Engagement among academic staff and undergraduate students : a multilevel analysis

Abstract

Higher education institutions have a great responsibility in that they play an important part in preparing and developing students who will one day be leaders, teachers, and influencers in their respective work environments. The COVID-19 pandemic has however had a real psychological impact on higher education institutions as it has influenced the engagement and overall well-being of academic staff and students. Past research has highlighted the importance of engagement in achieving positive organisational outcomes such as well-being and commitment, as well as both in-role and extra-role job performance among employees. In regard to students, engagement has been identified as a requisite for delivering quality work, developing life-long learners, and promoting students’ mental health. Scholars have further asserted that, to survive and ensure sustainable growth in a globally competitive and knowledge-driven society, a talented and engaged workforce needs to be cultivated and retained. Despite the proven importance of engagement, not enough research on this construct has been conducted. Scholars have called for further studies that assist learning institutions in understanding the conditions that lead to engagement and developing approaches or processes that foster such conditions. This research study drew on positive psychology, which is a field of study that focuses on positive emotions, meaning, and engagement with the aim of promoting optimal psychological functioning. Thus, in establishing positive outcomes for higher education institutions, this study set out to better understand what enabled engagement among both academic staff and students.

For this study, three manuscripts were prepared. The first manuscript explored the conditions that cultivated engagement and psychological well-being among academic staff, and for this purpose the study established connections between Kahn’s theory on engagement, the job demands-resources model, organisational support theory, and the construct of reciprocity. In the second manuscript, the study demands-resources model and the leader-member exchange theory were used to operationalise Kahn’s psychological conditions beyond the employee–employer context to include university students. The study further set out to explore students’ learning approaches by extrapolating from work done using the job demands-resources model and the study demands-resources model so as to expand on the existing understanding of how student engagement influenced learning approaches. The third manuscript drew on crossover theory to explore mutual influences among academic staff and students, and the impact of these influences on the engagement of and outcomes relating to both parties.

Purposive, non-probability sampling was used and cross-sectional data were collected through electronic surveys. The sample used in the first manuscript’s study comprised 160 academic staff members employed at a university in South Africa. The findings of this study revealed that the three psychological conditions (meaningfulness, safety, and availability), which were operationalised as lack of reciprocity, perceived organisational support, and burnout risk, were significantly related to emotional engagement. Perceived organisational support (job resources), which met the criteria for psychological safety and some components of meaningfulness, displayed the strongest association with engagement. Recommendations made to university management included considering policies, procedures, or interventions that gave employees the assurance that the university valued them, cared about their well-being, and regarded them as important contributors to institutional objectives, particularly during times of change or crisis.

In the study presented in the second manuscript, the sample consisted of 1 594 undergraduate students enrolled at a South African university. The results showed that the psychological conditions of meaningfulness (study resources), availability (burnout risk), and safety (student leader-member exchange) as conceptualised in Kahn’s theory, influenced students’ engagement. Results further showed that high levels of student engagement fostered a deep-learning approach. University leaders were encouraged to take note of the clear gain in fostering student engagement and, therefore, to adopt an approach that considered all the psychological conditions that encouraged and promoted the engagement of students.

In respect of the study presented in the third manuscript, a total of 1 594 students (level 1) were nested within 160 academic staff members (level 2). Findings from the study revealed non-significant relationships for both the crossover relationships proposed between academic staff and students. However, the findings did show that students’ perceptions of high-quality relationships with academic staff (student–LMX) were significantly related to their engagement. In terms of outcomes for academic staff, the results revealed that perceptions of lack of reciprocity from the student group were negatively associated with academic staff’s emotional engagement. University leaders were encouraged to consider interventions that might support and better equip academic staff to develop high-quality exchange relationships with students. The study recommended that university leaders should adopt a collective approach in addressing the component of mutual influences among academic staff and students. Such an approach would lead to the improvement of well-being among employees and the cultivation of a culture of life-long learning among students, which hold significant benefits.