Student Engagement: Buzzword or Fuzzword?
Author(s):
Johanna Vuori (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2014
Network:
22. Research in Higher Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

22 SES 02 A, Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Higher Education

Paper Session

Time:
2014-09-02
15:15-16:45
Room:
B020 Anfiteatro
Chair:
Roeland van der Rijst

Contribution

Introduction

There is ever-increasing global interest in the concept of student engagement and its proclaimed value in higher education. In the US it has been a fashionable term for over a decade, and lately, adopted as a favourite buzzword of the Obama administration as a proxy for overall university performance. Now the use of the term has spread all over the world. This trendy term has many functions: governments use it to refer to university efficiency; universities perceive it as a key to gaining a competitive advantage; administrators use it to emphasise educational excellence; while practitioners use it to justify new approaches to teaching.

At the same time it has become increasingly evident that the use of the concept of student engagement is ambiguous, tangled, and even misleading. The multiple interpretations of this concept have lately attracted the interest of educational researchers, who have provided different categorisations of the use of the term. Despite the recent theoretical interest, there are remarkably few empirical studies which illustrate the multiple uses of this concept in higher education institutions and examine whether student engagement has become a ‘fuzzword’  which in its fashionability conceals even the contradicting goals of different stakeholders? 

Based on the interviews and documentary material collected, this study contributes to the discussion of multiple understandings of the concept of student engagement by investigating different pathways to promoting student engagement at three North-American institutions of higher education. The research questions that directed the analysis were: 1) how did the informants construct the meaning of the concept of student engagement and 2) what mechanisms promoted or hindered the spred of the term on campus?


The many meanings of the concept

While recognizing the use of the term student engagement in connection with learning, identity construction, autonomy or as a route to active citizenship, Kahu (2013), Leach and Zepke (2011) and Wimpenny and Savin-Baden (2013), who have examined the uses of student engagement concept in literature, do not distinguish the use of the concept to discusss student representation and participation in university governance or quality assurance. The use of term in this meaning, however, is recognized by Trowler (2010) and Klemenčič (2013). In addition, Klemenčič recognises the use of the term  in connection with student involvement in student affairs and services as well as with students' political involvement and involvement for greater good. 

Although the literature indicates that the behavioural perspective using the definition offered by Kuh (2009) tends to dominate the North-American higher education literature, the emotional perspective is most strongly portrayed in the school literature (Kahu, 2013) and the perspective pointing out to the student representation and student voice is clearly emerging in recent British discussion, it is evident that the fashionable term of student engagement has many overlapping meanings and as pointed out by Wolf-Wendel, Ward and Kinzie (2009) is in practice  constantly mixed with the concepts of integration and involvement.  Moreover, McGormick, Kinzie and Goneya (2013) notice that the concept of student engagement is often mixed up with  the concept of student’s civic or community engagement-.

Method

This study is a multiple case study based on interview and documentary material of three public universities in a Midwestern state in the U.S. All universities belong to Carnegie class ‘Master colleges and universities’ and have a high undergraduate enrolment profile. The sample of three institutions was selected based on maximum variety in regards to student body, location and size. Altogether 16 informants were interviewed during academic year 2012–2013. The majority of informants (n=11) had full-time senior administrative positions, such as director for institutional research or director for teaching and learning development, four combined academic staff role with administrative tasks, such as directors of honours and general education programmes. One informant was a graduate student with a junior administrative role.The documentary material consisted of institutional strategic plans and self-evaluation reports. Because the goal for the interviews was to find out how interviewees construct their own meaning for student engagement they were planned to follow the guidelines of Rubin and Rubin’s (2005) responsive interview strategy. The themes for the interviews were sent to informants beforehand and were: 1) student engagement concept, 2) processes, projects or activities that enhance student engagement 3) obstacles for student engagement. The analysis method was qualitative theme analysis. Coding started with a coding chart which was created based on the literature review: student engagement a) as a behavioural concept related to learning activities of the student or organized by the university, b) as a psychological concept related to motivation to learn, c) as an identity concept related to becoming one’s true self, d) as a concept relating to establishing a connection with the university d) as a concept relating to being an active citizen or e) as a concept referring to student participation in the institutional governance or quality assurance. This round of coding revealed overlapping themes and no references to student participation in institutional governance or quality assurance. Therefore, coding proceeded inductively by comparing the informants’ definitions with each other and with the documentary material in an attempt to create a model on concept construction and to distinguish patterns that either accelerated or hindered shared understanding. Case A presents a shared, case B a split and case C a scattered construction of the student engagement concept on campus.

Expected Outcomes

This study illustrated three different pathways for fostering student engagement on campus. On campus A the concept had become an ‘enacted mission’ (Kuh et al., 2005; 2010) through the success of multiple bottom-up activities. In addition to empowering community members, it also offered an opportunity for the university to gain a competitive edge. On campus B the concept was fashionable and regarded as valuable both for giving top-down direction and providing meaning to community members. The meaning of the concept, however, was split, making it possible for the community members to use it for different purposes. The description of the term among community members on campus C offered a glimpse of campus life where student engagement as a term had not, despite the administration’s continuous efforts, become popular among the academic staff. These findings are in line with the suggestions that the use of the student engagement concept is ambiguous and thus provide a reason to argue that the concept of student engagement is fuzzy (Axelsson & Flick, 2013, Baron & Corbin, 2012; Kahu, 2013; Trowler, 2010; Wolf-Wendel, Ward & Kinzie, 2009). The findings suggest a blurring between the concepts of community engagement and student engagement (McGormick, Kinzie and Goneya, 2013) and reveal that the concept is easily mixed with the concept of student involvement (Wolf-Wendel, Ward & Kinzie, 2009). Moreover, as was anticipated, this U.S. data did not contain any references to the use of the student engagement concept which referred to student participation in governance or quality assurance (cf. Trowler, 2010; Klemenčič, 2013). The findings also highlighted that student engagement may resonate with university community members’ personal values and contribute to their sense of purpose in their own work.

References

Axelson, R. D., & Flick, A. (2012). Defining student engagement. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 43(1), 38-43. Baron, P. & Corbin, L. (2012). Student engagement: rhetoric and reality. Higher Education Research & Development, 11, 759-72. Kahu, E. R. (2013). Framing student engagement in higher education. Studies in Higher Education 38, 758-73. Kinzie, J. & Kezar, A. (2006). Examining the Ways Institutions Create Student Engagement: The Role of Mission. Journal of College Student Development 47, 146-72. Klemenčič, M. (2013). Student engagement in time of transformation. Keynote address delivered at Society for Research into Higher Education Conference on 12 December, 2013 in Newport, UK. Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H. & Whitt, E.J. (2005) Assessing Conditions to Enhance Educational Effectiveness: The Inventory for Student Engagement and Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H. & Whitt, E.J. (2010). Student success in college: creating conditions that matter. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kuh, G. D. (2009). The national survey of student engagement: Conceptual and empirical foundations. New Directions for Institutional Research, (141), 5-20. Lawson, M. A., & Lawson, H. A. (2013). New conceptual frameworks for student engagement research, policy and practice. Review of Educational Research, 83, 432-79. Leach, L., & Zepke, N. (2011). Engaging students in learning: a review of a conceptual organiser. Higher Education Research & Development 30, 193-204. McCormick, A., Kinzie, J., & Gonyea, R. M. (2013). Bridging research and practice to improve the quality of undergraduate education. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, 28, 47-92. Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2005). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data . 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Trowler, V. (2010). Student engagement literature review. The Higher Education Academy. Retrieved at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/studentengagement/StudentEngagementLiteratureReview.pdf van der Velden, G. (2012). Institutional Level Student Engagement and Organisational Cultures. Higher Education Quarterly 66, 227-47. Wimpenny, K. & Savin-Baden, M. (2013) Alienation, agency and authenticity: a synthesis of the literature on student engagement. Teaching in Higher Education, 18, 311-326. Wolf-Wendel, L., Ward, K., & Kinzie, J. (2009). A tangled web of terms: The overlap and unique contribution of involvement, engagement, and integration to understanding college student success. Journal of College Student Development, 50, 407-428.

Author Information

Johanna Vuori (presenting / submitting)
HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences
Espoo

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