Analysing regional student engagement: identifying institutional strategies for student success

Despite widespread reform arising from the 2008 Bradley Report, national data (https://www.education.gov.au/higher-education-statistics/resources/completion-rates-higher-education-students-cohort-analysis-20052021) shows that university participation and attainment rates for people in rural, regional and remote (RRR) areas of Australia continue to lag behind metropolitan areas. We believed that aligning the inherent characteristics and circumstances of RRR university students with their academic outcomes was masking a more complex and nuanced set of conditions affecting their engagement. We investigated these phenomena in a national study across eight institutions using quantitative and qualitative data. The conceptual and analytical foundation for the 3-stage research project was Kahu’s (2014) framework. The key findings are expressed as narratives. They emphasise the critical nature of first encounters and positive psychosocial experiences having a compensatory effect; mitigating previous disadvantage, increasing student engagement and outcomes, and building capacity for civic engagement and personal growth, and importantly that improved outcomes generate enduring change that bridges socio-cultural incongruity (Devlin, 2013).