memorization by heart and other strategies that engage new information in a more superficial manner (for example, repeating and rectification).

—Xie, Heddy and Greene (2019)

The elearning often does not measure or encourage far beyond the shallow cognitive commitment. Multiple choice checking questions Often measure if people can remember what they heard two minutes earlier. If we want people to acquire skills that require a deep reflection, then we must engage them cognitively at a deeper level. They need opportunities to practice skills and decision -making, Apply knowledge in relevant contexts.

Emotional commitment

Emotional commitment is sometimes called “emotional commitment”. This dimension of the learner's commitment takes care of the emotional responses of people to learning.

In general, positive emotions are correlated with higher achievement and self -regulation (XIE, Heddy and Greene, 2019). However, it is not necessarily always true. Baker et al (2010) found that boredom is correlated with a lower commitment and bad results, but frustration has not systematically led to problems. Boredom was more likely to amuse students to play the system. For training in the workplace, this would click on multiple choice questions quickly and random until you pass.

Affective engagement is also linked to “task values” or to the value that people perceive by finishing a task. A task can be intrinsically pleasant (intrinsic value), useful (value of future utility) or important to do well (realization value). If you consider a task as useful and pleasant, you may feel positive emotions to finish it. This also concerns motivation and perseverance.

Cognitive and emotional commitment

Although identification of three distinct dimensions of commitment can be a useful model to consider, in reality, they are not necessarily so clear. Everything influences everything else. Positive emotions can lead to greater persistence and cognitive commitment, which in turn leads to more behavior on the task.

For example, intrinsic realization and valuation were positively linked to deep treatment, self -regulation, pleasure, hope, while being bound and frustration. We can see that boredom, anxiety, confusion and frustration all show positive correlations with shallow treatment, while pleasure and curiosity were linked to deep treatment.

—Xie, Heddy and Greene (2019)

In fact, some researchers do not separate the cognitive and emotional dimensions. While we tend to consider “rational thought” as distinct from emotion, our decisions are really based on the two working together. Some researchers therefore speak of “cognitive-affective states” rather than separating concepts (Baker et al, 2010).

Creation of scenarios to increase commitment

I talked about these dimensions of engagement in my recent webinar “Go beyond boredom: create learning based on a scenario that hires participants“For the training of the Mag network.

Quotes

Baker, RSJD, Mello, SK, Rodrigo, Mt and Graesser, AC (2010). It is better to be frustrated than bored: the impact, persistence and impact of cognitive-affective states of learners during interactions with three different IT learning environments. International Journal for Human Composition Studies,, 68(4), 223–241. DOI: 10.1016 / J.IJHCS. 2009.12.003

XIE, K., Heddy, BC and Greene, BA (2019). Appreciances of the use of mobile technology to support the sampling method of experience to examine students' commitment. Computers and education,, 128183–198. DOI: 10.1016 / J.COMPEDU.2018.09.020

THANKS

Thanks to North Carre To share the resources of its presentation The case of the released learner. It was she who made me think in the sense of these three dimensions of engagement.

Originally published on 01/17/2019. Update of 05/29/2025.

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