Student engagement

Student engagement refers to student participation in learning activities inside and outside the classroom which leads to a range of measurable outcomes.

Engagement involves behavioural, emotional, and cognitive investment.

Key questions

• What is the student doing to engage?
• What is the staff-student dynamic doing to engage?
• What is the institution/faculty/discipline/course/unit (instructors, structures, resources, timetables, usability etc.) doing to engage?

Why engage?

• Research by Tinto (2000) showed that "engagement was the single significant predictor of persistence".
• Improve learning
• Improve throughput rates and retention
• For equality/social justice
• For curriculum relevance
• For institutional benefit
• As marketing - economics benefits of engagement

Planning for engagement

From Kraus (2005, pp. 12-14):

1. Create and maintain a stimulating intellectual environment
2. Value academic work and high standards
3. Monitor and respond to demographic subgroup differences and their impact on engagement
4. Ensure expectations are explicit and responsive
5. Foster social connections
6. Acknowledge the challenges
7. Provide targeted self-management strategies
8. Use assessment to shape the student experience and encourage engagement
9. Manage online learning experiences with care
10. Recognise the complex nature of engagement in your policy and practice

Teaching method for engagement

• Academic challenge
  • Pre-reading
  • Higher-order thinking - Academically challenging
• Active and collaborative learning
  • Active learning - physical movement
  • Peer interaction
  • A focus on outcomes
  • Research focused
• Enriching educational experiences
  • WIL focused
  • Research focused
• Student-faculty interaction
  • Personal
  • Staff interaction - rich communication

See also

• Online engagement
• Student engagement (Wikipedia)
• Student engagement and learning (Motivation and emotion - Book chapter, 2021)

External links

• Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE)
• Student engagement literature review (Trawler, 2010)
• Unmasking the Effects of Student Engagement on First-Year College Grades and Persistence, 2008
• Australasian Survey of Student Engagement : 2007 institution report
• Engagement indicators (NSSE)
• Understanding and promoting student engagement in university learning communities (Kerrie-Lee Krause, 2005)
• Assessment for learning
• Survey of student work (Endsleigh, 2015)

Trawler (2010) HEA