What is Students as Partners?

The concept and activity of having students as partners (SaP) is a cutting edge measure in higher education. This genuine partnership model enables universities to move beyond traditional 'student voice' approaches that are commonly limited to opinion-based student surveys. A SaP approach places students in a position where they can become agents of change in education and research, which also fosters active student collaboration with university staff. This can promote student engagement and enhance teaching practice, as well as the potential of making enduring contributions to assessment and curriculum design. Here are two definitions of SaP:

Rationale for Students as Partners

Engaging students as partners in learning and teaching aims to move away from a customer service model of curriculum development to one where students and staff work together to design approaches that will enhance the student learning experience. Dunne and Zandstra explain this as:

The concept of ‘listening to the student voice’ – implicitly if not deliberately – supports the perspective of student as ‘consumer’, whereas ‘students as change agents’ explicitly supports a view of the student as ‘active collaborator’ and ‘co-producer’, with the potential for transformation. (2011, p. 4)

SaP makes way for mutually respectful learning relationships that are built on and through dialogue. It offers hope for students and staff seeking relational approaches to learning, providing a way to enable shared responsibility and joint ownership for teaching, learning, and assessment (Matthews, 2017). This approach is grounded on three guiding principles (Cook-Sather, Bovill & Felton, 2014):

• Student insights into teaching and learning are valuable for improving practice by making it more engaging, effective and rigorous.
• Drawing on student insights, experiences and understandings can aid staff to collaboratively study and design teaching and learning more effectively than simply collecting student responses from feedback surveys.
• Partnerships between students and faculty change the understanding and capacities of both parties.

Principles for guiding practices

No two partnership practices will be identical as each are dependent on the creativity of those involved and purposes of the partnership, and as such, will be enacted variously. Matthews (2017) proposes five partnership principles to guide practice:

1. Foster inclusive partnerships: reflection on diversity and inclusion is key to avoid ‘like’ with ‘like’ partnerships; SaP should create spaces from differing social, racial, equity, religious, disciplinary backgrounds (students and staff) to collaborate for the betterment of learning and teaching.
2. Nurture power-sharing relationships through dialogue and reflection: power relations will always be a factor in SaP relationships which practitioners need to be attentive to and requires ongoing reflection of power dynamics. SaP practitioners should aspire to sharing power through recognising the differing expertise that each person brings, as SaP creates a space in which expertise, especially that of students, can be re-imagined and valued.
3. Accept partnership as a process with uncertain outcomes: The outcomes of SaP are unknown at the beginning of the joint endeavour, as the reciprocal ethos of SaP gives primacy to the co-creation of shared goals that are mutually decided during the partnership process; also the realm of emotions, inherent in human relationships, adds some uncertainty [1].
4. Engage in ethical partnerships: Ethical SaP practices involve: the ethics of reciprocal, mutually beneficial practice which necessitates a process of power-sharing between all involved; mutualistic partnerships that should benefit all involved; a broader movement for social good grounded in democratic practices, SaP serves more than the individuals involved.
5. Enact partnership for transformation: The transformative potential of SaP is in the creation of a culture of partnership grounded in the values of respect, reciprocity, and shared responsibility for learning and teaching between students and staff as equal members of the university community. In a genuine partnership it is an act of resistance to the traditional, often implicit, but accepted, hierarchical structure where staff have power over students.

In partnered collaborations between staff and students, it is important that there is an acknowledgement that roles, expertise, responsibilities and status are different. The partnership does not assume otherwise, but in fact, ensures that the perspectives and contributions made by the partners are equally valued and respected to allow equivalent opportunities to contribute.

References

Cook-Sather, A., Bovill, C. and Felten, P. (2014). Engaging students as partners in teaching and learning: A guide for faculty. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Dunne, E., & Zandstra, R. (2011). Students as change agents–new ways of engaging with learning and teaching in higher education. ESCalate Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Education, University of Bristol. http://escalate.ac.uk/8064

Healey, M., Flint, A., & Harrington, K. (2014). Engagement through partnership: students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. Higher Education Academy. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/engagement-through-partnership-students-partners-learning-and-teaching-higher

Matthews, K. E. (2017) Five Propositions for Genuine Students as Partners Practice. International Journal for Students as Partners, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i2.3315

Matthews, K. E. (2016). Students as Partners as the Future of Student Engagement. Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 1(1), 1-5. https://sehej.raise-network.com/raise/article/view/380

[1] Matthews warns of SaP being appropriated for neoliberal purposes through shifting the discourse from a relational process to one of achieving outcomes (such as student satisfaction, student engagement, see Matthews, 2016). For example, while the language of SaP may be adopted, practices become ‘watered down’ to ensure particular outcomes that maintain the power structures that SaP seek to disrupt.