Abstract
Students as partners (SaP) has become an impactful practice in higher education as it enables students to take ownership of their learning and exercise agency. However, the implementation of SaP, particularly in Asia, has encountered many challenges, including concerns about a large power distance between students and teachers. Despite the emerging interests in exploring SaP in several Asian regions, there have been few studies about students’ experiences of partnership throughout a project life cycle. This study explores students’ experiences of SaP in three projects spanning two research-intensive universities in Hong Kong based on the Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and positioning theory. Data were collected from exit interviews with student partners, their reflective writings, and their responses to open-ended questions in a post-project survey. Our main contribution is the discovery of multiple contradictions between the project designs and students’ enactment of partnership. Specifically, students’ hesitation in assuming a partner’s role was related to their disciplinary identity, the inquiry methods of the projects, and the pre-determined project specifications. In contrast, the cultural factors, which are largely framed as barriers in the literature, only affected the partnership development at the beginning of the project. Our study implies that future SaP projects need to ensure the alignment between project designs and a partner’s role to facilitate equal and sustainable contributions from students and staff members.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Educational Review |
| Early online date | 22 Sept 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 22 Sept 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The theoretical foundations for SaP are debated. Some scholars argue that research on partnership is under-theorised, often focussing on “operational knowledge” (Gravett et al., ). Others have situated SaP in critical pedagogy and co-creation (Bovill, ). Holen et al.’s () typology presents four categories of SaP organised around the four visions of university governance developed by Olsen (). The first type, “student as an apprentice”, reflects the Humboldtian university vision that features students working alongside professors, as novices observing experts (Lave & Wenger, ). The second type, “students as a follower of a political agenda”, is based on the vision that a university is an instrument for shifting national political agendas (Holen et al., ). The objective is to gain support and funding from the government. The third type, “student as democratic participant”, reflects the university vision as an essential aspect of representative democracy (Holen et al., ) and assumes that students will be empowered to shape education. Finally, “student as a consumer” is associated with the neoliberal vision of the university as a service enterprise (Holen et al., ). SaP thus reflects assumptions about values, hierarchies, and educational and civic responsibilities that cross the realms of both higher education and society.
Keywords
- Asian contexts
- higher education
- staff-student partnership
- student researchers
- Students as partners
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education