Friendship as method: reflections on a new approach to understanding student experiences in higher education

Abstract

This paper reflects on a novel method to elicit understanding of students' journeys through university study. At a time when universities need to know much more about how students live out their time at university, sector knowledge about real student experiences runs the risk of being limited and rather shallow. Knowledge tends to rely on broad-brush descriptions of student life derived from surveys, questionnaires, and student voice committees and whilst conventional qualitative research into student experience allows for greater depth of understanding, methods such as interviews and focus groups still have their limitations. 'Harder listening' to student voices offers the opportunity to understand everyday student life better and signals that these experiences really matter. Taking inspiration from StoryCorps in the USA and BBC Radio 4's The Listening Project, student friendship pairs are invited to undertake recorded, private, guided conversations without a researcher present. 'Friendship research' tends to focus on the dynamics between researcher and participant and there is a gap in higher education research of using 'friendship trust' amongst students to unlock experiences. Ten pairs of students based at a large university in the north of the England participated. Analysis of the conversations suggests that happiness, confidence and a sense of belonging at university are significantly affected by the role and presence of friends and family. Through their enthusiastic engagement with and reflection on this method, students also reveal familiarity with being 'under-heard' and over-surveyed and welcome this approach as a sign of a caring and 'listening university'.

Using Creative and Contemplative Pedagogy to Promote Learning Efficacy and Wellbeing within First-Year, Undergraduate Students

“…Firstly, the workshops gave students an opportunity to reflect on their experiences, which allowed them to evaluate their student journey in terms of the personal and academic challenges they have faced. Heron (2019) explained how providing 'a space for dialogue and conversation to take place provides an opportunity to listen to students' lived experiences' and the students participating in our workshops were quick to point out how they were inclined to open up more to each other about their student journeys from both a personal and academic perspective.…”

“It’s the End of the PhD as We Know it, and We Feel Fine…Because Everything Is Fucked Anyway”: Utilizing Feminist Collaborative Autoethnography to Navigate Global Crises

“…Once data was collated, each researcher had the opportunity to express if they would prefer certain conversations be removed or not included in this article. This conversation was on-going until the end of writing up data collection as we committed to friendship as method (Heron, 2020; Tillmann-Healy, 2003), meaning we were sensitive to the stories of one another and how they may impact our collaborators if they were to be placed in the public domain. Typically, when friendship is utilized as a methodology in research, it takes place between a researcher and informants, which “requires radical reciprocity, a move from studying them to studying us” (Tillmann-Healy, 2003, p. 735).…”

“…As Tillmann-Healy (2003, p. 739) found through her own attempts to “approach research as an endeavour of friendship,” we gained mutual and self-understanding and mutual and self-acceptance. Participation in the project proved to be an “affirming experience” (Heron, 2020, p. 405) during an unprecedentedly challenging time.…”

Student eXperience: A Systematic Literature Review

“…As we incorporate more elements to ensure an adequate approach to genuine students' experience, the analysis becomes complex. If we add to this problem the specificity of each student journey, we find ourselves, according to Heron, in a situation in which no survey or questionnaire can give a certain account of the genuine experiences of students [97].…”