Mind the gap: Teachers’ conceptions of student-staff partnership and its potential to enhance educational quality

Abstract

Introduction: Student-staff partnerships as a concept to improve medical education have received a growing amount of attention. Such partnerships are collaborations in which students and teachers seek to improve education by each adding their unique contribution to decision-making and implementation processes. Although previous research has demonstrated that students are favourable to this concept, teachers remain hesitant. The present study investigated teachers' conceptions of student-staff partnerships and of the prerequisites that are necessary to render such partnerships successful and enhance educational quality. Method: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 course coordinators who lead course design teams and also teach in 4 bachelor health programmes, using Bovill and Bulley's levels of student participation as sensitising concepts during data analysis. Results: The results pointed to three different conceptions of student-staff partnerships existing among teachers: Teachers teach and students study; teachers teach and value students' feedback; and teachers and students co-create. The prerequisites for effective co-creation teachers identified were: Teachers must be open to involve students and create dialogues; students must be motivated and have good communication skills; the organisation must be supportive; and teachers should have the final say. Conclusion: We conclude that teachers' conceptions are consistent with Bovill and Bulley's levels of student participation. Under certain conditions, teachers are willing to co-create and reach the highest levels of student participation.

Learner involvement in the co-creation of teaching and learning: AMEE Guide No. 138

“…Memories of their personal experiences of schooling and educational design limit their imagination of alternative design options for education (Burke and K€ onings 2016). Learners might need to develop communication and collaboration skills to a level necessary to constructively communicate with teachers, provide input that is clear and understandable to teachers and ensure that their input does not offend teachers (Martens et al 2020).…”

“…Learners' cynicism and frustration increase if they perceive lack of action or non-resolution of challenges previously discussed with teachers (Carey 2013). The phenomenon of 'voice fatigue' has been reported to indicate learners' reluctance to involvement in co-creation because it is not important enough to them (self-interest instead of a more altruistic motivation to let future learners benefit), because they prefer a more comfortable, passive role or feel a lack of ownership over the curriculum or course, because involvement is accompanied by a high workload and time constraints, or because they are primarily concerned with own tests and study progress Carey 2013;Seale et al 2015;Blau and Shamir-Inbal 2018;Martens et al 2020).…”

“…Teachers need an open attitude and need to be approachable for learners (Meeuwissen et al 2019;Martens et al 2020). In co-creation the aim is to bring different perspectives of stakeholders together, but this implies that it can be difficult to find common ground (Marquis et al 2017).…”

“…Institutions might demotivate learners to engage if they do not carefully report back to learners how their input has been used and implemented (Carey 2013;Meeuwissen et al 2019). Lack of teacher recognition for the effort is potentially a problem (Martens et al 2020), as is a lack of a safe culture to allow some risk taking for teachers, without causing perceived threats to job security (Matthews et al 2018). Traditional institutional structures, practices and norms may not recognize or value co-creation, which hampers its implementation (Bergmark and Westman 2016;Bovill et al 2016;Matthews et al 2018).…”

“…It has been suggested to let learners apply for involvement in co-creation by submitting a letter on why they want to participate and what they think they are able to contribute (Cook-Sather and Luz 2015; Jensen and Bennett 2016). Ideally, learners selected to engage in co-creation are motivated to contribute to the improvement of education (Geraghty et al 2020;Martens et al 2020), hold a proactive and critical attitude (Meeuwissen et al 2019;Geraghty et al 2020…”