Multimedia Students: Engaging across platforms. An Investigation of Student Engagement in the Media and Communication Master Programme at Malmö University

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates student engagement in the Media and Communication Programme at Malmö University through the lens of audience- as well as learning theories. It has two main aims: Building a systematized theoretical framework to distinguish different nuances of audience activity in a cross-mediatic learning environment, and exploring factors influencing student engagement in our Media and Communication Master Programme (MCS). Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz 2006) with a multi-method approach for data collection is applied to gather rich data and analyse it accordingly through coding processes and constant comparison. Following social constructivism, it argues that each student, actively constructing knowledge, has her own subjective learning preference. This thesis takes a non- normative stand on the subject. A matrix of audience activity, grounded in audience theories and developed through the collected data, is established. In a second step this is used to illustrate the concepts participation, engagement and collaboration and then further employed to examine factors influencing student engagement. Thereby, the matrix is tested, refined and further developed. Through this approach eight states a student might be situated in while studying as well as possible barriers for student engagement were identified. Factors influencing student engagement this study found are the personal situation of the student, the access Hyflex education allows, possibilities and challenges of physical and virtual learning spaces, the interaction between teachers and students, the structure of the programme and how students are connected with each other. By looking at student engagement in a media rich environment from an audience- as well as education-angle this thesis expands existing research. It presents influencing factors for student engagement. More importantly the theoretical model is a useful tool to investigate different kinds of student activities and to develop educational media tools. It could also be transferred to research other audiences.