If you’re anything like me, the list of articles you would like to read is far greater than the amount of time you have to read! Recently, the Student Engagement SIG met to discuss some recent research and to share what was on their reading lists.

Here’s what we discussed:

“Online Learner Engagement: Conceptual Definitions, Research Themes, and Supportive Practices”

Florence Martin and Jered Borup

Link to article.

Key focuses:

• “In this article, we … argue for a reconceptualization of online learner engagement that considers both critical dimensions of learner engagement and the environmental affordances that influence them.”
• “We introduce five research themes and accompanying frameworks from online learning research that have shaped understanding of learner engagement in online learning environments (i.e., engagement through communication, interaction, presence, collaboration, and community).”
• “We share an exemplar framework and strategies for supporting online learner engagement.”

The article contained an important reminder: Online learning places greater cognitive demand on students, as they need to learn the tools as well as the course material.

Our question: How are we designing our courses to address this added cognitive demand?

“Unraveling Student Engagement: Exploring its Relational and Longitudinal Character”

Rachel A. Smith and Vincent Tinto

Link to article.

Included here as it is new work from, Tinto, one of the greats in the field of student retention.

Focus:

• “In our theoretical exploration, we draw on existing thinking about engagement in higher education and fit it to a social network paradigm that is well suited to conceptualizing and measuring relational, multidimensional, and dynamic phenomena such as student engagement.”
• An interesting provocation: “As Hurtado and Carter (1996) argued, it is not engagement per se that influences students’ behavior, but students’ perceptions of their engagement and the meanings they derive from them as to belonging and being valued.”

Our questions: How are we shaping students’ perceptions of their own engagement? How do we define engagement and success for students?

“How Unis Can Save Millions by Tackling the Biggest Causes of Online Students’ High Dropout Rates”

Steven Greenland, Catherine D.T. Moore, Ninh Nguyen, and Roopali Misra

Link to Conversation.

• Engages with their prior research that identified reasons students drop out of courses and linked it to retention strategies used by universities.
• Highlights the importance of transition points and the transition into university.
• A startling point: “online students are 2.5 times more likely than on-campus students to withdraw without a qualification.” Over 70% of our students are online

Our question: How can we reshape orientation to better support student transition?