The term student engagement appears to be a buzzword amongst those working to enhance learning and teaching in Higher Education and is a concept that has been a focus point of many studies across Europe.  It is claimed by those such as Dunleavy & Milton (2009, pg 18) that increased student engagement can lead to educational improvements whereby the teachers and students are engaged in ‘co-constructing ideas the contribute directly to school improvement and development.’ Within this research, the term student engagement is linked to student involvement. Astin (1999) states that ‘student involvement refers to the amount of physical and psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic experience’ (p. 518). The term student engagement to discuss whether or not the students were attending, demonstrating interest and enjoyment of the course, and importantly demonstrating through their actions during lectures, workshops, presentations etc. that they were being cognitively engaged throughout the duration of the module.  

This research discusses the changes made to the delivery of an undergraduate initial teacher education module from a critical reflective practice perspective. This work is based on research undertaken by a group of three lecturers (the module team) teaching on a Humanities module within a Scottish initial teacher education programme as a means of discussing the outcomes of employing critical reflective practice to enhance the student experience. A module within the context of this paper constitutes a 20-credit module at level 8 of the Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework [SCQF] (SCQF, 2009). The student sample was drawn from the second year of a four-year, Bachelor of Education Honours degree in Primary Education.

Critical reflective Practice

Reflective practice has become an influential concept, in various forms of professional education (Thompson and Pascal, 2012). Indeed, the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) has embedded the concept of professional reflection within its full range of professional standards since 2001. The share the GTCS view that reflective practice is a long-term, complex and dynamic professional learning process that is promulgated through and from experience, focused on gaining new insights into professional practice. However to us, critical reflection involves actively questioning our assumptions about everyday practice, where practitioners becomes self-aware and able to critically evaluate their own responses to practice situations by recapturing practice experiences and critically engaging in focused thought about practice, in order to gain new insights into practice and to extend our understandings and theories about effective teaching and learning aimed at improving future practice.

The type of critical reflection that the lecturers involved in this research engaged with, focused specifically on three dimensions of critical reflective practice i.e. reflection-in-action; reflection-on-action, and reflection-for-action.

This research is not only of importance to the researchers and the students involved with the project but also to the wider educational community as we consider ways to improve the quality of educational experiences for our students whilst at the same time increasing their engagement and participation in their learning.

The aims of this research were two fold:

1. To tackle, in a research informed manner, the growing issue of a lack of Primary Education Student engagement within a Humanities module as part of their Undergraduate Teacher Education programme.
2. To enhance the professional development of a new module team through the use of critical reflection focused on increasing the quality of the student experience and engagement within the module.

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