Student engagement in higher education (HE) continues to be a matter of concern for universities and stakeholders as engaged students are less likely to drop out and are more inclined to engage in lifelong learning (Kuh, 2009). The institutional efforts to improve student engagement include teaching methods and depend on how teachers perceive their students (Almarghani & Mijatovic, 2017). Given that some student engagement may be invisible to the teacher (Gourlay, 2017; Padilla-Petry & Vadeboncoeur, 2020), and that students' perception of the subject and their own engagement may differ from that of the teachers’ (Zepke et al., 2014), few studies have compared teachers' views of student engagement with those of students' and little is known about an engagement that may go beyond a performativity (Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017b). Consequently, HE policies may be focusing on student engagement only as it is seen from the teachers or the institutions.

Mainstream views of student engagement in HE reduce it to behaviours in classrooms organised by teachers and institutions and experienced by students. However, these mainstream views are deemed insufficient for some since they lack a "democratic-critical conception of learning that is participatory and dialogic" (Zepke, 2015, p.1317). Instead, student engagement in HE should be about adults making learning choices in post-compulsory education, thus avoiding an infantilization of HE students with compulsory attendance and emotional responses such as personal reflections on professional or experiential learning (Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017b).

Student engagement has traditionally been associated with high-quality learning outcomes (Wimpenny & Savin-Baden, 2013) such as critical thinking (Carini et al., 2006), but some scholars are concerned with the relationship between alleged signs of student engagement (e.g., higher attendance), specific pedagogic interventions and learning gains (Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017a; 2017b). As an ideology that reifies the notion of participation (Gourlay, 2015), the concept of student engagement may serve to underscore notions of what is acceptable student behaviour. For instance, would engagement-as-opposition (engagement outside the norms, protesting etc.) be recognised as engagement (Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017b)? 

Several elements of what is considered legitimate engagement "focus on activity, which is communicative, recordable, public, observable and often communal" (Gourlay, 2015, p.404). The performativity associated with student engagement may not be directly related to learning and the conflation of student satisfaction and engagement may be illusory if the former is scarcely related to learning gains (Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017b). Thus, equating meaningful learning to largely behavioural measures may fail to capture the quality of learning generating a performativity in which targets and performance indicators must be met, students must be perceived as active learners and what is easily observable is measured (Macfarlane & Tomlinson, 2017b). 

Furthermore, some scholars highlight the invisibility or misinterpretation of certain forms of student engagement as some students may have an independent style of engagement and collaborate less with peers, while others seem to be passive (Gourlay, 2017). The invisibility of solitary forms of student engagement such as reading, writing or enquiring on the content of the subject outside the class may be ignored by teachers (Gourlay, 2017; Padilla-Petry & Vadeboncoeur, 2020) and students who prefer more solitary or independent learning may feel alienated and even vilified in classes where participation is mandatory (Tomlinson, 2017). But since what is understood as legitimate student engagement may vary according to teachers’ expectations and pedagogy (Gourlay, 2015) and reduced to task completion (Wintrup, 2017), more studies on the differences between HE students’ and teachers’ perspectives on student engagement and learning are needed to better inform HE policies on student engagement.

We present the results of a mixed methods study that aimed to compare the views on student engagement in HE of teachers and students of Law, Education and Nursing from two Catalan public universities in the framework of blended teaching. The specific objectives of the research were: 1) to identify the degree of agreement/disagreement in relation to indicators of student engagement from the point of view of students and teachers; 2) to ascertain the students' and teachers' opinion on the visibility or invisibility of student engagement; 3) to compare the students' and teachers' opinions about and assessments of student engagement; 4) to explore how teachers and students understand learning in HE. The quantitative method comprised two ad hoc surveys, one for teachers and another for students, each consisting of three sections of questions: 1) socio-demographic data, 2) closed multiple-choice items, and 3) open-ended questions. The qualitative methods involved semistructured interviews with teachers and a student focus group. Participants consisted of teachers and students from Nursing, Law and Education degree programs which encompass subjects such as Pedagogy and Social Education. The surveys were distributed through the mailing lists of the respective faculties, ensuring anonymity and confidentiality with no collection of identifying data. The first section of each survey outlined the research objectives and sought informed consent from participants. Involvement in the study was voluntary, and no financial or academic incentives were offered. Forty-five teachers and 118 students from two universities completed the surveys. Twelve teachers were interviewed, with 6 from each university and 4 from each degree program. These participants, all full-time lecturers with more than 5 years of teaching experience, were recognized by their peers for actively implementing active learning methods. Notably, the majority were women (n=9). The focus group comprised 7 students from both participant universities, with 5 from Education degree programs and 2 from Law. Participants were chosen based on their active involvement in class discussions, with the majority being women (n=6). Quantitative analysis of agreement ratings for the survey items was conducted using SPSS software (version 25). Descriptive statistics (frequency, mean, standard deviation) were computed, alongside nonparametric tests for group comparison (Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis K, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test) (Hollander et al., 2014). Responses to the open-ended questions underwent qualitative content analysis using an inductive approach. The qualitative content analysis of both the semistructured interviews and the focus groups followed a mixed inductive-deductive approach.

Regarding the perception of student engagement, while both teachers and students agreed on the importance of attendance, seeking the best qualifications and commenting positively or critically on the subject, there were significant differences regarding class participation and non-compulsory activities and attitudes. Students were more critical of the association between participation and student engagement defending their right to engage through silent listening and keeping the webcam off in online classes. Most of the teachers and the students accepted the invisibility of student engagement, but the reasons for this acceptance varied considerably between them. The students confirmed the teachers' explanations (lack of participation, large groups, and online classes) for the invisibility of student engagement but complained about a possible lack of teacher involvement or objectivity in assessing student engagement. Some of the students' complaints appeared to be directed at teachers' lack of awareness of students' efforts and personal conditions. Regarding the performativity of student engagement, students attached importance to attentive and silent listening as an indicator of student engagement, which may reveal more tolerance of a less performative engagement. While most of the teachers trusted their evaluation methods as indicators of the students’ learning, the students largely related learning with being able to apply or use what they learn outside the class. Moreover, almost 20% of the teachers’ responses to the question about students’ learning associated learning with class attendance and participation. Both the teachers and students associated achieving good qualifications with student engagement. This association justifies fostering student engagement, but not the assumption that student engagement is necessarily lacking in students with lower grades. In fact, 23.9% of the students' responses on the invisibility of student engagement were complaints about the lack of visibility of the work involved in each course, and 14.8% complained that teachers looked at qualifications only.

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