ABSTRACT
Many policy-makers, researchers and practitioners acknowledge the importance of student engagement in learning and teaching. However, evaluation processes requiring student feedback on learning and teaching remain predominantly designed and controlled by staff. In this chapter, we explore definitions of student engagement and evaluation and we argue that there are many benefits of engaging students more deeply in evaluation. These benefits include the new insights and perspectives students bring to what is evaluated and how it is evaluated. Student involvement often leads to development of greater understanding of the learning or student engagement initiatives being evaluated. Collaboration in evaluation also creates excellent opportunities for more dialogue between students and staff as well as supporting students to develop shared responsibility and ownership of evaluation and of learning and teaching. Whilst we acknowledge there are some challenges to engaging students in evaluation, we use a range of examples to make a case for moving away from evaluation done to students towards evaluation carried out with students. We also provide a typology (and table) to illustrate the different kinds of evaluation and engagement that are possible and we outline how some more traditional engagement practices can be augmented or redesigned to enhance student engagement.
