scholarly journals Listening to the Student Voice – Student Engagement in Professional Higher Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 342-352
Author(s):  
Marina Brunner ◽  
Ulf-Daniel Ehlers

The practical orientated education and training of professional higher education institutions attract a very diverse student body and more and more non-traditional students are finding their way to higher education institutions in Europe. In order to sufficiently address the different needs of this group, non-traditional students must be given opportunities for student engagement in student organisations and extracurricular activities outside of lectures. Furthermore, the diversity characteristics of non-traditional students within professional higher education institutions need to be analysed, as well as the barriers and challenges to student engagement. With the help of qualitative expert interviews and focus groups, five problem areas were defined and an outlook on possible improvements was given in order to sharpen the view of an inclusive university environment outside of the lecture hall.

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Jacqui Close

In the U.K., ‘student engagement’, and the related ‘student experience’, are increasingly measured, interpreted and then marketed to students as a basis on which to choose the ‘best’ place for their higher education. This article summarises and reflects on presentations from five panel members at a conference on their experience of university life after that choice had been made. The panel included non-traditional students who embodied some of the characteristics (such as age, social class and ethnicity) that have become performance indicators in relation to widening participation and engagement in higher education. This article captures how students themselves understand a concept that occupies such a prominent, if contested, position in contemporary higher education. This analysis invites one to take a closer look at the identity work necessary for students to thrive (and for some just to survive) at university against a backdrop that tends to homogenise both ‘experience’ and ‘student’.


Author(s):  
Sally Baker ◽  
B. Brown ◽  
J A Fazey

We provide an analysis of some recent widening participation literature concerning the barriers preventing non-traditional students accessing higher education. This literature criticizes higher education institutions and staff, opening up the academics' attitudes and skills to inquiry. We follow the genesis of four themes in the literature and these are visited in turn to provide substantive arguments. Students' accounts of their experiences are taken as if they were a systematic analysis of higher education institutions and result in an individualistic analysis of the problems related to access and progression. Beck described such assumptions and devices as individualization. We question the use of such pervasive individualism in the widening participation debate.


Author(s):  
I. L. Kensytska ◽  
I.O. Olefirenko ◽  
I.V. Khrypko

The article investigates the influence of health and recreational physical activity on terminal and instrumental values of higher education institutions students. The following research methods are used, including theoretical analysis of professional scientific and methodological resources by domestic and foreign authors, sociological, psychological and diagnostic, pedagogical research methods, methods of mathematical statistics. To determine the initial level of healthy lifestyle attitudes formation among students M. Rokych’s method of “Value Orientations” has been used. The research has been conducted on the basis of Kyiv National Linguistic University, National Pedagogical University named after M. P. Drahomanov. The study has involved 48 students (23 boys and 25 girls), who were part of the experimental (EG) and control (CG) groups (total of 24 people). The program of health-improving classes for students of higher education institutions has presupposed the use of various means of health-improving and recreational physical activities twice a week. The duration of classes was one and a half hours. Those that are most in demand among student youth were chosen as priorities. Among the young men these were strength exercises, elements of sport games and recreational games. Among the girls they included health fitness exercises. We have confirmed the feasibility and necessity of using innovative means of physical activity and forms of extracurricular activities in development of such programs that significantly increase the motivation of young people to participate in such programs. In the course of the research we have studied the hierarchy of terminal and instrumental values among young men and women who studied in higher educational institutions. The application of the developed program contributed to the students' awareness of “health” category value. Among EG students such instrumental values as education (depth of knowledge, high general culture), self- control (restraint, self-discipline) and rationalism (ability to think wisely and logically, to make thoughtful, rational decisions) have transferred to the first place. The obtained results prove that there are positive changes in the system of students’ terminal and instrumental values under the influence of health and recreational motor activity.


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