Staff-student partnership research and navigating change in higher education

This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Nick Glover, Inclusive Education Advisor at the University of York and Dr. Jeremy Moulton (Twitter/X: @Jfgmoutlon), Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of York.

The importance of engaging staff and students effectively as partners when innovating learning and teaching practices has been understood, for some time now, as a key issue facing higher education. It is no secret that this is an intense period of pressure and change in higher education, with strong budget limitations across the sector. However, the case for investing in staff-student partnership research has never been stronger. 

As Prof. Robert Dover, Interim Dean of the Faculty of Business, Law and Politics at the University of Hull, wrote recently on the HEPI blog – the higher education business model in the UK is seemingly broken. There will be significant changes in the coming years to the sector, changes that will shape the higher education sector of the future. Some of these changes will have to be driven by the new government. However, many changes will have to be led by universities themselves. 

Given the perilous financial situation in higher education, many of these changes are focused primarily on sharply cutting spending, including reducing staff numbers. Information put together by Queen Mary’s UCU branch shows just how severe some of these reductions in staffing might be.

However, there also needs to be more inclusive conversations about how these changes will be selected and managed, as well as the ‘positive’ cases for work that goes beyond reductions and cuts. 

The speed and severity of changes in the sector create a situation wherein it is imperative to centre student voices and understandings of the point, purpose and delivery of higher education, as they will be heavily impacted by many of the coming shifts in practice and delivery. One important way to do this is through staff-student partnership research, to collaboratively co-create educational innovations. 

One widely used definition of staff-student partnership research is: 

a collaborative, reciprocal process through which all participants have the opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways, to curricular or pedagogical conceptualization, decision making, implementation, investigation, or analysis.

Partnerships are processes that acknowledge students as active agents in the university learning community. They are centred on relationships between students and staff and what can be generated when staff expertise is brought together with what students know about their experiences as learners. Student-staff partnership is an umbrella term for a range of practices, including co-creation within the curriculum (such as negotiating aspects of a course, as it is unfolding); co-creation of the curriculum; students as collaborators in disciplinary research; and students as co-researchers in scholarship of teaching and learning.       

The literature on staff-student partnership has, generally, resisted seeing students as consumers with the understanding that considering students as passive consumers limits the potential for active participation in their own higher education. However, even if one adopts the framing of students as consumers, which does represent their legal position and protections under consumer law, there remains a strong case for student-staff partnership research. Working with students as partners can play a powerful role in identifying student perspectives on proposed changes and understanding how to respond in ways that ensure positive ‘customer’ experiences. Additionally, Mercer-Mapstone and Bovill’s research on institutional partnership schemes suggests that even when the ultimate goal is customer satisfaction, engaging students as partners in research can encourage universities to place a value on the processes of partnerships, as well as outcomes that are not easily measurable.

Prof. Liz Thomas’s What Works? Report into student retention and success emphasises the importance of engendering feelings of belonging. At a time of great uncertainty in higher education, involving students, through partnership research, in the changes being made to their education could significantly improve that sense of student belonging, both for the students involved in the research and the students experiencing change. Partnerships signify to students that they matter, at a time when they could feel disoriented and alienated by transformations to the teaching and learning model they are used to and expect.

At a time of intense pressure in the sector, the thought of investing time and money in staff-student partnership research might not be one that initially appeals. However, students are vital consultants in pedagogical innovations. They provide unique angles of vision – as learners – and surface perspectives that can be overlooked. The student body is often more representative of the population’s demographics than academics are. At times of intense pressure, cuts and change, it is students from less-represented backgrounds that are most at risk of adverse outcomes. This makes it even more important that students from a range of backgrounds collaborate with staff to revise and reinvent pedagogies, assessments, course designs and policies that position equity and inclusion as core educational aims. 

At the University of York, the Learning and Teaching Fund has become a useful example of working at speed in a way that reacts to the evolving higher education landscape in a way that brings students in as partners in the research process. With relatively low time and financial costs, staff-student partnership projects have been able to create findings and learning environments that have built longer-term buy-in in the teaching and learning process. Our experience at York has shown that it is important to go beyond solely asking students to comment on their experiences. We have found that when we engage students as collaborators and co-researchers, we generate a much richer understanding of learning, teaching and assessment.

At these times, we might not think about these things – with speed often important – academic quality, policy making, and the process might be left behind and staff-student partnerships might seem like a ‘luxury’. However, it is precisely because of the pressures on the sector and the changes that it is going through that it is more important than ever that students are participants in shaping the future of higher education. This participation empowers and centres students in a process of change that can be for the long-term good of universities and students.