Engaging our Students in the Learning Process: Points for Consideration

Over the past few years there has been considerable emphasis on the concept of ‘student engagement’. This at first sight is somewhat peculiar given that the mission of universities is surely to engage students in learning through providing the conditions and the environment in which learning will flourish! However, there are many tensions inherent in the world of academia today. The core business of universities is, or should be, creating the best learning environment for our students. In a context of mass higher education, increasing diversity of the student population, globalization and the new marketing of education, and increased competition between universities exacerbated by ‘league tables’, it is problematic to define ‘the best learning environment’ for engaging students in the learning process. In recent years the demographics of the student population have shifted considerably. There is a higher percentage of international students, there are more mature students both in undergraduate and postgraduate student populations, there are students with non-traditional qualifications and higher numbers of students who are the first in a family to enter into higher education. This is a heady mix to satisfy with vague conceptualizations of the ‘best learning environment’ and ‘student engagement’. At its simplest ‘engagement’ in an educational context refers to the time, energy and resources students devote to activities designed to enhance their learning at University. Krause (2006) expands on this definition and posits that: The well adjusted and engaged student is one who assesses and re-assesses their thinking as transitions and opportunities to engage in different ways continue through and beyond the first year of university. This definition offered by Krause (2006), while eloquent and succinct, may embody some implicit assumptions. Given the heterogeneity of any student body, it is quite likely that ‘engagement’ will mean different things to different students. It has to be unlikely that within an increasingly heterogeneous student population, there is one measure or one definition of ‘engagement’ that encapsulates the level of motivation or the learning goals of each individual student. Tamsin Haggis (2006) in her research on pedagogies for diversity, takes issue with the assumptions we make in higher education that “all students know that higher education study is about questioning, challenging, debating and creating knowledge as well as being about exploring and coming to know what is already known”.