To truly become student-ready, educators must make difficult decisions, face the pressures
of accountability, and address their preconceived notions about student success head
on. Student engagement has many meanings. Student engagement is generally accepted
as being connected to academic success, retention, learning, and the student experience.
It's a guiding force at most higher education institutions. Educational and purposeful
opportunities for engagement are critical to student success. In education, student
engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion
that students show when they are learning or being taught; which extends to the level
of motivation they must learn and progress in their education.
Student engagement is the energy and effort that students employ within their learning community, observable via any number of behavioral, cognitive or affective indicators across a continuum. It is shaped by a range of structural and internal influences, including the complex interplay of relationships, learning activities, and the learning environment. The more students are engaged and empowered within their learning community, the more likely they are to channel that energy back into their learning—leading to a range of short- and long-term outcomes that will likely further their engagement.
There are three widely accepted dimensions of student engagement:
Within each component there are several indicators of engagement as well as disengagement; which is now seen as a separate and distinct construct to engagement. It should be stated, however, that whilst these have been drawn from a range of literature, this is not a finite list, and it is recognized that students might experience these indicators on a continuum at varying times depending on their valence (positive or negative) and activation (high or low).
The NSSE organization defines student engagement as “the amount of time and effort students put into their studies and other educationally purposeful activities” and “how [an] institution deploys its resources and organizes [its] curriculum and other learning opportunities to get students to participate in activities that decades of research studies show are linked to student learning.”
Key Takeaways
The Division of Student Affairs is committed to a transformative education experience for our students. An institutional priority of Student Affairs is to strategically align all co-curricular programs and services in the Division with the five domains of the Co-Curricular Model (CCM). The co-curricular model provides a framework for planning and assessing programs and services to support an integrated learning environment in which students are empowered to apply the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom through a myriad of intentional learning opportunities; creating graduates who are valued and successful in the global workforce.
We collaborate with diverse partners in higher education, whose work on equity research and new models of education aligns with our efforts. Our efforts focus on using data and research to inform the nexus of equity and innovation in higher education. With our partners we seek to build communities of practice through hosting convenings, networking, and collaborative scholarship. Campus life at CSU San Marcos is focused on assisting all student to develop their own sense of belonging.
