We Want to be More Involved: Student Perceptions of Students as Partners Across the Degree Program Curriculum

Abstract

Engaging students-as-partners is gaining momentum in the higher education sector. This study explores undergraduate students' perceptions of how involved they were in partnership activities across their degree programs, and whether this matched their desired level of involvement in such practices. Analysis of a quantitative study of 268 students showed statistically significant differences between perceived levels of importance and involvement for all the partnership practices (n=18) investigated in our survey. These results highlight that the students in this study want to be more substantially involved in partnership practices across their degree program. We argue against the consumerist rhetoric about the role of students as passive learners and advocate for greater inclusion of partnership activities that foster active student participation in shaping the university curricula. We discuss implications for Students as Partners in relation to the progressive development of university curricula and assessment practices along with future research directions.

Students as partners in China: Investigating the potentials and possibilities for growing practices across universities

“…We employed a quantitative method using an established survey tool, Student Involvement Questionnaire (SIQ) (Matthews et al, 2017), previously published in this journal, which is designed to capture self-reported involvement in and perceptions of meaningful learner-teacher interactions. The study has been approved by the Institutional Human Research Ethics Committee of University of Queensland (approval number: 2020001494) and the Chinese university sites participating in the study.…”

“…The data were collected by adapting and translating the SIQ instrument, which was administered online. The instrument was previously used in SaP research conducted in a research-intensive Australian institution (Matthews et al, 2017). The instrument was revised from the Science Students Skill Inventory (SSSI) instrument that captured students' perceptions of learning outcomes in Matthews and Hodgson (2012).…”

Learning through practice: Collaborative policing partnerships in teaching in higher education

“…In addition to embracing Student as Producer, teaching the module design for Police Studies further embedded collaboration and partnerships. Such aspects of teaching and learning models have also been identified as being part of Student as Partners models of teaching (see writings from Bovill et al, 2015; Healey et al ., 2014a, 2014b; and Matthews et al ., 2017). There are evident links between Student as Producer and Student as Partners models or students as collaborators (Bovill et al ., 2011), with such models each embracing similar aims and ethos of collaboration and co-creation (see Bovill et al ., 2015; Curran, 2017; Zepke, 2019; Zepke and Leach, 2010).…”

“…Again, the commitment shown by students through being part of the fabric of the module also has similarities with the established work on Student as Partners (see Cook-Sather and Felton, 2017; Healey et al ., 2014a, b; Healey et al ., 2015; Healey et al ., 2016). Matthews et al . (2017: 3) further discuss students’ perceptions of being involved in partnerships, through peer learning and assessment, and outline the importance of a sense of belonging arguing ‘these practices can be transformative and beneficial for both students and staff’.…”

Implementing first-year assessment principles: An analysis of selected scholarly literature

“…For this principle to be more attainable, it could be revised to say: 'Use student feedback to improve assessment policies and practices.' The idea of students as partners with academics in their learning is one that is gaining momentum in higher education (Matthews, Groenendijl, & Chunduri, 2017), so this principle will need further research, particularly as to its applicability to first year students.…”