Re-examining engagement: A Kazakhstan case study of faculty and student engagement interrelationships

• In Event: Higher education in Central Asia: Student experiences, faculty-student collaboration, and internationalization

Proposal

Re-examining engagement: A Kazakhstan case study of faculty and student engagement interrelationships

A wide range of academic disciplines and applied areas of practice have an interest in the construct of engagement. In the field of higher education, research and professional practice related to engagement can include a focus on students as well as the faculty and staff providing instruction, advising, career guidance in addition to administrators and institutional leaders. This paper examines the interrelationships between faculty workplace engagement and student engagement in the context of higher education in Kazakhstan.

The concept of employee engagement has been refined in theory and empirical testing since the original proposal by Kahn (1990). Employee engagement as a core management practice is now widely adopted in organizations globally (Gallup, 2025). In general terms, employee engagement is a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli et al. 2002, p. 74). Interest in engagement is focused on the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral state of employees to achieve desired organizational outcomes (Shuck & Wollard, 2010). An extensive base of research, including recent meta-analysis (Corbeanu & Iliescu, 2023) has established that higher levels of employee engagement have strong relationships with commitment and loyalty, job satisfaction, reduced turnover, and multiple measures of performance (Bailey et al., 2017). The application, measurement, and evaluation of employee engagement within higher education institutions is an increasing trend in the United States with evidence of greater rates of adoption internationally (Byrne & MacDonagh, 2017; Gede & Huluka, 2024).

The term student engagement is a distinct construct that has gained increased visibility and significance in U.S. higher education as well as internationally. Diverse definitions and theoretical perspectives characterize student engagement as a broad construct to reflect academic and certain non-academic aspects of the student experience. Kuh (2009) defined student engagement as “the time and effort students devote to activities that are empirically linked to desired outcomes of college and what institutions do to induce students to participate in these activities” (p. 683). Other scholars have highlighted the level of involvement or interest in learning and how connected students are to their classes, institution, and each other (Axelson & Flick, 2010). More recent approaches have extended conceptualizations of student engagement from an exclusive focus on learning behaviors to a broad range of campus activities within and beyond the classroom (Groccia, 2018). In general, it has been found that learning environments that support student engagement can positively influence the learning process (Kahu, 2013). Links between student engagement and the employee engagement of their faculty, instructors, or lecturers are scant within international contexts. A mixed-method study in Ethiopia found positive links between faculty engagement and university organizational performance measures (Gede & Huluka, 2024). Other studies have found support for positive faculty-student interactions that result from higher levels of engagement (Chen, et al., 2008; Zepke, et al., 2010) yet, the majority of existing research is from western countries.

This study examined the perceptions of faculty from higher education institutions in Kazakhstan. The national setting for this topic is appropriate given the history of development, transition, and broader geopolitics of internationalization of higher education in Kazakhstan (Almukhambetova, 2025). Recent reports have highlighted that colleges and universities in Kazakhstan have placed increased emphasis on student engagement at the same time that many faculty and staff report lower levels of employee engagement. Many faculty in Kazakhstan have expressed frustration at the state of employment relations, greater job demands, and performance expectations driven by academic leaders prioritized focus on institutional reputation and ranking (Belkhozhayeva et al, 2024).

The application of social exchange theory served as the theoretical foundation for this study. This leading sociopsychological theory has been applied to employment relationships in which a desired employee outcome is enticed by employer provision of non-monetary benefits. The suitability of application of this theory in internationalization in higher education was considered by Romani-Dias and Carneiro (2020). In this study, we suggest that the provision of professional development to faculty to enhance their understanding of employee engagement will foster and facilitate greater awareness and increased level of student engagement. Previous research has consistently shown that employee development has strong positive links to employee engagement (Kwon et al., 2024).

To understand how faculty awareness of employee engagement may relate to perceptions of student engagement, we conducted a series of focus groups and interviews with faculty from several public and private institutions of higher education in Kazakhstan who were participants of a week-long in-person professional development workshop program. Four to six months after their participation in the workshop, we invited faculty to participate in focus groups or individual interviews. The following research questions guided our study: (1) How is faculty employee engagement connected to student engagement? and (2) What role do university policy and practice play in faculty engagement and the relationship to student engagement?

The transcripts from five focus groups and individual interviews were analyzed for themes by two researchers who did not participate in the workshop program. We utilized an open coding framework initially supported by in-vivo and process coding (Miles et al., 2014) before second cycle coding to group initial categories of findings into smaller and more specific themes. The results showed that workshop participants remembered many core elements of employee engagement and possessed an increased awareness of how their engagement could impact and influence the engagement of their students. Surprisingly, a level of frustrated acceptance of the limitation of university leadership to fully address the antecedents and core elements of faculty engagement did not hinder the desire for seeking to improve student engagement. The findings of this study have important implications for scholars of international higher education and for university faculty and administration as well as those providing professional development. Furthermore, the findings encourage additional research to examine the complex interrelationships between institutional policies and human resource practices, the perceptions of these on faculty and staff, and how these job-related attitudes may in turn influence student engagement.

Authors

• Kenneth R Bartlett, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Zhuldyz Amankulova, University of Minnesota

• Askat Tleuov