A sweeping new survey of nearly 1,400 educators and students finds broad consensus that student engagement drives learning, but sharp disagreement over how to define, measure, and support it in everyday classrooms.
Widespread Agreement on Engagement’s Role
The report, Education Insights 2025–2026: Fueling Learning Through Engagement, draws on responses from superintendents, teachers, parents, and students collected in May 2025 by Hanover Research on behalf of Discovery Education. Findings show 93% of educators agreed that student engagement is a critical metric for understanding overall achievement, while 99% of superintendents polled called it one of the top predictors of school success. Among students, 92% said engaging lessons make school more enjoyable.
Despite that agreement, the study reveals deep divisions on what engagement actually looks like in practice. When asked to identify the strongest indicators of engagement, 72% of teachers pointed to students asking thoughtful questions. Superintendents took a different view, with 54% ranking performing well on assessments as a top indicator—nearly twice the rate of teachers, who ranked assessments among the lowest markers of engagement.
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Measurement Gaps and Perception Divides
The gap extends to how schools track engagement. Nearly all superintendents and 88% of principals said their district has an intentional approach for measuring engagement. Among teachers, however, only 60% agreed with that assessment. Roughly one-third of teachers identified a lack of clear, shared definitions as the top challenge to measuring engagement effectively.
Students and adults also see engagement levels differently. Sixty-three percent of students agreed with the statement “Students are highly engaged in school,” compared with 45% of teachers and 51% of principals who said the same. The divergence shows up even more sharply when students assess themselves versus their peers. Seventy percent of elementary students described themselves as engaged, but only 42% said the same of their classmates. Middle school students reported 59% self-engagement but just 36% for peers, while high school students put themselves at 61% and their peers at 39%.
The pattern suggests that while individual students feel connected to their learning, they perceive their classmates as less involved—a disconnect that could point to classroom trends worth examining.
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AI Use and Teacher Skepticism
The survey also touched on artificial intelligence in education. Two-thirds of students said AI could help them learn faster, but fewer than half of teachers reported using AI themselves for any purpose. Only 57% of teachers agreed they frequently learn about positive ways students are using AI, compared with 87% of principals and 98% of superintendents. Excitement about AI’s potential also skewed higher among administrators: 53% of teachers felt enthusiastic, versus 83% of principals and 94% of superintendents.
Discovery Education CEO Brian Shaw said the findings show the need for consistent tools to measure engagement and tie it to academic outcomes. “One of the most important findings of this report is that engagement is seen as essential to learning, but is inconsistently defined, observed, and supported in K-12 classrooms,” he said in a statement accompanying the release. The company said it has begun work to address those gaps and plans to share more as that effort develops.
The full report is available for download from Discovery Education. The company is hosting a town hall-style webinar on October 8 at 2:00 PM ET to discuss the findings with education leaders from across the country.
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