Examining Student Engagement: From Definition to Operationalisation

Abstract

Education is a fundamental value to society, and improving its delivery is an important part of the educational ecosystem. Because of its purported ability to assess these improvements and provide a window into elements of student experience, this thesis investigates the construct of student engagement, particularly within Higher Education. This is done through a critical examination of the historical and contemporary research in the area of student engagement and evaluates the strengths and challenges facing the construct. These limitations are identified extensively across the field as lack of consensus on a definition of student engagement, and accordingly, difficulties with the operationalisation of measurement of the construct. Therefore, this thesis provides a novel definition of student engagement which intends to synergise with the contemporary understanding of the construct and existing research. Following this, the definition is operationalised into three distinct measurement systems (behavioural observation, self-reported survey instrument, and learning management site analytics) to examine student engagement across multiple educational contexts. Through evaluating these instruments and comparing their results to research in the field, the success of the operationalisation is discussed. The findings suggest the complexity of student engagement demands mixed methods to more successfully approach the measurement of the construct – perhaps best considered as a latent variable. The general results suggest higher levels of indicators of student engagement in different academic contexts, and complex relationships between activity variables from learning management site analytics data (treated as indicators of student engagement) and academic performance. Ultimately, this research aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse of the definition and operationalisation of the construct to improve the experiences of students in Higher Education.