Focusing on university student engagement at the institutional level
- Authors: Devlin, Marcia , Brockett, Susan , Nichols, Scott
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management Vol. , no. (2009), p.
- Full Text: false
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- Description: In Australia, there has been a tendency to rely on quantitative indicators of university teaching quality. This has occurred partly because the indicators are perceived as objective and reliable and partly because they are relatively simple to gather and collate. A national project currently underway is based on the assumptions that teaching quality is multidimensional and that the identification and use of relevant indicators of teaching quality are dependent on the institutional environment. With a focus on student engagement, this paper outlines the research-based approach to developing indicators of teaching quality being taken by one Australian university participating in the national project.
Conceptualising and measuring student engagement through the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) : A critique
- Authors: Hagel, Pauline , Carr, Rodney , Devlin, Marcia
- Date: 2012
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education Vol. 37, no. 4 (2012), p. 475-486
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Student engagement has rapidly developed a central place in the quality agenda of Australian universities since the introduction of the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE). The AUSSE is based on one developed in the USA. The main arguments given for adopting this survey in Australia are that it provides a valid instrument for measuring engagement and that it enables international comparisons. However, the survey instrument and scales have been adopted with little scrutiny of these arguments. This paper examines these arguments by considering different perspectives of engagement, examining the importance of contextual differences and evaluating the AUSSE engagement scales in the light of both. The paper concludes that the AUSSE results should be used by universities and policy-makers with caution. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.