From Participation to Sustained Learning: A Humanities-Based Conceptual Framework for Active Learning, Engagement, Motivation, and Academic Self-Efficacy

Active Learning is widely promoted in higher education, yet the field still lacks a clear explanation of how it works, especially in humanities-based courses where learning involves interpretation, dialogue, argumentation, reflective judgment, and participation under uncertainty. This conceptual paper develops a mechanism-based framework to explain how Active Learning may support the movement from classroom participation to sustained learning participation. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the Interactive, Constructive, Active, and Passive (ICAP) framework, Self-Determination Theory, and Social Cognitive Theory, the paper conceptualizes Active Learning as a psychologically structured instructional ecology rather than a set of participatory techniques. This ecology is shaped by the alignment of interpretive task demand, dialogic interdependence, need-supportive facilitation, and efficacy-building progression. Within the framework, student engagement explains participation quality, academic motivation explains internalized participation, and academic self-efficacy explains students’ confidence under academic challenge. These mechanisms interact but may develop at different speeds. By specifying mechanisms, temporal assumptions, and boundary conditions, the framework moves Active Learning research beyond broad claims about participation and offers a more precise agenda for studying meaningful, persistent, and confidence-supported learning in humanities-based higher education.