Enhancing learners’ motivation and engagement in religious education classes at elementary levels

ABSTRACT

Teachers in contemporary elementary classrooms are adopting diverse teaching strategies to encourage learners’ motivation and engagement. This study aimed to identify ways of enhancing students’ motivation and engagement in religious education classes at elementary levels. The study employed a systematic review design, utilising an online search strategy to gather 36 articles from multiple databases such as Google Scholar. PRISMA was used to guide the selection of the most suitable articles. Results indicate that teaching methods for elementary teachers to increase motivation and engagement generally include making learning entertaining, breaking tasks into manageable steps, providing positive feedback, fostering equality, personalising the learning environment, creating a positive attitude, incorporating physical activities, having mastery of facts, and storytelling. In religious education classrooms, elementary teachers can use computer-based iterative teaching, practice and application, digital storytelling with animation, inclusive role-modelling, visual impression preaching, recitation with audio technology, and the movie dialogue method to increase motivation and engagement. Implementing these teaching methods and strategies in elementary classrooms will effectively increase motivation and engagement, ultimately enhancing the educational experience for students in the study of religion.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivation
• engagement
• religious education
• teaching methods and strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ahmad Aseery

Ahmad Aseery is an assistant professor in the College of Education at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. He earned his Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from Ohio University, USA, in 2020. His wider research interests include: religious education, international education, research methods, teacher professional development and technology integration.