1st Edition
Advancing Student Engagement in Higher Education Reflection, Critique and Challenge
Providing a selection of critical pieces on the key challenges and debates in student engagement in higher education, this edited collection of sector-leading, scholarly-informed critical reflections is designed to consider and build upon what can be done to advance student engagement.
By problematising student engagement practice, this book explores how to strengthen policies, recognise the issues and create solutions to overcome barriers and tensions. It considers topics such as diversity, accessibility, representativeness, evidencing impact, data analytics, the campus estate and the impact of COVID-19. The contributors provide lessons learned and knowledge from the field to make practice with students more considered and robust for the challenges ahead in the post-pandemic university.
Moving beyond endorsing student engagement and offering best practice to critically reflect on and challenge our engagements with students in contemporary higher education, this book is ideal reading for all those developing education, course leaders and heads of academic departments, as well as anyone interested in advancing student engagement in their higher education setting.
Foreword
Rosie Tressler
1. Advancing student engagement in higher education: the need for reflection, critique and challenge
Tom Lowe
2. Researching and evaluating student engagement: A methodological critique of data gathering approaches
Dr Liz Austen, Nathaniel Pickering and Alan Donnelly
3. Challenges and tensions for student academic engagement practices in contemporary UK higher education
Sarah Bayless
4. There is not one student experience: Our learner journeys as individuals
Fatima Umar
5. Equality and diversity in our student engagement practice: Radical possibilities to reaching racial and religious equity in Higher Education
Maisha Islam
6. Authentic leadership for student engagement
Harriet Dunbar-Morris
7. Students as consumers: A barrier for student engagement?
Louise Taylor Bunce, Clare Rathbone and Naomi King
8. Accessibility to Student Engagement Opportunities: A Focus on ‘Hard to Reach’ Universities
Cassie Lowe and Tom Lowe
9: How to engage students in your educational developments – a student leader’s view
Talia Adams
10. Student evaluation of courses - cocreation of meaning through conversations: Insights from the student perspective
Katja Eftring and Torgny Roxå
11. The problem with student engagement during Covid-19
Jim Dickinson
12. Control, freedom and structure in student-staff partnerships
Jenny Marie and Stuart Sims
13. To what extent can we really make students partners in neoliberal universities?
Tanya Lubicz-Nawrocka
14. Critical Challenges to Support Generation Z Learners
Mollie Dollinger
15. Student-instructor partnerships for curricular justice
Sophia Abbot
16. Embracing student agentic engagement and enacting equity in higher education through co-creating learning and teaching
Alison Cook-Sather and Jia Yi Loh
17. Defining, Delivering and Evaluating Student Engagement in a Professional Service in Higher Education: A Case Study of a Student Engagement Team in an Academic Library
Madalene George
18. University estates: From spaces to places of student engagement
Zachery Spire
19. Learning Analytics in Higher Education: The ethics, the future, the students
Zoheir Beig
20. Placing sport at the heart of the university community: A critical reflection on sports club membership and what it means for student engagement from a Bourdieusian perspective
Maria Moxey, Keith Parry and Hazel Brown
21. Towards inclusive student partnership: challenges and opportunities for student engagement in the Australian context
Kate Walsh and Alison Jaquet
22. Recognising the hidden impact of extra-curricular activity on student engagement and success
Eddie Corr
23. Widening the Aperture on College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A Critical Ecological Perspective
Terrell L. Strayhorn
24. Valhalla and Nirvana: views of Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation in further and higher education
Simon Varwell
25. So what and what next? Concluding thoughts on advancing student engagement
Tom Lowe
Biography
Tom Lowe is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Portsmouth (UK) and the Chair of Researching, Advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE).
'This book disrupts simplistic ideas about student engagement, turning over many a neoliberal stone to reveal questions of power at the heart of students’ relationship to the University. It does exactly what it claims: advances student engagement and invites the reader to take a critical, reflective, and challenging stance about a concept that has become a buzzword. I recommend it highly.'
Prof Tansy Jessop NTF, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education, University of Bristol (UK).
'Anyone who has attempted to innovate their practice with students, run a student feedback workshop, or engage students as partners will know that there are numerous challenges. This edited collection draws together practitioners from across the field who discuss these challenges up-front, offering innovative recommendations and flexible practice to ensure students are truly included. There are important questions to be continuously addressed in our universities relating to inclusivity and equality opportunities to engage, and this book is a great starting point for colleagues looking to engage students within their area of the modern university.'
Prof Claire Hamshire NTF, Vice President (Europe), International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning & Head of International. Manchester Metropolitan University (UK).
'The book frames students clearly as invested members of the university community, and emphasises the importance of knowing about and embedding student engagement in all aspects of university life and work. Threaded through the book is the consistent message that each student is a unique learner who needs, in fact deserves, individual attention, and the task of achieving this is explored and explained in different contexts.'
Dr Rachel Forsyth PFHEA, Editor in Chief of the Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal & Project Leader, Lund University (Sweden).
'This book provides a much-needed, in-depth exploration of the context of student engagement in higher education today, and makes a powerful case for why we should continuously be reflecting on our current practices. It is both a detailed discussion of the current academic debates at play, while remaining an accessible resource for anyone interested in ensuring the success of student engagement.'
Livia Scott, Students’ Union Community and Projects Officer, Wonkhe.
'This is an excellent volume, timely and comprehensive, which explores the variety of contexts for student engagement in today’s HE landscape. Building on existing works, it continues to make the case for student engagement as a crucial focus for HE institutions, but the collection also problematises student engagement, challenging assumptions and investigating barriers. This critical dimension is a key strength of the collection. The recommendations for improving practice which emerge from its chapters are invaluable.'
Prof Stephen McVeigh, Chair of Researching, Advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE) (2019-22) & Associate Dean – Education, Swansea University (UK).
