This report is based on original research conducted in 2013/2014 at Makerere University, Uganda, and the University of Cape Town, South Africa, as part of the HERANA studies.The report provides a first and path-breaking analysis of the extent to which various forms of student engagement (e.g. academic engagement incl. active and collaborative learning, time on task etc., discursive engagement, political engagement e.g. in co-curricular programmes and the institutional culture of a university) contribute / or not / to the development of high-level citizenship competences such as critical thinking skills, civic skills, leadership skills, diversity and social skills etc.
Dr Igor Chirikov of UC Berkeley had this to say about the report:
"The study of student engagement has become mainstream in higher education research. In the last two decades there has been a sharp increase in the number of student surveys inspired by the idea that the more students are engaged in learning activities and participate in ‘effective’ or ‘high-impact’ educational practices, the greater their learning gains. But despite growing empirical evidence that there is a positive correlation between the level of student engagement and learning outcomes, we still know very little about wider implications of having more engaged students on campus. Are these students more successful in their careers? Do they make better citizens?
This report explores the latter question in a thorough and convincing manner. Drawing on the data on student experience collected in two African universities, University of Cape Town (South Africa) and Makerere University (Uganda), the project seeks to investigate a complex set of relations between student engagement and democratic citizenship. It is one of the fi rst empirically-driven attempts to approach such complicated question and to identify what universities realistically could do to develop values of democracy and citizenship among their students.
The relevancy goes far beyond African continent to many developing countries that struggle with civic engagement and establishing truly democratic governance system." (Dr Igor Chirikov, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Education, HSE-Moscow and SERU-I Managing Director, Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley).
Of course, it is OPEN ACCESS. Get the research report "The Impact of Student Engagement on Citizenship Competences" here.Get the chapter "Student Engagement and Citizenship Competences in African Universities" in the 2015 book Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education (by Nico Cloete, Peter Maassen and Tracy Bailey). here.
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