Introduction
A key focus of this research is the contemporary character of student feedback-based evaluation in Australian higher education. Critical to this analysis is a consideration of the cultural-historical influences that shaped its formation (detailed in Chapter Four), and how student feedback has been variously analysed and understood in recent higher education discourses (explored in Chapter Two). This chapter introduces two practice- based case studies from an Australian university that are designed to provide an insight into the contemporary nature of student feedback-based evaluation.
Firstly, these case studies systematically explore the everyday form, function and influence of orthodox quantitative student feedback. This informs the second research question which frames this study. Secondly, the case studies provide an opportunity to also assesses the developmental potential of student feedback to enhance teaching and learning at a local level (which responds to the third research question). Essential to these tasks was harnessing what Engeström (2000b) has evocatively described as the ethnography of trouble– making the contradictions, tensions disturbances and ruptures visible in this conventional ‘everyday’ activity – in order to engage case study
participants in critical analysis toward innovation and developmental change.
As described in Chapter Three, the explanatory and developmental tools of CHAT play a central role in both developing the case studies and the subsequent analysis of their outcomes. For the research, this CHAT-based case study intervention provided an opportunity to go beyond mere observation of practice, to engage in ongoing dialogue with actors moving with the uncertain flow of impediments, affordances, disruptions and developments that characterise the realities of daily work. As Engeström (2000b) suggests, this interventionist model of research engagement is clearly aligned toward a developmental motive:
If actors are able to identify and analyse contradictions of their activity system, they may focus their energy on to the crucial task of resolving those contradictions by means of
reorganising and expanding the activity, instead of being victimised by changes that roll over them if forces of a natural catastrophe. (p. 153)
This inevitably casts the researcher as an interventionist and developer, providing a toolkit of conceptual tools for generating rich data that is deeply contextual and developmental in its potential impact (i.e. having the potential to lead to the reconceptualising of pedagogical work).
As introduced in Chapter Three, these two localised case studies were developed using a novel melding of an action research methodology with CHAT. The imperatives for this approach were manifold. Action research method focussed on pedagogy is used widely in education, as it affords the opportunity to ‘systematically investigate one’s own teaching/learning facilitation practice with the dual aim of modifying practice and contributing to theoretical knowledge’ (Norton, 2009, p. xvi). This orientation aligns well to the broader developmental bias of CHAT, providing the basis for theoretically informed exploration of practice (in this case using the prism of student feedback).
This melding of action research and CHAT challenges the hegemonic role of the interventionist researcher that is characteristic of Engeström’s (2000b, 2001) developmental work researchapproach. As argued in Chapter Three, it offers the potential to more actively and directly engage participants in the work of developing of teaching and learning, as well as to more effectively evaluate the potential of the more critical use of student feedback data to develop professional dialogue around
pedagogical practice. This CHAT-based action research model appeared to present a more engaging method by which to collectively consider the contemporary usefulness of student feedback as it has further taken on a quality assurance function. It also provides the opportunity to more effectively assess the potential impact of an elevated student voice in encouraging situated forms academic development. Finally, this
somewhat novel use of action research as a complementary methodology for CHAT had the potential to expand theoretical knowledge.
Case studies represent instances of a social activity that illuminate the complex social dimensions of the phenomenon. As Yin (1994) observes, case studies are useful in that they allow the investigation of a ‘phenomenon within its real life context especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident’ (p. 13).
Specifically in their use in CHAT, they also afford a situated environment to test the expansive learning potential of the area of inquiry (Stark & Torrance, 2006). Given this, case studies offer a useful means of casting light on the two of the critical questions that are at the centre of this study around the contemporary condition and developmental potential of student feedback. Firstly, given the increasingly standardised use of student opinion in Australian universities detailed in Chapter Four, situated and contextual case studies are a reliable means of assessing the actual effect of student feedback in
practice. Secondly, case studies framed by an interventionist motive allow the assessment of what potential student feedback holds to develop professional dialogue pedagogies. They provide a contextual opportunity to evaluate the broadened or diversified use of such feedback to shape and further develop pedagogical practice. Therefore the case studies used in this research can be reasonably seen to provide a valid and useful means of understanding the complex nature of student feedback beyond this localised manifestation. They proffer an insight into the realities of the interaction between student and academic assessments of teaching and learning quality in
contemporary Australian higher education settings.