Student engagement: Potential causes and solutions

Abstract

I will briefly discuss what I take to be some potential causes and solutions to student disengagement at the University of Waikato. As educators responsible to our students, our employers, and taxpayers, we are facing pressures from multiple directions. We face pressure to increase pass rates and flexible learning options, while ensuring students achieve learning outcomes and become work-ready. Perhaps due to having too many options and no conscious priorities, combined with an ever increasing array of distractions, students are not making time to take study seriously. And, for the most part, we are enabling them to do that. A regular part of our jobs has become chasing students up because they don't come to class, they miss deadlines, or they haven't even taken the time to look at the paper outline. I think that a university-wide initiative to structure our courses more effectively, have higher expectations of students, and educate students about "how to do university" could reinvigorate the student body and improve outcomes for students, the university, and taxpayers.