Welcome to the May-June Learning and Teaching Enhancement Theme: Student Voice in Practice. This series is co-edited by Eleri Connick, a Project Officer in Registry Services working on Student Voice and Feedback Culture.
As co-editor of this series ‘Student Voice in Practice’ series, I am excited to introduce this comprehensive collection of blog posts that offer insight and examples of how various activities can support Student Voice in practice, as well as reflections on the challenges involved. Student Voice is a key strategic priority that sits under one of the six principles in Scotland’s Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework [1]: ‘Student engagement and partnership’.
Students and staff at the University of Edinburgh are pioneering initiatives to make space for, and amplify, Student Voice by adopting unique methods to create and improve opportunities for students’ voices to be heard in areas such as assessment and feedback, feelings of belonging, University systems, and course and programme design. In this series, we want to share those stories and examples of practice to help others think about how they could implement Student Voice practices in their work.
In some way, this series is a follow up from the April “Talking about Teaching…Incorporating the student voice” session run by the Institute for Academic Development (IAD); a session which led to a conversation about a lurking question that we might need to discuss institutionally about “what is possible in relation to Student Voice?”. Answering this question might first rely upon unpacking what “student voice” means. Or, maybe about agreeing what student voice is not. The below is a video recording of this session, with Emma Clifton (Teaching Fellow in Fashion Design), Dr Job Thijssen (Senior Lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy), James Andrew (UG School Rep for the School of Social and Political Science) and Professor Dave Laurenson (Personal Chair of Electronics and Information Engineering and Director of Learning and Teaching).
The University’s Student Voice Policy describes Student Voice as, “engaging our students in dialogue about their teaching and learning and wider student experience”, before going on to describe how students’ must have an opportunity to “reflect and evaluate” their experience. But is Student Voice really just the participation in feedback exercises?
In her seminal article, Authorizing Students’ Perspectives (2002), Alison Cook-Sather asserted that the commitment to student voice involves a change in mindset to “count students among those who have the knowledge and the position to shape what counts as education, to reconfigure power dynamics and discourse practices within existing realms of conversation about education, and to create new forums”, spaces where students speak for themselves. Thus, whilst the HE sector might like to reduce ‘Student Voice’ to act as the overarching term to capture student representation and student partnership, work by Matthews and Dollinger (2023) provides a clarion call to see student voice as a metaphor to unsettle and provoke a new conversation.
As this series will highlight, Student Voice is not ‘one thing’; it is not just giving students the opportunity to fill in an end of course survey, electing School reps to attend School Education Committees or successfully running a Student-Staff Liaison Committee. It is a way of being, cutting across the entire feedback culture at the institution. And, at its heart, it is about being in constant dialogue with our students. This multiplicity of student voice is seen in how differently each of our authors’ write about “Student Voice in Practice”.
A way of being. A culture. A dialogue.
In an institution as diverse and devolved as the University of Edinburgh, is a culture change that unsettles and provokes a new way of being around dialogue and student voice even possible? In the blog posts in this series, you will see a culture emerging whereby Student Voice means seeing students as our colleagues rather than passive recipients (Scoles et al, 2019). In opening-up dialogue in relationships that are based on trust, reciprocity and respect (Cook-Sather, Bovill, and Felten 2014), staff are invited to be honest with students about what is and isn’t possible when it comes to making decisions about courses, degree programmes and other learning and teaching decisions.
Being in an institution which values and prioritises a dialogic culture with our students, and thus celebrates Student Voice, relies upon each of us – students and staff – taking ownership of our responsibility in such a culture. In realising this culture shift, as Holdsworth (2021) and many others advocate, there must be a willingness to shift power relationships and practices by taking seriously the contributions of students in all roles, in all spaces, and in all places where learning, teaching, assessment, student life, and decision about such activities unfold.
In this series, look out for blog posts on:
- How the post-covid reality meant starting again with Student Voice at the Vet School;
- The Revolution taking place in the School of Social and Political Science’s Undergraduate Student Council;
- A practical guide on how Student Experience teams can support Programme Reps to be more effective;
- As well as reflective piece from one student who shares how it feels to take ownership of her own learning at another level beyond course selection.
Read more about Student Voice in the Student Voice Learning & Teaching Enhancement Theme March-April 2023.
[1] Scotland’s Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework (TQEF) is the Scottish Funding Council’s new approach to quality assurance and enhancement for colleges and universities for 2024-25 to 2030-31.References
Cook-Sather, A. (2002). Authorizing Students’ Perspectives: Toward Trust, Dialogue, and Change in Education. Educational Researcher, 31(4), 3–14. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X031004003
Cook-Sather, A., Bovill, C., and Felten, P. (2014). Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
Holdsworth, R. (2021). Give me a place to stand and I’ll move the earth: Some reflections on 42 years of publishing Connect. Connect, 250, 6–10.
Matthews, K.E., and Dollinger, M. (2023) Student voice in higher education: the importance of distinguishing student representation and student partnership. High Educ 85, 555–570. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00851-7
Scoles, J., Huxham, M., Sinclair, K., Lewis, C., Jung, J., & Dougall, E. (2019). The other side of a magic mirror: Exploring collegiality in student and staff partnership work. Teaching in Higher Education, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1677588
Eleri Connick
Eleri Connick was a Project Officer in Registry Services working on Student Voice and Feedback Culture, but she is also a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam’s School for Cultural Analysis where she explores insurgent Palestinian memories in Amman, Jordan. She formerly served President of the Students’ Association 2018/19, and Student Communities Project Officer for the Deputy Secretary 2019/20. She can be found on LinkedIn.
