Let me edutain you! Practices of student engagement employed by new lecturers

ABSTRACT

Over the last few years, student engagement has become a commonly used term in Higher Education across the United Kingdom, American and Australasian higher education systems. This article presents research on an area of student engagement absent from the literature, that of new lecturers’ practices. Following detailed analyses of interview data after one year of teaching, the findings reveal a range of perceptions, pressures and tensions relating to student engagement which influence practice. Most lecturers described engagement as an emotional construct (the need for students to ‘like’ learning) as well as a cognitive construct (what they learn). However, there were tensions between the two and a need to overcome perceived barriers. We argue that lecturers can best be supported by acknowledging the time it takes to gain confidence, experiment and take risks, and appreciating their need to respond to different expectations.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic development
• higher education
• interactive
• student engagement
• teaching

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Lynne Wyness and Oxana Poverjuc for their support with this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.