Employing Student Feedback In The Critical Reflective Process For Educational Improvement

The term student engagement appears to be a buzzword amongst those working to enhance learning and teaching in Higher Education and is a concept that has been a focus point of many studies across Europe. It is claimed by those such as Dunleavy & Milton (2009, pg 18) that increased student engagement can lead to educational improvements whereby the teachers and students are engaged in ‘co-constructing ideas the contribute directly to school improvement and development.’ Within this research, the term student engagement is linked to student involvement. Astin (1999) states that ‘student involvement refers to the amount of physical and psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic experience’ (p. 518). The term student engagement to discuss whether or not the students were attending, demonstrating interest and enjoyment of the course, and importantly demonstrating through their actions during lectures, workshops, presentations etc. that they were being cognitively engaged throughout the duration of the module. This research discusses the changes made to the delivery of an undergraduate initial teacher education module from a critical reflective practice perspective. This work is based on research undertaken by a group of three lecturers (the module team) teaching on a Humanities module within a Scottish initial teacher education programme as a means of discussing the outcomes of employing critical reflective practice to enhance the student experience. A module within the context of this paper constitutes a 20-credit module at level 8 of the Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework [SCQF] (SCQF, 2009). The student sample was drawn from the second year of a four-year, Bachelor of Education Honours degree in Primary Education.