Mapping Engagement

Many of us are aware of the benefits and research on student engagement for enhanced retention, application and overall conceptual integration and usability. This week, I would like to share a 2020 article entitled, "Mapping research in student engagement and educational technology in higher education: a systematic evidence map" by Bond, Buntins, Bedenlier , Zawacki-Richter and Kerres. The article systematically maps research from 243 studies published between 2007 and 2016 (using ERIC, Web of Science, Scopus and PsycINFO). Few studies provided a definition of student engagement, and less than half were guided by a theoretical framework. The courses investigated used blended learning and discussion forums most often, with undergraduate students as the primary target group. Behavioral engagement was by far the most often identified dimension, followed by affective and cognitive engagement.

Student engagement has been linked to improved achievement, persistence and retention (Finn, 2006; Kuh, Cruce, Shoup, Kinzie, & Gonyea, 2008), with disengagement having a profound effect on student learning outcomes and cognitive development (Ma, Han, Yang, & Cheng, 2015). The authors define engagement as the "energy and effort that students employ within their learning community, observable via any number of behavioral, cognitive or affective indicators across a continuum." The five most researched technologies in Henrie et al.’s (2015) review were discussion boards, websites, LMS, campus software and videos.

The authors found that

almost all of the studies (n = 225, 93%) lacked a definition of student engagement;
144 studies (59%) provided research questions, 99 studies (41%) did not;
behavioral engagement was documented in 209 studies (86%), affective reported in 163 (67%) and cognitive in only 136 (56%);
the top five most frequently researched tools were LMS (n = 89), discussion forums (n = 80), videos (n = 44), recorded lectures (n = 25), and chat (n = 24);
social networking tools reported increased instances of disengagement across affective and cognitive domains; and
58.4% reported that social-collaborative learning was the most often employed (n = 142), followed by 43.2% self-directed learning (n = 105) and 5.8% of studies using game-based learning.

References

Bond, M., Buntins, K. & Bedenlier, S. (2020). Mapping research in student engagement and educational technology in higher education: a systematic evidence map. International Journal Education Technology in Higher Ed., 17(2).