“The Rules of Engagement”: Student Engagement and Motivation to Improve the Quality of Undergraduate Learning

Abstract

Studying at university continues to grow in popularity and the modern-day university has expanded considerably to meet this need. Invariably as such expansion occurs pressures arise on a range of quality enhancement processes. This may have serious implications for the continued delivery of high quality learning experiences that both meet the expectations of incoming students and are appropriate to their postgraduation aspirations. Ensuring students become active partners in their learning will encourage them to engage with a range of quality enhancement processes. The aim of the current work is to examine the various factors that motivate students to engage in such a fashion. Three focus groups were carried out in a stratified manner to ascertain student motivations and to triangulate an effective set of recommendations for subsequent practice. The participants consisted of engaged and non-engaged first year undergraduate students as well as student-facing staff who were asked to comment on their experiences as to why students would want to engage as a course representative. Nominal group technique was applied to the emerging thematic data in each group. Three key motivational themes emerged that overlapped across all focus groups i.e., a need for individual representation that makes a change, a desire to develop a professional skillset as well as a desire to gain a better understanding of their course of study. A university that aligns its student experience along these themes is likely to facilitate student representation. As is standard practice recommendations for future work are described alongside a discussion of the limitations.

A SWOC analysis on the impact of COVID-19 through pharmacy student leaders’ perspectives

“…This is similar to the experience of students in Harvard school of dental medicine who perceived the virtual learning live lecture synchronous approach to increase burnout and decrease student retention and engagement with course content (Chen, Kaczmarek, & Ohyama, 2020). Therefore, it is of crucial importance to provide students with the opportunity to share their opinions and voice their concerns which has been perceived as an important driver for student engagement (Senior et al, 2018). The CPH administration met with student leaders several times during the spring semester 2020.…”

A new measure for the assessment of the university engagement: The SInAPSi academic engagement scale (SAES)

“…As this is a 'borderline' subscale positioned in the middle of the self-determination continuum, it was plausible to expect neither relation with the SAES scores. It is important to underline that this is an important finding as many studies have proven that academic engagement is associated with the students' motivation (e.g., Appleton et al, 2008;Senior et al, 2018) and that some motivational antecedents may encourage academic engagement (Wang & Eccles, 2013;Wang & Holcombe, 2010). This implies the possibility to adopt the SAES for evaluating university interventions aimed at improving academic engagement and students' retention, by also assessing if such interventions promote more autonomous forms of students' motivation.…”

“…To develop some of the items we resorted to available motivation scales (as the intrinsic motivation inventory) since students' motivation can be considered as another influential factor for engagement. Prior studies have also thoroughly shown that engagement is associated with the motivation (e.g., Alivernini et al, 2017;Appleton et al, 2008;Senior et al, 2018). Example items are: The course of study I am attending is interesting or I like the course of study I'm attending.…”

“…Moreover, we also drafted some items to address the value of university in terms of future expectations, the identification in the desired professional role and the development of congruent skills. Since these constructs are recognized to be very closely linked to student motivation (Eccles, 2004;Ryan & Deci, 2000;Senior et al, 2018), we can infer that also engagement can be related to these constructs. Example items are: I find my studies very significant for my professional plans or The course of study I'm attending is functional to the achievement of my professional goals.…”

“…The AMS has previously been assessed for factorial validity, reliability, measurement invariance across genders and areas of study in English-and French-speaking students (Grouzet et al, 2006) and in Italian-speaking students (Alivernini & Lucidi, 2008;Alivernini et al, 2017;Girelli, Alivernini, Salvatore, et al, 2018a;Girelli, Alivernini, Lucidi, et al, 2018b). The reason for using AMS to test criterion-validity of the SAES is that prior studies have thoroughly shown that engagement is associated with motivation for learning (e.g., Appleton et al, 2008;Senior et al, 2018).…”