Student engagement and the transition from the first to second year in higher education

Abstract

This study explores Finnish university students' engagement and transitions from the first to the second study year. Student engagement is an important perspective for evaluating the success of transitions, both from the individual's and institution's viewpoint, in the early stages of a student's studies. In this study, student engagement has been modelled as an interaction of individual and collective processes related to learning. There is surprisingly little research on the transitions from the first to second year of study and on engagement construction from the first year onwards. The target population in the study was university students from all 13 universities in Finland who started their studies in the autumn of 2012. Altogether, 1176 students responded to the Engagement Evaluation Questionnaire (EEQ) in the springs of 2013 and 2014. The results showed that the intensity of engagement decreases during the second year of study, while the importance of individual elements of engagement, especially academic skills, may increase within the second year. It is noteworthy that there are differences of engagement between professional and generalist disciplinary fields. The probability of weak engagement seems to be more common in generalist fields. Most worryingly, those in the weakly engaging group from the first year of study onwards seem to remain in the group quite permanently, and the probability of belonging to the group even increases in the second academic year.

The impact of attendance on first-year study success in problem-based learning

“…Our results indicate that attendance matters more for later periods in the first year. This may be due to decreasing engagement (Brahm et al 2017;Korhonen et al 2017). These results may serve as an argument to have a minimum attendance policy throughout the first year.…”

“…Tinto 1997;Wilcox et al 2005;Zhao and Kuh 2004). As such, fostering a supportive academic and social environment can increase students' belief in their own capacities and can help keep them motivated and engaged (Brahm et al 2017;Korhonen et al 2017;Tinto 2017). Jansen and Suhre (2010) argue that an active learning environment is important for students' persistence, especially in their first year.…”

The Educational Correlates of Voting: A Cross‐sectional Study of Finnish Undergraduates’ Turnout in the 2014 European Parliament Election

“…Since this effect might not materialize before students have transitioned to working life as professionals, however, we also include a second, more direct measure of networking. Peer networking thus gauges the intensity of student interactions using a sub‐scale of the 12‐item student engagement scale (EEQ) developed by Korhonen et al () . While this item was included in both waves of the survey, we use the 2014 measurement due to its temporal proximity to the European election.…”

“…As our proxy for Pedagogic method , we use student engagement in the academic community through participation in discourse. Measured in the second wave, the variable is based on a single 7‐point item from the EEQ scale (Korhonen et al ) with the wording ‘I participate in discussions about my subject and/or discipline’.…”

First-Year Students Background and Academic Achievement: The Mediating Role of Student Engagement

“…According to Lewis et al (2011), the cognitive dimension of engagement lacks attention from the literature. Several authors have related cognitive engagement to students' use of cognitive strategies and considered the adoption of a deeper approach to learning, centered on understanding and connecting ideas, as these are both considered signs of students' investment (Fredricks et al, 2004;Harris, 2011;Korhonen et al, 2017). When adopting a deep approach, students attribute a personal meaning to the contents, by relating new ideas to their previous knowledge and experiences in the surrounding world.…”