Signs of disengagement? The changing undergraduate experience in Australian universities

Abstract

Anecdotal reports of students working more in paid employment and studying less havebeen coming from academics in Australia with particular intensity and frustration inrecent times. What we are seeing now, that we predicted from our first national study ofstudent experience six years ago, are patterns of student disengagement and new forms ofengagement, to which many institutions, and the system at large, have still not adjusted inmuch more than an ad hoc way. We pointed out then that students would increasinglyexpect the university to fit with their lives rather than vice-versa (McInnis and James1995). In this lecture I want to explore the nature of the shift in forms of studentengagement and what it means for universities.