Active Teaching Strategies and Student Engagement: A Comparison of Traditional and Non-traditional Business Students

Using survey data, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of student engagement for different groups of students, many of which may be classified as "non-traditional". The analysis presented in this paper is based on Kahu's framework for student engagement. Both the antecedents as well as consequences of engagement are incorporated in the framework used in this paper. The research highlights the role that active teaching strategies may play in this engagement framework. An important contribution of this research is to show that non-traditional students generally display greater engagement than traditional students. However, while there is a strong connection between active teaching strategies and engagement for traditional students, this link is weak for non-traditional students. The results presented in this paper highlight the need for greater inclusiveness in the design of active teaching strategies.