Exploring the Relationship Between Representation in the Curricula and Students’ Engagement

A qualitative approach comprising semi-structured interviews was used to investigate the relationship between representation in the curricula and student engagement. This qualitative research focuses upon two degrees (Sport Management BSc and Esports BSc) situated within the subject of sport at a chosen institution. Whilst these programmes represent multidisciplinary degrees, a curriculum overlap also exists with select modules being shared by both programmes. Participants were recruited through a purposive sampling technique (Bryman 2004). To meet the inclusion criteria, all second and third year students on the institution’s Sport Management BSc and Esports BSc were invited to participate in the research by an announcement on the virtual learning platform. Potential participants contacted the named researcher and an online semi-structured interview was organised according to their availability. Interviews were conducted via Microsoft teams to reflect the institution’s hybrid teaching format. Data collection occurred between January and May 2024. .ll interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Participant were anonymised and pseudonyms were allocated to protect the identity of the interviewees. Recruitment of interviewees stopped when data saturation, the moment at which no new themes emerged (Fugard and Potts 2015), was reached. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six phases of thematic analyses were used to analyse the data. NVivo was used during the qualitative coding process. The interview transcripts cannot be shared publicly as the transcripts contain information that may allow identification of the institute and / or specific lecturers which the researcher does not have consent to share.