A Students as Partners Approach to Analysing Student Engagement Data for Teaching and Learning

Sarah Thelen, Owen Jump, Katy Dineen, Deirdre Kearney, Katie Marah, Gráinne Mulcahy, Darragh Ó Cruadhlaoich, Luke Watson, Marnina Winkler

About the Project

Student engagement is an increasingly vital question in third level education. Data from UCC students in the Irish Survey of Student Engagement measures key aspects of engagement including social, personal, and academic development which, in turn, are directly related to broader issues such as quality of educational experience and staff student engagement. While valuable in certain contexts, this form of analysis does miss a valuable opportunity to involve the affected populations and include interpretation and analysis from students themselves.

We therefore propose to pilot a community driven, Students as Partners approach actively involving students in the analysis of their own data. This approach has distinct advantages. Firstly, a Students as Partners approach (Bovill, C., Cook-Sather, A., and Felten, P. , 2011) taps directly into the rich experience that is directly relatable to the messages within the data. Secondly, students span entire institutions and have underutilised expertise in both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Finally, involving students in the analysis of data and dissemination of findings empowers them to act as change agents that will improve student engagement and inform dialogue about teaching and learning between staff and students.

Aims

This study will demonstrate a replicable process for analysing national and local student engagement data utilising Student as Partners approach for teaching and learning enhancement.

Objectives and Outcomes

To achieve this staff and students will participate in a pilot study analysing qualitative and quantitative data from the Irish Survey of Student Engagement, including data specific to UCC. The project will employ a situated learning approach to:

• demonstrate the efficacy of this process as it relates to teaching and learning enhancement by providing a useful analysis of existing data sets,
• provide critical feedback on the process to document and outline the methodology so that it is replicable and can be applied to the analysis of future data sets,
• produce an accessible toolkit and training module to ensure the process can be used at departmental, institutional and national level,
• present findings at international conferences and local workshops.

Methods

This project will incorporate a mixed methods design using a Students as Partners approach to analyse qualitative and quantitative data from StudentSurvey.IE surveys.

The project team of staff and students will analyse the qualitative data together to identify key determinants of student engagement and to provide suggested interventions to enhance or promote engagement in future. In addition, selected qualitative data will be analysed using thematic analysis to uncover core themes related to student engagement. In line with previous Student Survey.IE research (McCashin and Boyd, 2021) qualitative data will be analysed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to uncover key themes within the student engagement data while documenting the student-led approach to data analysis.

Project Status (as of October 2023)

Student Partners were recruited in June/July 2023 and the final report based on their analyses is now available.

Click here to view the report as a PDF: Students as Partners analysis of Postgraduate Student Engagement (2023-24)

The staff members of the project team conducted an initial analysis of the methodology and processes of the Students as Partners approach in October 2023 and presented the results at the annual meeting of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) in Utretch, Netherlands in 8-11 November 2023.

Click here to view the poster as a PDF: Students as Partners Analysis of Engagement Data, ISSOTL poster 2023