Computer-based technology and student engagement: a critical review of the literature

Computer-based technology has infiltrated many aspects of life and industry, yet there is little understanding of how it can be used to promote student engagement, a concept receiving strong attention in higher education due to its association with a number of positive academic outcomes. The purpose of this article is to present a critical review of the literature from the past 5 years related to how web-conferencing software, blogs, wikis, social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter), and digital games influence student engagement. We prefaced the findings with a substantive overview of student engagement definitions and indicators, which revealed three types of engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) that informed how we classified articles. Our findings suggest that digital games provide the most far-reaching influence across different types of student engagement, followed by web-conferencing and Facebook. Findings regarding wikis, blogs, and Twitter are less conclusive and significantly limited in number of studies conducted within the past 5 years. Overall, the findings provide preliminary support that computer-based technology influences student engagement, however, additional research is needed to confirm and build on these findings. We conclude the article by providing a list of recommendations for practice, with the intent of increasing understanding of how computer-based technology may be purposefully implemented to achieve the greatest gains in student engagement. © 2017, The Author(s)

The COVID Crisis in Legal Education

Legal education has been challenged, and the LSSSE Annual Report reveals that while the core of legal education remains relatively unchanged, the “intangibles” of law school learning were certainly affected. Above all, the data show unequivocally that our students have been in crisis. Students have struggled to meet their basic needs, with troubling percentages reporting increased worries about housing, financial instability, and even food insecurity. While most made efforts to build relationships with faculty, staff, and classmates, their overall quality of life declined along with opportunities for academic engagement and professional development. The pandemic is a wake up call for the law school to rethink the future of legal education

National Survey of Student Engagement (2015): Engagement Insights: Survey Findings on the Quality of Undergraduate Education

In 2015, NSSE collected responses from more than 315,000 first-year and senior students attending 585 bachelor’s degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. The following pages present selected NSSE results from students at 541 U.S. institutions or subsets of that group where supplemental survey items were included. They also report selected results from NSSE’s two companion surveys, the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE) and the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE). In this report, they investigated NSSE results that bear on the importance of challenging students to do their best work, seniors’ preparation in the major, and the relationship of financial stress to engagement and views of the campus environment. The BCSSE analysis examined high school study habits and their relationship with the first year of college. The authors use FSSE results to investigate faculty perceptions safety and crisis preparedness.Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Researc