Engaging in spaces: How mature distance students fit study into their homes and lives

In order to fit study around family and work, a third of mature aged tertiary students in New Zealand study by distance. By enabling students to study when and where they want, distance study is said to overcome the barriers of space and time. But space and time must still be found and the blurring of the physical boundaries between study and home creates new challenges. While much has been written about how distance students juggle time, little has considered how they manage space; yet it is often the availability of an appropriate learning space that determines not just when and where they study, but the quality of their engagement. This qualitative study, following 19 mature aged distance students and their families through their first semester, examines how the students carved learning spaces from their busy lives, the nature of those spaces, and the impact this had on their engagement. For some, a space without other people was the essential characteristic and they achieved this through either a physical separation strategy such as studying at work, or a temporal separation strategy such as studying only when children were at school. For others, isolation was a barrier to their engagement and they gravitated to shared living spaces. Individual lifeload, context, and personal preference mean there are no right or wrong choices, but family support is a critical influence on the success of different strategies

Framing student engagement in higher education

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Studies in Higher Education on 2011, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2011.598505Publishe

Using photo elicitation to understand first-year student experiences: Student metaphors of life, university and learning

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Student engagement in the educational interface: understanding the mechanisms of student success

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Higher Education Research & Development on 2016, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2017.1344197Publishe

Completing a PhD by publication: A rewarding and challenging choice

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Muslim and Gay: Seeking identity coherence in New Zealand

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Culture, Health & Sexuality on 2015, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2015.1079927The process of accepting oneself as gay and of ‘coming out’ to family and friends is well documented. For Muslim men, this is complicated by the tension between their emerging sexual identity and their religious and cultural birth identity, which labels homosexuality as sinful. This paper explores this process in a sample of five gay Muslim men living in New Zealand, a liberal secular society where homosexuality is widely accepted and gay rights are endorsed in legislation. Identity Process Theory drives the analysis, which identifies five themes encapsulating the process of striving for psychological coherence: resistance, acceptance, tension, renegotiation and pretence. Initial phases of denial and anger at their emerging sexuality are strongly linked to the conflict with their religious identity. Later, acceptance of their sexuality as natural and even God-given protects them from blame for their ‘sins’. In contrast to earlier work in the UK, for most men, renegotiation of their Muslim identity is adopted as the key strategy for achieving intrapsychic coherence. However, at an interpersonal level, families remain a source of conflict, temporarily resolved through pretence. Renegotiating religious identity leaves men having to pretend not just to be straight, but also to be strongly religious.tru

The engagement of mature distance students

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Higher Education Research and Development in 2013, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07294360.2013.777036.Publishe

Early identification of first-year students at risk of dropping out of high-school entry medical school: the usefulness of teachers' ratings of class participation

Dropping out from undergraduate medical education is costly for students, medical schools, and society in general. Therefore, the early identification of potential dropout students is important. The contribution of personal features to dropout rates has merited exploration. However, there is a paucity of research on aspects of student experience that may lead to dropping out. In this study, underpinned by theoretical models of student commitment, involvement, and engagement, we explored the hypothesis of using inferior participation as an indicator of a higher probability of dropping out in year 1. Class participation was calculated as an aggregate score based on teachers' daily observations in class. The study used a longitudinal dataset of six cohorts of high-school entry students (N = 709, 67% females) in one medical school with an annual intake of 120 students. The findings confirmed the initial hypothesis and showed that lower scores of class participation in year 1 added predictive ability to pre-entry characteristics (Pseudo-R2 raised from 0.22 to 0.28). Even though the inclusion of course failure in year 1 resulted in higher explanatory power than participation in class (Pseudo-R2 raised from 0.28 to 0.63), ratings of class participation may be advantageous to anticipate dropout identification, as those can be collected prior to course failure. The implications for practice are that teachers' ratings of class participation can play a role in indicating medical students who may eventually drop out. We conclude that the scores of class participation can contribute to flagging systems for the early detection of student dropouts.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

University student engagement inventory (USEI): psychometric properties

Academic engagement describes students’ investment in academic learning and achievement and is an important indicator of students’ adjustment to university life, particularly in the first year. A tridimensional conceptualization of academic engagement has been accepted (behavioral, emotional and cognitive dimensions). This paper tests the dimensionality, internal consistency reliability and invariance of the University Student Engagement Inventory (USEI) taking into consideration both gender and the scientific area of graduation. A sample of 908 Portuguese first-year university students was considered. Good evidence of reliability has been obtained with ordinal alpha and omega values. Confirmatory factor analysis substantiates the theoretical dimensionality proposed (second-order latent factor), internal consistency reliability evidence indicates good values and the results suggest measurement invariance across gender and the area of graduation. The present study enhances the role of the USEI regarding the lack of consensus on the dimensionality and constructs delimitation of academic engagement.Jorge Sinval received funding from the William James Center for Research, Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT UID/PSI/04810/2013). Leandro S. Almeida and Joana R. Casanova received funding from CIEd – Research Centre on Education, projects UID/CED/1661/2013 and UID/CED/1661/2016, Institute of Education, University of Minho, through national funds of FCT/MCTES-PT. Joana R. Casanova received funding from the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) as a Doctoral Grant, under grant agreement number SFRH/BD/117902/2016.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

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)