Building on the recommendations developed through the mapping participation report, this briefing details ways for students’ unions to increase engagement by students across student opportunity provision.
Download: Deepening Participation
Building on the recommendations developed through the mapping participation report, this briefing details ways for students’ unions to increase engagement by students across student opportunity provision.
Download: Deepening Participation
Thanks for this interesting paper.
I don’t think it has had the exposure it deserves.
A few points for discussion.
There is a reference to student motivations but the paper focuses mainly on barriers. Our research suggests an interplay between key motivators
*Interest or passion for the area of work which could be anything from Chess to the Environment, though it could also be a thirst to try something new.
*Mastery/personal development people like learning and getting to be great at stuff, whether this is a sport, chairing a meeting or marketing a trip. This is a much more powerful motivator than Employ-ability though our students are not stupid they understand that being good at things is good for their careers.In some cases the need to lead will be a strong motivator though they identify this as wanting things done right.
*Friendship and status; it kind of depends on them some just want to be part of a group and make friends others want to be BNOCs (Big Noise on Campus).
The key to student engagement is marketing this mix in the right way to the right people and ensuring that the opportunities deliver.
It is important to look at levels of engagement and draw people through from participants to leaders to leaders of leaders. We are still working on all of this but I thought I would try to start some discussion.
Hi Andy,
Thanks for reading the paper and for offering your perspectives on the topic. I agree with you about the interplay between key motivators. This briefing paper is a shortened summary of some of the ideas in NUS’ Mapping Participation report (found here: http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/news/article/uniondevelopment/Students-union-participation-report-launches/). We delivered a 45 minute webinar about this topic last year and thus couldn’t cover everything in the report, in the webinar. Hopefully you’ll find the bits on motivations in the full report helpful.
It would be great to hear from others about their thoughts on this topic…
Rosie