How to Use Connective Instruction to Get a 7x Boost In Engagement

We've been told for years that engagement is the holy grail of teaching. And the advice usually sounds the same. We should make it fun, make it rigorous, make it relevant.

But what if one of those strategies was seven times more powerful than the others?

That's the finding from Kristy Cooper's study at Michigan State University, published in the American Educational Research Journal. Cooper analyzed how and why engagement differed across 581 classes in a single diverse high school, surveying over 1,100 students and conducting embedded case studies of five classrooms. Her mixed-methods approach (factor analyses, multilevel regression, interviews, and observations) revealed something that should change how every teacher thinks about their practice.

The Three Strategies Teachers Use to Engage Students

Cooper's factor analysis identified three distinct categories of teaching practices that drive engagement. If you've been in education for any length of time, you'll recognize all three.

Lively Teaching is the one we default to. Group work, games, projects, movement. The emphasis is on students constructing knowledge socially. It's the strategy that fills Pinterest boards and so many EdTech pitch decks. And it works initially. Students do engage more when the classroom is active and social. Does it lead to higher academic achievement though? That is a different story.

Academic Rigor is the one we aspire to. Cognitively demanding tasks. A classroom culture of what researchers call "academic press" where high expectations are paired with passionate investment in the content. The message to students is that this is hard, and you're going to work hard. This works, too, and often leads to academic achievement going up.

Connective Instruction is the one we underestimate. This is where the teacher helps students build personal connections to the class, the content, and the learning itself. It's not about making content "relatable" in a superficial sense. It's about helping students see the curriculum as something that matters to their current lives, their futures, and their identities.

The Result That Made Me Read It Twice

When Cooper ran multilevel regression analyses on her data, connective instruction predicted student engagement more than seven times as strongly as academic rigor or lively teaching.

Read that again.

Not twice as effective. Not three times. Seven times.

All three strategies independently contributed to engagement. And they worked well in combination. But connective instruction was the dominant force by a wide margin.

So, What Does Connective Instruction Actually Look Like?

This is where Cooper's work gets actionable. Connective instruction isn't one thing. It's a cluster of six specific teacher behaviors she breaks down.

1. Promoting Relevance. Relating content to students' actual lives but not in a forced, "you'll need this someday" way. Instead doing so in a genuine effort to bridge the gap between curriculum and experience.

2. Showing You Care. Understanding learners' perspectives. This isn't some type of fake warmth. It's the cognitive work of seeing through your students' eyes. Empathy in action.

3. Showing Concern for Well-Being. Demonstrating real knowledge of students' lives beyond the classroom. This requires knowing enough about who they are to notice when something is off.

4. Providing Affirmation. Telling students they are capable of doing well, and then backing that up with praise, written feedback, and structured opportunities for success (structure is key word here). This is where teacher language and actions becomes either a boost or a detriment.

5. Relating Through Humor. Not class-clown humor. Not sarcasm. The kind of humor that makes it known to the students that I enjoy being around you. Students are remarkably perceptive about whether a teacher actually enjoys their company.

6. Enabling Self-Expression. Connecting learning and identity by encouraging students' expression of ideas, values, and conceptions of self. When students can bring who they are into what they're learning, engagement isn't something you have to manufacture.

Why This Works

The reason connective instruction is so much more impactful than the other strategies comes down to something every teacher intuitively knows but the system rarely prioritizes. Our students are desperate for high-quality connections with the adults in their lives.

When a teacher fulfills that need their achievement behaviors and intellectual functioning grow and grow and grow.

Researcher Andrew Martin calls this the process by which students "actually internalize the beliefs valued by significant others." This isn’t strategic compliance or engagement-as-seat-time. It is the kind of deep investment that changes trajectories. And, the best part is, most of us have experience this as students at one point in our lives. We know what it feels like to have connective instruction.

The Uncomfortable Implication

Cooper’s study makes it clear that if you're pouring your energy into designing the perfect project-based learning unit or cranking up the cognitive demand of your assessments but you haven't done the foundational work of connecting with your students as human beings, you're probably optimizing the wrong variable.

I know there is a whole group of folks that want to optimize learning and just focus on test scores and achievement. I don’t know if it is being a Dad to five kids, or teaching at multiple grade levels, or admin experience in three districts…but something doesn’t connect to me if all we care about is “achievement”.

And most teachers know this. It’s why we are collectively so upset about student behavior and accountability. It’s hard to build connections in light of what we are facing, but it is also probably even more important in 2026 to do so.

Lively teaching matters. Academic rigor matters. But neither one comes close to the impact of a teacher who knows their students, demonstrates that knowledge, and builds a classroom where kids feel like they belong.

For all teachers, regardless of subject or grade level, intensive effort to connect with learners isn't just a nice-to-have. It's the nonnegotiable that lays the groundwork for everything else.

A Simple Starting Point

If you're reading this and wondering where to begin, start with the simplest version of the six behaviors. Learn something real about each student's life outside your classroom this week. Not their grade. Not their behavior record. Something about who they are. Then find a way to let them know you noticed.

That's connective instruction. And according to the research, it's the most powerful lever you have.