What influences student situational engagement in smart classrooms: Perception of the learning environment and students' motivation

Abstract Situational engagement plays a critical role in promoting students' academic performance. In a smart classroom environment, this study collected longitudinal real‐time data for 105 college students at a university in central China to investigate the relationship among situational engagement, personal characteristics and learning environment perceptions. Hierarchical linear modelling showed that environmental perception and students' personal factors have different effects on situational engagement. Specifically, (1) social support perceptions, autonomous motivation and controlled motivation have a significant impact on behavioural engagement; (2) perceptions of social and media support, autonomous motivation and controlled motivation have a significant impact on shallow cognitive engagement; and (3) perceptions of teacher and social support, self‐efficacy and autonomous motivation significantly predict deep cognitive and emotional engagement. This study suggests that the effect of the perception regarding advanced technology‐supported learning environments on students' situational engagement is limited, and instructors should pay more attention to improving students' perceptions of teacher and social support, self‐efficacy and autonomous motivation to promote students' situational deep cognitive engagement in smart classrooms. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Compared with overall engagement, situational engagement fluctuates and changes with time and context. Situational engagement is a product of environmental and personal factors. Few studies have focused on the nature of situational engagement and how environmental and personal factors influence situational engagement in smart classrooms. What the paper adds This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating the critical factors that predict situational engagement, using the experience sampling method in a smart classroom at a Chinese university. Environmental perception, self‐efficacy and students' motivation factors have different effects on situational engagement in a smart classroom. Perceptions of teacher and social support, self‐efficacy and autonomous motivation significantly predict deep cognitive and emotional engagement, while perceptions of media support only have a significant impact on shallow cognitive engagement. Personal factors (controlled and autonomous motivation) moderate the relationship between environmental perception factors and situational engagement. Implications for practice and/or policy Rather than only providing external technology‐rich conditions, instructors should focus more on improving students' perceptions of teacher and social support, self‐efficacy and autonomous motivation in the smart classroom environment. Instructors should promote students' perception of teacher support and their autonomous motivation to enhance their deep cognitive engagement.