Exploring anomalies in Indigenous student engagement: findings from a national Australian survey of undergraduates

† In this paper, the term ‘Indigenous’ refers to Australian students who are of self-declared Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background, while ‘non-Indigenous’ refers to all other Australians.

Abstract

Increases in participation by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in higher education across Australia continue to be promising. However, it is also known that Indigenous students' attrition, retention and completion rates remain areas of concern. In this paper, we report our findings from an analysis of Indigenous student responses to the 2009 Australasian Survey of Student Engagement. Overall, Indigenous Australian students express positive responses in relation to engagement, but are more likely than non-Indigenous students to be planning to depart. We explore this somewhat unexpected anomaly, whilst also suggesting that much more needs to be known about our Indigenous students, including, for example, whom they may interact with at university; where they turn for support; and why they may decide to leave. Our findings strongly indicate that better national and institutional data are needed to address the current gaps in knowledge relating to Indigenous student populations in Australia and around the world.

Keywords:

• Aboriginal
• attrition
• Indigenous education
• retention
• student engagement
• student support
• Torres Strait Islander
• university

Acknowledgements

This paper expands upon some of the findings first discussed in Asmar, Page, and Radloff (2011). We acknowledge the support of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and, in particular, Dr Hamish Coates.

Notes

† In this paper, the term ‘Indigenous’ refers to Australian students who are of self-declared Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background, while ‘non-Indigenous’ refers to all other Australians.

1 These centres are academic and/or student support units within institutions, often with a concentration of Indigenous staff.

2 These programs, sometimes known as ‘Block Mode’, enable students located in provincial or remote Australia to pursue studies while only spending a few weeks per year away from family and community. In this paper, we contrast such Indigenous-specific programs with ‘mainstream’ courses in the disciplines, where students enrol together with non-Indigenous peers.