The Potential of Students' Digital Civic Engagement: Results from Empirical Case Studies in Europe - 4th EASLHE Conference 2021 | Bucharest online ...

4th EASLHE Conference 2021 | Bucharest
online | 16.09.-17.09.2021
Session 2.2

 The Potential of Students’ Digital Civic
  Engagement: Results from Empirical
        Case Studies in Europe
                   Interim Prof. Dr. Katharina Resch
                      Sabine Freudhofmayer, M.A.

Students as Digital Civic Engagers (SDCE)
Erasmus+ Project, funded by the European Commission
                 Duration 2020-2022

                      Co-funded by the
                      Erasmus+ Programme
                      of the European Union

1 Research Interest
Active students form the backbone of democratic universities, active citizenship and
  contribute to an inclusive society (Adler & Goggin 2005).
Student engagement activities in higher education institutions either as optional
  activity (e.g. volunteering, mentoring) or as part of study programmes (e.g.
  engaging in Service-Learning) …
… foster students’ civic responsibility (Boland 2014),
… enhances students’ social and cultural capital (Campbell 2000; Print & Coleman
  2003),
… raises students’ awareness for diverse community needs and social problems
  (Mooney & Edwards 2001),
… and equip them with the necessary competences for facing societal challenges
  (Watkins et al. 2015).

1 Research Interest
Digital tools can promote civic engagement, i.e. empower students in helping to
  effect solving real-life needs.

    There is yet little research on how civic engagement is linked to digital
                                  technologies.

                                                          Digital
          Student‘s Civic
                                                      Student‘s Civic
           Engagement
                                                       Engagement

2 SDCE-Project – Research Framework

                  1 Definitions of
                                     Desk research
                        DCE

                     2 Current
                    research +       Desk research
                   competences

                                       33 Policies      30 Policies
       Overview   3 Policy review
                                       identified        analysed

                                     12 Case studies   21 Qualitative
                  4 Case studies
                                        collected       interviews

                    5 Teaching
                                     Desk research
                    strategies

2 SDCE-Project – Research Framework

                  1 Definitions of
                                     Desk research
                        DCE

                     2 Current
                    research +       Desk research
                   competences

                                       33 Policies      30 Policies
       Overview   3 Policy review
                                       identified        analysed

                                     12 Case studies   21 Qualitative
                  4 Case studies
                                        collected       interviews

                    5 Teaching
                                     Desk research
                    strategies

3 Case Studies

Guiding question:
Which curricular and extra-curricular practices of digital student engagement can be
      identified in Europe? (today: focus on practices connected to teaching and
                                       learning)
Selection criteria:
• Cases target at student engagement activities
• Activities are connected to the institution / university to some degree
• Digital technologies were applied and used for civic purposes

3 Case Studies – Methodology

12 case studies across European countries (AT, EE, PT, IE, SB, ES, SC) and the UK
n=21 semi-structured interviews (applying a multi-stakeholder approach)

Analysis:
• Deductive categorization of cases according to the European Framework for
  Community Engagement in Higher Education (TEFCE Toolbox; Farnell et al. 2020)
• Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke 2006)

3 Case Studies – TEFCE Classification

3 Case Studies – Results according to the TEFCE Toolbox (Farnell et al. 2020)

              Dimensions      No.                                   Case study classification
                                    1 University of Klagenfurt Student Volunteer Projects for Caritas (Austria)
                                    2 Civic and Intercultural Adult Education Course at University of Belgrade (Serbia)
I. Teaching and learning *          3 Virtual Student Service-Learning Programme at UNED (Spain)
                                    4 The Starter Program at the University of Tartu (Estonia)
II. Research                        5 Queens University Belfast’s Dementia Awareness Game (Northern Ireland, UK)
                                 4 The Starter Program at the University of Tartu (Estonia)
III. Service and knowledge       5 Queens University Belfast’s Dementia Awareness Game (Northern Ireland, UK)
exchange                         6 AIT – FLAC Society (Ireland)
                                 7 GMIT – Student Digital Civic Engagement Project (Ireland)
                                 6 AIT – FLAC Society (Ireland)
                                 8 VOLUNTARIUM: UMSumário by the UMinho’s Students’ Union (Portugal)
IV. Students                     9 Digital Ambassadors at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland)
                                10 Intercultural Mentoring for Schools Project (Austria)
                                11 Tartu Welcome Centre (Estonia)
V. Management                   12 P5 Medicine Center (Portugal)
(partnerships and openness)

3 Case Studies – Results

Case studies encompass two different forms of digital student engagement:
1) Purposeful digitalization, e.g. Virtual Student Service-Learning
   Programme at UNED (Spain), Queens University Belfast’s Dementia
   Awareness Game (UK)
2) Emergency digitalization, e.g. University of Klagenfurt Student Volunteer
   Projects for Caritas (Austria), AIT – FLAC Society (Ireland)

University of Klagenfurt Student                   Civic and Intercultural Adult Education
 Volunteer Projects for Caritas (Austria)             Course at University of Belgrade (Serbia)
TEFCE Classification: TEACHING AND LEARNING I.2.      TEFCE Classification: TEACHING AND LEARNING I.1.
            Community based learning                             responding to societal needs
 Emergency digitalisation; students carry out small   Emergency digitalisation, transfer to hybrid teaching
  projects with Caritas in the community; focus:       format; focus: researching civic engagment in the
           applied project management                        community / city; using online tools

     Virtual Student Service-Learning                 The Starter Program at the University of
       Programme at UNED (Spain)                                   Tartu (Estonia)
 TEFCE Classification: TEACHING AND LEARNING I.3.     TEFCE Classification: TEACHING AND LEARNING I.1.
community representatives in the teaching/learning;              responding to societal needs
 Purposeful digitalisation; students from pedagogy      Planning of entrepreneurial ideas for real needs
  from Spain and Benin; focus: language learning;       using digital technology, e.g. apps or robots for
          digital and technological gaps;               harvesting crops; focus: social entrepreneurship

University of       •   Building and maintaining personal face-to-face relationships
Klagenfurt              is key for (continuing) communication in a digital
                        environment.
Student
Volunteer                      ”Developing personal
Projects for                  relationships via digital
Caritas (Austria)       communication is something that
                        doesn’t function good. That’s the
                        basic problem with digitalization.
                          (…) If they [the people] have a
                         feeling for each other, then they
                           can communicate in a digital
                                mode.” [Interview 1]

•
Civic and               A blended format that integrates both offline and online
                        activities is most appropriate for civic engagement
Intercultural           activities.

Adult Education
Course at               “ (…) the best is to combine online
University of              and offline activities: online
Belgrade (Serbia)          activities should not entirely
                           replace offline activities, but
                         rather complement and support
                                them.” [Interview 3]

Virtual Student
Service           •   Maintaining contact with students in a digital environment
                      is vital for their learning processes.
Learning
Programme at
                      “The use of the logbook was very
UNED (Spain)          useful for producing reflections on
                         the process and to plan the
                        following steps.” [Interview 6]

4 Conclusion

• Digital civic engagement and E-Service learning have recently emerged at HEIs
  due to the initiative of students and teachers and from a necessity (pandemic).
• Digital student engagement should be anchored more strongly at the
  institutional level of HEIs: policy level (strategic documents), practice level (e.g. in
  the curriculum, training for teachers, …)
• Digital teaching methodologies and their connection to civic learning must be
  even more explored in the future: E-Service-Learning, project-based learning
  online, digital storytelling …
• Student unions / student associations can play an important role in raising for
  civic engagement.
• What remains after there is no need for emergency digitalization anymore?

References
Adler, R. P., & Goggin, J. (2005). What do we mean by “civic engagement”? Journal of transformative
  education, 3(3), 236-253.
Boland, J. A. (2014). Orientations to civic engagement: Insights into the sustainability of a challenging
  pedagogy. Studies in Higher Education, 39(1), 180-195.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology,
  3(2), 77-101.
Farnell, T., Benneworth, P., Ćulum Ilić, B., Seeber, M., Šćukanec Schmidt. N. (2020). TEFCE Toolbox: An
  institutional self-reflection framework for community engagement in higher education. Zagreb: Institute
  for the Development of Education.
Campbell, D. E. 2000. Social capital and service learning. Political Science and Politics 33 (3): 641-645.
Mooney, L., and B, Edwards. 2001. Experiential learning in sociology: Service leaning and other
  community-based learning initiatives. Teaching Sociology 29 (2): 181-194.
Print, M., and D. Coleman. 2003. Towards understanding of social capital and citizenship education.
  Cambridge Journal of Education 33 (1): 123-149.
Watkins, M., C. Hayes, & Sarubbi, M. (2015). The six requirements of service-learning: A pathway to high
  impact practices. In O. Delano-Oriaran, M. W. Penick-Parks & S. Fondrie (Eds.), The SAGE Sourcebook of
  service-Learning and civic engagement (pp. 115-122). London: SAGE.

Contact

 Interim Prof. Dr. Katharina Resch   Sabine Freudhofmayer, BA MA
 University Koblenz-Landau           Educational Sciences
 Faculty 5: Educational Sciences     University of Vienna
 Xylanderstraße 1                    Centre for Teacher Education
 D-76829 Landau                      Porzellangasse 4, 3. Stock, Room 323
 resch@uni-landau.de                 A-1090 Vienna
 katharina.resch@univie.ac.at        T +43-1-4277-600 18
                                     sabine.freudhofmayer@univie.ac.at