Adopting an “act-in-context” approach is helpful to researchers investigating situational variability in children’s active engagement in preschool classrooms. Aligned with this approach, we propose an empirical pathway and a conceptual model to support examinations of contextual factors hypothesized to impact active engagement as well as the means by which adults promote it. We defined two overarching factors—cognitive and organizational—and explored the predictive nature of seven features within them. With video recordings from 31 classrooms (inclusive and self-contained) of three instructional routines on three different occasions, we derived averages for classwide active engagement during each observation. A series of linear mixed effects models revealed that instructional routines significantly predicted variability in classwide active engagement as did interactions of other contextual features with instructional routines. These findings provide a foundation for continued, systematic examinations of situational factors and conceptualizations of engagement within carefully specified pathways for improving active engagement.

采用“在情境中行动”的方法有助于研究人员调查儿童积极参与学前课堂的情境可变性。与这种方法相一致，我们提出了一个经验途径和一个概念模型，以支持对假设影响积极参与的背景因素以及成年人促进积极参与的方式的检验。我们定义了两个首要因素——认知和组织——并探索了其中七个特征的预测性质。通过 31 个教室（包括和独立的）在三个不同场合的三个教学例程的视频记录，我们得出了每次观察期间全班积极参与的平均值。一系列线性混合效应模型表明，教学程序显着预测了全班积极参与的可变性，其他上下文特征与教学程序的交互也是如此。这些发现为在精心指定的路径中持续、系统地检查情境因素和参与概念提供了基础，以提高积极参与。