Last year, Larian M. Nkomo, Ben K. Daniel and Russell J. Butson published a systematic literature review on student engagement, which focussed on technologies that encompass social media, video, and collaborative learning technologies. Key to the review was the authors’ focus on the “pedagogical appropriateness” of technologies currently in use.  It’s well worth the read, as it summarises an extensive amount of literature in the field, whilst also identifying what we are yet to learn. Importantly, the review highlights inherent contradictions within existing research, with many studies disproving the outcomes of others.

They offer this brief summary of the outcomes of the review, but include more details in the article: “Three core themes were identified: there was no shared understanding of what constitutes student engagement with learning technologies, there was a lack of explanation concerning the contextual variation and modalities of student engagement across the digital technologies, and self-reporting was the primary method of measuring student engagement, rendering results as perceptual rather than behavioural.”

My takeaways:

• Least shocking quote – “Findings from this review showed substantial research on student engagement. However, there is no consensus on what constitutes student engagement.”
• Most shocking quote – “The study did not find any significant relationship between [LMS] data and students self-reported emotional and cognitive engagement.”
• A quote to challenge us – “The alignment of student engagement with technology to learning outcomes is ill defined and under-researched.”

What are your takeaways?

Katrina Cutcliffe