An Effective Framework for Enhancing Student Engagement and Performance in Final Year Projects

Over the years, there have been many factors that have influenced the landscape of higher education within the UK. These factors include the rise in tuition fees, the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and the formation of Office for Students. Although student performance plays a vital part, another significantly influential key performance indicator that impacts these factors is student experience, which is influenced by positive or negative feedback and engagement. Despite student engagement forming a key part of the learning environment, it is still perceived as one of the weakest aspects when it comes to enhancing the student experience. In this paper, we present the implementation of an innovative, holistic teaching & learning framework for the final year project module trialed within the Department of Engineering and Computing at the University of East London. This project module had been running in different forms since the inception of the undergraduate programmes within the department, however it generally yielded poor and inconsistent evaluation, student experience and engagement. The framework was introduced during the academic year 2015/16, where its evaluation has shown a positive impact on student engagement, performance and experience, compared to the previous year.