Introduction This paper seeks to answer two questions: “What is student engagement?” and “How do teachers, external factors and student motivation influence it?” It is an overview paper reporting findings from a project funded by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) entitled “Learning Environments and Student Engagement with Learning in Tertiary Settings”. This two-year project involved nine tertiary institutions: two universities, four institutes of technology or polytechnics, one wānanga, one community organisation and one private training establishment. The project attempted to answer the research question: “How do institutional and non-institutional learning environments influence student engagement with learning in diverse tertiary settings?” There were two approaches to the research. Engagement in