Student Understanding, Participation and Engagement: A Small Scale Quantitative Study

Within the current Higher Education focus on the student experience, this study explores the possible relationship between the three issues of participation, engagement and understanding. The study emerged from a conversation between colleagues about student evaluation of taught sessions. From this, a diagram outlining sectors of participation, engagement and understanding was constructed and a minute paper style instrument developed for easy implementation in large classes. The evaluation instrument was utilised with one class over a period of eight weeks involving four lectures, each utilising think/pair/share exercises to a different degree. The results show different levels of self-reported participation, engagement and understanding related to the frequency and occurrence of the think/pair/share exercises.