ABSTRACT

Providing a selection of critical pieces on the key challenges and debates in student engagement in higher education, this edited collection of sector-leading, scholarly-informed critical reflections is designed to consider and build upon what can be done to advance student engagement.

By problematising student engagement practice, this book explores how to strengthen policies, recognise the issues and create solutions to overcome barriers and tensions. It considers topics such as diversity, accessibility, representativeness, evidencing impact, data analytics, the campus estate and the impact of COVID-19. The contributors provide lessons learned and knowledge from the field to make practice with students more considered and robust for the challenges ahead in the post-pandemic university.

Moving beyond endorsing student engagement and offering best practice to critically reflect on and challenge our engagements with students in contemporary higher education, this book is ideal reading for all those developing education, course leaders and heads of academic departments, as well as anyone interested in advancing student engagement in their higher education setting.

chapter 1|17 pages

Advancing student engagement in higher education

The need for reflection, critique and challenge

chapter 2|13 pages

Researching and evaluating student engagement

A methodological critique of data-gathering approaches

chapter 4|3 pages

There is not one student experience

Our learner journeys as individuals

chapter 5|15 pages

Equality and diversity in our student engagement practice

Radical possibilities to reaching racial and religious equity in higher education

chapter 7|11 pages

Students as consumers

A barrier for student engagement?

chapter 8|12 pages

Accessibility to student engagement opportunities

A focus on ‘hard-to-reach’ universities

chapter 9|9 pages

How to engage students in your educational developments

A student leader's view

chapter 10|11 pages

Student evaluation of courses – co-creation of meaning through conversations

Insights from the student perspective

chapter 17|10 pages

Defining, delivering and evaluating student engagement in a professional service in higher education

A case study of a student engagement team in an academic library

chapter 18|14 pages

University estates

From spaces to places of student engagement

chapter 19|9 pages

Learning analytics in higher education

The ethics, the future, the students

chapter 20|15 pages

Placing sport at the heart of the university community

A critical reflection on sports club membership and what it means for student engagement from a Bourdieusian perspective

chapter 21|13 pages

Towards inclusive student partnership

Challenges and opportunities for student engagement in the Australian context

chapter 23|11 pages

Widening the aperture on college students' sense of belonging

A critical ecological perspective

chapter 24|19 pages

Valhalla and Nirvana

Views of Arnstein's ladder of citizen participation in further and higher education

chapter 25|12 pages

So what and what next?

Concluding thoughts on advancing student engagement