Student engagement and student satisfaction: two measures auguring for independent review criteria or standards for student support services in national quality assurance schemes

Student engagement and student satisfaction: two measures auguring for independent review criteria or standards for student support services in national quality assurance schemes

This paper discusses how the increased use of student engagement data in combination with student satisfaction data use as a proxy for unit and instruction quality suggests a rethinking of student support services. While there is a question as to the definition what student engagement encompasses, it nevertheless places focus on student services as it attempts to make students want to become more engaged on campus activities as a means of improving learning. However, most quality assurance frameworks only look at student engagement and student satisfaction from a cognitive outcomes/output perspective. Such identification and use of data emanating from this limited student satisfaction and engagement perspective suggests that those aspects of the university that indirectly and somewhat directly impact student learning and happiness with the university are overlooked. The implication is that QA frameworks should be having performance criteria/standards specific to student support to more fully analyse learning at universities.

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