Enhancing the student experience, and in particular student engagement, has become a primary focus of Higher Education. It is in particularly sharp focus as Higher Education moves forward into the uncertain world of high student fees and a developed Higher Education market. Student engagement is a hot topic, in considering how to offer ‘value’ and a better student experience. Moreover it is receiving much attention all over the world and underpins so many other priorities such as retention, widening participation and improving student learning generally.
Understanding and Developing Student Engagement draws from a range of contributors in a wide variety of roles in Higher Education and all contributors are actively involved in the Researching, Advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE) Network.
While utilising detailed case examples from UK universities, the authors also provide a critical review and distillation of the differing paradigms of Student Engagement in America, Australasia, South Africa and Europe, drawing upon key research studies and concepts from a variety of contexts.
This book uncovers the multi-dimensional nature of student engagement, utilising case examples from both student and staff perspectives, and provides conceptual clarity and strong evidence about this rather elusive notion. It provides a firm foundation from which to discuss practices and policies that might best serve to foster engagement.
1. Clarifying the Concept of Student Engagement
Colin Bryson
SECTION I - Students Engaging – perspectives from researchers
2. Nottingham Tales: Diverse Student Journeys through their Undergraduate Degrees
Colin Bryson and Christine Hardy
3. The Listening Project: Physiotherapy Students’ Narratives of their Higher Education Experiences
Claire Hamshire and Christopher Wibberley
4. Engagement as Dynamic and Relational: Students’ Accounts and Achievements over Time
Julie Wintrup
SECTION II - Students Engaging – perspectives from students
5. Experiences of Engagement: The Successes and Issues from a Student Perspective
Ruth Furlonger, Daniel Johnson and Beth Parker
6. Music to Listen to while Writing: Ludovico Einaudi or Amazing Piano Music
Sue Lund
7. Auto-ethnographic Writing and Student Engagement Practices: A Personal and Critical Reflection
Zoë Sarah Baker
8. People Can Make or Break Student Engagement
Emma Chadwyck
9. Students as Researchers: Personal Reflections by Students of their Engagement in a Research Project
Viola Borsos, Christopher Demirjian, Ji Kim, Nga Wun Mok, Oliver Worsley, Christine Hardy and Sean Prince
10. Cross-Cultural Experiences: Exploring Engagement as an International Postgraduate
Shanna Saubert
11. The NTSU Outstanding Teaching Awards: Student Perspectives on Engagement
Ed Foster and Jo Southwell-Sander
12. The Impact of Co-Curricular Activity on Student Engagement
Sarah Johnson, Rebecca Murphy and Sarah Parnham
SECTION III - Engaging Students
13. ‘What Matters in the End is to Act Well’: Student Engagement and Ethics
Carol Taylor and Carol Robinson
14. Academic Engagement: Engaging Who and to What End?
Sam Elkington
15. Using Student Engagement Research to Improve the First Year Experience at a UK University
Ed Foster, Michaela Borg, Sarah Lawther, Jane McNeil & Ellie Kennedy
16. Engaging Experienced Students as Academic Mentors in Support of the First Year Experience: The Epistemic Apprenticeship Project
Kay Sambell and Linda Graham
17. Enriching the Student Experience: Engaging Students and Staff
Andrea Jackson and Katie Livesey
18. Reflections and Considerations about the Future of Student Engagement
Colin Bryson
Biography
Colin Bryson is Director of the Combined Honours Centre at Newcastle University, UK.
"Why do some students do better at university than others? A perennial question, with perennial answers, including ability, background, culture, and so on. In the last few years the term ‘engagement’ has increasingly found itself on the list of answers. But as with all the others, we quickly find ourselves asking the follow-up question: ‘But it all depends what you mean by this term’. Colin Bryson, and is co-authors, have done a fantastic job here of a pulling together, in one book, an analysis of the multiple meanings of the term ‘student engagement’ and how exactly it contributes to answering that original question." – John Lea, Educational Developments
