PhD Understanding Student Engagement in Education (part of the StudentLines Project)

As a PhD candidate, you will:

• Conduct a literature review on student engagement networks and their influence on well-being, academic performance, and career development.
• Contribute to longitudinal and mixed-methods data collection within the StudentLines project.
• Analyse how student characteristics, institutional features, and contextual factors shape engagement and related educational, well-being, and professional outcomes.
• Co-design, with students and partner institutions, a sustainable data and feedback process that fosters ongoing engagement.
• Write three academic papers suitable for submission to leading management and organization journals.
• Work closely with researchers, educators, and regional employers to translate findings into practice.

Project Context

Students’ engagement with their personal development in higher education programs is a key driver of learning success and career progression. Yet, since the COVID-19 pandemic, student participation has declined sharply and has not fully recovered. Many students struggle with motivation, mental well-being, and a sense of purpose, leading to lower involvement in both curricular and extracurricular activities.

Existing research shows that the networks students form create a form of persistent “social memory” of formative interactions with peers, mentors, and professionals. These networks continue to shape students’ access to knowledge, support, and opportunities long after formal education ends. Early experiences of collaboration, feedback, and institutional support leave lasting career imprints that influence how individuals later engage with employers and professional communities. Recognizing this persistence highlights the importance of strengthening students’ engagement within these networks.

However, we know relatively little about how educational institutions can intentionally create conditions that support enduring engagement rather than allow disengagement to accumulate over time. Without understanding how to cultivate positive network imprints, declining engagement risks becoming self-reinforcing, limiting students’ capacity to learn, collaborate, and transition effectively into meaningful professional roles.

To address this challenge, this PhD project develops a data-driven approach to strengthen long-term engagement between students and their educational programs and institutions. It is part of a larger initiative, StudentLines, which aims to develop improved monitoring infrastructures that support the continuous enhancement of educational quality and alignment with labour market needs.

The PhD project will examine how student engagement develops over time within higher education and investigate how interactions between students and institutions shape engagement. Insights will contribute to theoretical advancements on the development and persistence of engagement during formative years and the transition into working life, as well as practical recommendations to improve tools and processes for student engagement.

Research Focus

The PhD will explore three interrelated questions:

1. What is the current state and longitudinal development of student engagement with their educational institutions and programs?

2. Why is student engagement changing? Which mechanisms shape student engagement, considering students’ personal characteristics and experiences, institutional factors, and the broader socio-technical environment?

3. How can engagement be strengthened? Based on the patterns and mechanisms identified, what actions can enhance students’ engagement with their programs and institutions?

The research combines qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse both online and offline antecedents of engagement. Data will be collected through surveys, focus groups, and digital behaviour tracking, and linked to educational performance data within the StudentLines infrastructure.