‘The rules of engagement’: What motivates students to improve the quality of their learning experience ?

‘The rules of engagement’: What motivates students to improve the quality of their learning experience ? Senior, R1, Bartholomew, P2, Soor A4, Shepperd D4, Bartholomew N3, Senior C4,5. 1 Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice, Aston University, UK. 2 3 4 Vice Chancellors Directorate, Ulster University, Ireland. School of Health Sciences, Birmingham City University, UK. Department of Psychology, School of Life & Health Sciences, Aston University UK. 5 University of Gibraltar, Gibraltar. . 1 ABSTRACT Studying at university continues to grow in popularity and the modern-day university has expanded considerably to meet this need. Invariably as such expansion occurs pressures arise on a range of quality enhancement processes. This may have serious implications for the continued delivery of high quality learning experiences that meets the expectations of incoming students and is appropriate to their postgraduation aspirations. Ensuring students become active partners in their learning will encourage them to engage with a range of quality enhancement processes. The aim of the current work was, to examine the various factors that motivate students to engage in such a fashion. To examine such factors three focus groups were carried out to triangulate an effective set of recommendations for subsequent practice. The participants consisted of engaged, and non-engaged students as well as student-facing staff who were asked to comment on their experiences as to why students would want to engage as a course representative. Nominal group technique was applied in each case that ensured participants in each group democratically ranked these factors in levels of importance. Three themes emerged that overlapped across all focus groups i.e., a need for individual representation that makes a change, a desire to develop a professional skill set as well as a desire to gain a better understanding of their course of study. A university that aligns its student experience along these themes is likely to facilitate student representation. As is standard practice recommendations for future work are described alongside a discussion of the limitations. 2 INTRODUCTION A considerable body of evidence now exists supporting the range of advantageous outcomes that engaging with Higher Education (HE) has at both the level of state and individual (Holmes & Mayhew, 2016; King & Ritchie, 2013; Bloom, Canning & Chan, 2006). Indeed, a positive relationship has been revealed between studying at HE and a higher level of earnings (Walker & Zhu, 2013), increased employability skills (Mason, Williams & Cranmer, 2009) as well as engagement in civic behaviors such as voting (Dee, 2004). Graduates are also less likely to engage in criminal activity (Sabates, 2008). In light of these clear benefits it is perhaps unsurprising that the global HE sector remains vibrant with more and more people applying to study at HE than ever before (Altbach, Reisberg & Rumbley, 2009). The significant benefits associated with successfully graduating from a programme of study in HE has invariably seen a rise in the numbers of people wanting to take part in such learning (Walker & Zhu, 2009). Indeed, across the global HE sector the number of student enrolments to study a degree have been increasing and show growth from 13.8 % in 1990 to 29 % in 2010 (Varghese, 2013). To accommodate the increase in student applications institutes have had to change their organisational practice to ensure that they remain appealing to a wider and more diverse pool of applicants (see e.g., Trow, 2000). The rate of such expansion in the HE sector has led some scholars describing it as a massification process - a sociological term used to describe shifts in mainstream culture to adopt a particular concept (Scott, 1995). The significance of this massification philosophy is such that the current global HE sector has changed so much over the last decade that it is almost unrecognisable (Guri-Rosenblit, Sebkova, & Teichler, 2007; Teichler, 1998). However negative effects of an almost constant expansion on key stakeholder groups within HE are starting to emerge (Pechar & Park, 2017). As universities grow in size and complexity it is likely that this will place a strain on the quality of the provision (Lomas, 2002; Lomas & Tomlinson, 2000) which may in turn have an adverse effect on the levels of student engagement (Bryson & Hand, 2007). The potential impact that that massification may have on student engagement is not trivial as the drive for an ever-growing HE provision that caters for an ever-growing 3 cohort can only successfully occur if students are placed at the heart of the quality enhancement mechanisms (Hodson & Thomas, 2003). Placing students at the heart of quality processes ensures that the HE sector has the ability to both expand as well meet the expectations of the students that it serves (Senior, Reddy & Senior, 2014). The need to ensure that effective mechanisms for quality governance are in place is important. Despite the traditionally established balances of rewarding research output more than teaching performance, academic staff are seeing more and more of their time being spent on teaching activities. This has not only resulted in an increase in teaching staff who lack the appropriate qualifications, but has also driven a significant increase in dissatisfaction within the professoriate who tend to regard their professional identity as being more aligned to their research activities (Smeby, 2003). However such significant sectoral growth ensures that the development of effective quality governance structures is complex. Today's universities are more akin to the pluralistic complexity of the so called 'multiversity' (Kerr, 2010). An organisational structure that can best be imagined as an entity consisting of a central steering core with many semi-autonomous and interlocking research programmes that in turn inform the delivery of a large-scale teaching portfolio. A casual observer to any of the key HE institutes in the developed world will readily see that Kerr's model for a pluralistic multiversity is very much present. In light of the significant organisational complexity that is evident within a contemporary university we have previously argued the need for the incorporation of significant change to the governance structures that are needed to allow for the development of innovation (Knight & Senior, 2017). This new model would see the development of a common steering core consisting of academic members of staff, professional administrators working alongside student-stakeholders. The members of this common steering core would be allowed the opportunity to develop professional skills in management as well have protected time to reflect on how best to innovate effective delivery. For such governance structure to succeed it would be necessary for all members to be motivated to engage with the various processes. It goes without saying that academic administrators would be the most motivated stakeholder group here and linking reputational advantages to a positive student learning experience could act as an 4 extrinsic motivator for members of academic staff (Meyer & Evans, 2015). However, it is not known what motivations, if any, engender student participation within the full range of quality governance processes. While it could indeed be argued that the opportunity to develop a set of professional skills that would be acquired when contributing to the quality enhancement process of any academic programme is important, it has yet to be seen whether or not this is a sufficient mechanism for students to engage with the governance process. Addressing the problem of facilitating student engagement is both fundamental to the success of a university and is at the core of critical pedagogy which seeks to promote effective learning via the process of democratic engagement, mutual dialogue and cooperative working (Shor & Freire, 1987). At the heart of effective critical pedagogy is the importance of students being active partners of their learning rather than simply absorbing the information that they are given (Friere, 2000). To achieve this, students are encouraged to think critically about what they are taught and to challenge these views which in turn will enable them to make subsequent changes to their learning (Cole, 2014; See also Silva et al, 2016). How does an ever-expanding university continue to deliver on its underlying service imperative to provide effective professional skills that are aligned to the postgraduation workplace? There is no doubt that what might be called 'the student experience' is fundamental to effective governance in the modern day university (Senior, Reddy, Senior, 2014). The pertinent question is how do universities develop an effective relationship with students to ensure that they become effective partners in quality governance? That said, there have been some approaches to empower students to participate more often and more readily in the various organisational processes that are part and parcel of a mainstream university. Allowing students to participate fully in the ongoing research activities of academic staff is an effective means to develop a sense of community in the student cohort (Towl & Senior, 2010). This is in line with the Humboldian tradition of HE that sees both student and academic staff members working together for advancement of scientific understanding (Pritchard, 2004). Engaging with ongoing research activity may be one way to develop a sense of a professional community with the student 5 cohort, and this in turn may motivate students to engage further with the on-going governance processes at a university (Tissington & Senior, 2017). However, despite being an effective means to engender the experience of a learning community it is still not known if research activity (or indeed any other kind of potentially relevant activity) is effective in driving further engagement. To examine the range of factors that will drive such engagement a series of focus groups were carried out to explore student motivations through the method of Nominal Group Technique (NGT). Originally developed in 1975, NGT is a structured alternative for facilitating small group discussions in order to achieve a consensus or plan a set of activities. (see e.g., Claxton, Ritchie & Zaichkowsky, 1980; Horton, 1980). It has previously been used to examine a range of HE related questions including examination of the undergraduate student experiences and expectations (Chapple & Murphy, 1996; O'Neil & Jackson, 1983; Williams, White, Klem, Wilson & Bartholomew, 2006). NGT is considered to be a more efficient means to analyse focus group data compared to more conventional qualitative techniques (Gallagher, Hares, Spencer, Bradshaw & Webb, 1993). Due to the discursive and democratic nature of the NGT technique participation creates an effective balance between a friendly environment and the group members staying focused on the task at hand (Gallagher et al, 1993). In comparison to other qualitative research techniques such as participant observation and in-depth interviews, NGT diminishes facilitator bias within data collection. Participants occupy an active role within the research, rather than analytic themes or discourses being imposed upon them. It is also extremely time efficient as most sessions are completed within an hour to an hour and a half and allows the analysis to be carried out in a democratically-decided fashion by the focus group participants within the session itself, where most other methods require additional analysis via transcription etc (See table 1 below). METHODS Participants So as to ensure that the full range of student expectations and attitudes towards engagement were captured the focus groups consisted of a) students who self-identified as being highly engaged with the role of quality enhancement within their respective courses, as well as b) a group of age matched students who self-identified as being nonengagers with the quality enhancement processes and finally c) a group of student- 6 facing academic staff. The age of the participants in each of the two student-led focus groups ranged between 18-23 years. The three focus groups consisted of mainly female students apart from one male participant who identified himself as being highly-engaged with the quality processes and attended the appropriate focus group. All of the students were enrolled in a Psychology undergraduate degree programme. Participants from the academic staff population were randomly selected from a cohort of approximately 100 members of staff who indicated that they spent more than 70% of their time interacting with students in a support capacity i.e., teaching fellows. Procedure Three focus groups, each lasting approximately an hour were conducted with 5-8 participants. Each of the focus groups were carried out in a medium-sized university in the West Midlands of Birmingham, UK. In this institute there is a relatively low level of student engagement with approximately 160 of a total 600 (27%) student volunteers being trained to become a course representative within the academic year of 2016/17. This is against a regional average of 558 out of 600 students (93%) being recruited in a comparator institute of equivalent size in the same area1. All procedures were approved by the local institutional ethics review board and all participants provided written consent prior to taking part in the focus groups. The sample size was deemed appropriate for the current study, as it was consistent with the critical realist assumptions that underpin this study (Parker, 1992) and with existing work in the field (e.g., Sims-Schouten et al., 2007) as well as studies that have utilised NGT (Lloyd, Fowell & Bligh, 1999). To minimize social desirability effects the focus groups were led by one of the authors who had not had any contact with any of the participants prior to the data collection and was not an identifiable as a member of academic staff by the 1 Personal communication 29/06/2017 7 participants. All procedures reported here were approved by the local institutional review board for the Centre for Learning, Innovation and Professional Practice at Aston University (CLIPP). Nominal Group Technique (NGT) Table 1: Summary of each of the stages of the NGT that were carried out in each of the three focus groups. The approximate duration in minutes each step took and the key activities that were completed in each of the steps are also detailed. Throughout all stages of the process one facilitator engages with the participants and the final data are derived by the participants themselves with no need for subsequent transcription Step Mins Activity 1. Greetings and scene setting 5 2. The nominal question is posed 3. Brain Storming 10 Group members were greeted and any questions they had about the nature of the activity were addressed. Consenting carried out here. The nominal question was presented to all participants and each had an opportunity to clarify their understanding of it. 4. Sharing of ideas 10 5. Clarification and Clustering of ideas 10 10 5 6. Prioritization 5 7. Voting 8. Ranking and Agreement 5 Participants brainstormed all possible ideas and recorded all ideas on poststicks. This stage was completed silently by each participant. Each participant was then invited to share their ideas to the rest of the group by the facilitator who recorded each on the white board. Each statement was read out by the facilitator and participants were invited to question/interrogate any of the statements. If the group felt that statements recurred then redundant statements were removed. Each of the participants were asked to prioritise the remaining statements in silence and then the facilitator records each statement on the white board. The facilitator then secured the agreement of each participant with regards to the relative rank of importance to each of the remaining statements. The facilitator then ensured that each of the participants agreed with the final ranking of each of the statements including the ranking of the top three statements. 8 As noted above when compared to the traditional focus group technique, NGT uses a more structured format to allow participants to analyze problems and arrive at solutions in a democratic manner (see Bailey, 2014). It also avoids overly directive questions from a facilitator or topic guide that makes a priori assumptions about the importance of specific topics by raising them as questions. To achieve this, participants within each of the focus groups were presented with a single nominal prompt that was written down on a white board in the room, i.e., 'What are the driving factors of student engagement in the quality enhancement of programmes?'. They were guided through their understanding of a particular prompt in a step-by-step process which began with the participants being given ten minutes to write down their ideas in response to the prompt. The facilitator then invited each of the participants to provide the rest of the group with their responses, which were recorded by the facilitator on the white board. This process allows each group member the chance to participate equally and indeed the facilitator plays a crucial role here by ensuring that each group member has an equal opportunity to contribute to the discussion in a 'round-robin' fashion. After this stage, the facilitator then initiated the voting stage, which involved asking each participant to rank the importance of each of the responses on the board. At this stage a shortlist of the most appropriate and relevant answers to the prompt are developed on the board. This process is carried out by collating and removing any duplications. Participants were then asked to pick their top five as an individual. These ranking scores (a score of five for the highest ranked, and 1 for the lowest) are then collated by the facilitator while the participants have a short break. These collated scores are then added on to the white board and the pattern of voting discussed. This democratically driven process continued until the list could not be reduced any further and all participants agreed that the responses were ranked in order of importance. 9 RESULTS Table 2: The top three ranked themes in each of the engaged, non-engaged student focus groups and the student-facing staff focus group. Engaged Non-Engaged Staff 1 Giving oneself a voice Professional development through CV enhancement, being proactive Perceived benefits of engaging 2 Gaining a better educational experience Giving oneself a voice Awareness of opportunity for engagement 3 Professional development Leadership and skill development Feelings of anger, a need for change As can be seen from table 2 above a comparison of the top three themes revealed a partial overlap with some of the themes being revealed by each of the three groups. Consideration of the complete range of themes that were revealed within each of the groups also revealed overlap (see tables 3,4 and 5 below). Table 3: The emergent themes and subsequent votes for the students who identified themselves as being engaged. Votes Theme 18 Giving oneself a voice 15 15 Gaining a better educational experience Professional development 10 9 0 Gaining an understanding of how the university works Having an active rather than passive attitude, the desire to create change A good way for people to meet on the course 10 Table 4: The emergent themes and subsequent votes for the non-engaged student focus groups Votes Theme 23 Professional development through CV enhancement, being proactive 15 Giving oneself a voice 8 Leadership and skill development 6 5 5 Increasing the value for money spent on university Increasing the enjoyment of the course Getting the most of the course 5 Gaining confidence in oneself 4 Helping others 4 The opportunity to network with others 4 Dissatisfaction with the course 0 Enjoying the course 0 Gaining insight from the lecturers perspective 0 The motivation to use time productively 0 Better academic grades 11 Table 5: The emergent themes and subsequent votes for the focus group of staff who identified themselves as being student facing. Votes 32 23 19 Theme Perceived benefits of engaging Awareness of opportunity for quality enhancement, encouragement from the staff Feelings of anger, a need for change 17 CV enhancement 17 9 The perception of staff receptiveness to feedback The belief that one can make a difference 8 Enthusiasm for the course 6 Developing a sense of professionalism 6 Conscientiousness 5 Time 0 0 Ranking on league tables Social influence (peers) 0 Best value for money 0 Vocational course 0 0 0 Sense of responsibility to self and others Printing credits as an incentive Evidence of feedback making a difference 12 DISCUSSION The aim of the current study was to examine the range of student motivations that that facilitate their engagement with the quality assurance processes of their respective programme of study. To achieve this an exploratory qualitative approach using NGT was carried out. As is shown on Table 2 the ranking of the top three themes across each of the three focus groups does reveal some overlap with regards to the motivations for engagement. The main drivers for engagement as revealed here can be grouped together a) giving oneself a voice, b) improving learning and then c) professional development. Considering the engaged student’s, it is perhaps unsurprising that they ranked the opportunity to represent their opinions as the most important factor driving their engagement. Such expression is, after all, the reason for such engagement in the first place. The motivational aspect of this tends to be associated around the development of a clear student identity (McKenna, 2004). For example, in earlier work we found that the psychology of such student group formation is such that students tend to engage in various social encounters but are unaware they are using these exchanges to reinforce their professional identity (Senior, Howard, Reddy, Clark & Lim, 2012; Senior & Howard, 2014). It may be the case that the act of engagement in various governance committees consolidates their identity at the nexus of academic literacy and professional identity. The finding that the engaged students ranked the opportunity to develop a professional identity higher than the non-engaged students further supports the importance of identity formation in effective learning (See e.g., Senior & Howard, 2015). Additionally, undergraduate students whose professional identities were associated with high academic responsibility are also more likely to express plans to continue their education beyond undergraduate study (Burke and Reitzes, 1981). The themes that were revealed from the staff focus groups also informed an understanding of the students' desire to develop a representative voice throughout their time at university. Here, the student data were elaborated upon by the staff perspectives. The teaching staff also considered the development of a student voice to be an important driver of engagement. However, they also considered anger as the prime emotion driving such engagement. There has been some work that has highlighted the need for teachers to be more attuned to their students emotional state, indeed, it has 13 been shown that positive staff-student relationships do have a beneficial effect on the retention and performance of students (Thomas 2002; Rhodes & Nevill 2004). However, it is the nature of this emotion that is discussed further (See e.g., Hargreaves, 2000). There is no doubt that the HE environment has changed considerably over the last 10 years and the modern-day university now places a consumerist ideology at its core (Bok, 2009; Brookes, Byford & Sela, 2016). Within such an ideology, where students are the key consumer and effective learning the key product it is legitimate to assume that the measurement of student satisfaction would be straightforward; however this is far from the case (Senior, Moores & Burgess, 2017). Yet despite the rise of academic consumerism there remains an issue with regards to the management of expectations of the students (James, 2002; Riesman, 1980) and in some cases there is a significant disconnect between the institutional aspirations and the experiences of the student body (Tomlinson. 2017). In some of these cases the students are frustrated with their experience as it failed to meet their expectations of a programme of effective study (Nixon, Scullion & Hearn, 2016). However in general, staff in HE (for example, research focused academics) would not necessarily be the first point of contact for such student ire but those student facing staff (such as Teaching Fellows) - specifically who have the necessary relationships with students to experience their anger (Finch, Peacock, Lazdowski & Hwang, 2015). The academic benefits of participation in quality enhancement meetings was rated as the second top ranked theme by the engaged students. However, while the nonengaged students did not consider the opportunity to develop a better educational experience they did rank the ability to develop professional skills in general and leadership skills specifically in the top three themes. The engaged students ranked professional development as number three in the ranks. This spread of ranks and the identification of specific skills by the non-engagers does show that the need to develop a professional skillset is considered important by the wider student cohort. It tends to be common practice to encourage students to engage so as to highlight the benefit to their professional skillset and these data do show that this is an effective strategy to some extent. Indeed, the perceived importance of this skillset is clearly indicated by the top ranked theme from the staff focus group (see table 5). The data also 14 show the lack of importance that the non-engaged students place on the development of the overall learning experience compared to the professional skill set. The non-engaged students not only considered a professional skill set as the most important reason for engaging, but these students also considered the opportunity to develop leadership skills as the third ranked reason for engagement. These students consider the elements of the professional and transferable skillset to be separate entities and judge each of these separate entities as important on its own merits. On considering the rest of the ranked themes that were revealed in the data from the non-engaged students it is clear that the development of a professional skillset is one of the things that they may consider to be a positive aspect of engaging with the quality management of their programmes. Indeed, aspects such as the opportunity to develop confidence in oneself, the ability to help others as well as the opportunity to network with others students on the programme are all diagnostic of the need to develop a wide professional and transferable skill set. The depth of detail revealed by the non- engaged students compared to the depth of detail revealed by the engaged students highlights the perceived need by the non-engaged students to develop this skillset in their wider learning (Kavanagh & Drennan, 2008). That the students in these groups considered the importance of the development of the professional skill differently is worthy of consideration especially as the development of such a skill set is often used by institutional managers to encourage students to engage in this manner (Crebert, Bates, Bell, Patrick & Cragnoloni, 2004). Highlighting the importance of leadership development as well as the more generic professional skillset may therefore be beneficial for encouraging engagement in this way. It is also worth noting that the engaged students also raised the positive aspects of being actively involved in various management structures and how such involvement would support their ability to enact change. While the similar theme 'the motivation to use time productively' garnered no votes in the non-engaged group. In the staff focus group this was reported as ‘social influence (peers)’ but received no votes in the final ranking stage. As the non-engaged students reported the theme as 'the opportunity to network with others’, this shows that students are motivated by their peers to affect change and yet do not engage as a means of meeting other students socially. Previous research has suggested the importance of peer relationships in academic performance (Smith & 15 Peterson, 2007) and social ties in an academic context have been shown to positively influence academic performance, generally through motivation as well as the exchange of knowledge and ideas (Smith & Peterson, 2007; Senior & Howard, 2015). Worthy of note is the theme of “conscientiousness” that was raised and voted highly by the staff group which shows that staff perceived it to be a more important factor than students - despite previous work showing a strong relationship between a conscientious personality and learning performance (Colquitt & Simmering, 1998). Within the engagers and staff groups, it could be seen that a fair amount of importance was given to the concept of one's own positive attitude as a motivation for engagement. However, it was perceived as significantly less important by the non-engaged group, which perhaps reflects their views on a personal responsibility towards motivating oneself to be more engaged. Previous research has found positive relationships between one's selfperceived efficacy in self-motivated learning and academic outcomes (Ross, Perkins & Bodey, 2016). The research found that a student’s belief in their self-efficacy in academic achievement influenced their personal academic goals and in turn affected their academic achievement (Luo & Zhang, 2015). This research not only showed the importance of a student’s belief about their abilities towards their academic grades, but also showed how these beliefs influenced how ambitious they were in their goal-setting. In turn, this can perhaps show a relationship between one’s beliefs of their efficiency and the amount of responsibility they give themselves through the goals they set. As can be seen across the various tables above the majority of the themes that secured a rank overlapped with across the groups. By carrying out such a triangulatory analysis that involved the three different levels of the focus groups it was possible to develop a complete overview of student motivation in relation to engaging with the quality enhancement mechanisms of their specific programme of study. The application of NGT allowed for a detailed analysis of the various expectations to be developed in timely fashion. Moreover, as the analysis of the various themes were carried out in a democratic and discursive fashion the members of each of the focus groups could develop ownership of each of the themes which in turn ensured that each of the focus group members were sure of their relevance. The presence of the staff perspective enabled a comprehensive overview of the full range of factors facilitating engagement to be developed. Future work should be carried out to ensure a cross-institutional 16 comparison between the expectations of a student cohort in both an institute with a profile of high engagement compared to a profile of low engagement. While, student engagement in quality processes is clearly a complex and multifaceted issue use of NGT proved to be a efficient and effective means of unpicking some of this complexity. The findings presented above provide a firm foundation and serve to inform a fuller understanding of the processes by which students can start to become more engaged in their learning and the quality processes that surround it. REFERENCES Altbach, P. G., Reisberg, L., & Rumbley, L. E. (2009). Trends in global higher education: Tracking an academic revolution. 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