Defining partnership in HE

McCulloch (2009) criticised the students as consumer model, finding at least eight deficiencies with it that reduced the role of the student to that of a passive recipient. He proposed that considering students as co-producers places the student in a more active role and encourages a ‘students as partners’ attitude. More recently, Healey, Flint and Harrington state that:

Partnership is understood as fundamentally about a relationship in which all involved – students, academics, professional services staff, senior managers, students’ unions, and so on – are actively engaged in and stand to gain from the process of learning and working together. Partnership is essentially a process of engagement, not a product. It is a way of doing things, rather than an outcome in itself.

(2014, p12)

Bryson concurs with this approach and believes that:

partnership and all that it entails offers the most fruitful way forward for student engagement as so many of the good practices for engaging students… resonate with the principles and practices of partnerships.

(2014b, p239)

The recent move towards promoting a partnership ethos between students and staff across the sector has resulted in many institutions forging ahead with initiatives spanning various aspects of university life. As a consequence, different types of partnership have emerged and the diversity these embody

would appear to support findings alike of studies in the public sector (Cook, 2015) and in the HE sector (Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014), that there is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to partnership working.

2.5.1.Types of partnership

Building on research evidence and widespread consultation with the HE sector in the UK, in 2015 the HEA published a framework for SE through partnership (HEA, 2015) (figure 1). While it emanates from a national body for higher educational professionals in the UK this framework has been developed as part of a conceptual tool-kit for use by multiple stakeholders and potential partners in HE (staff, students, institutions and students’ unions) to reflect on, inspire and enhance practice and policy relating to partnerships in learning and teaching. The framework illustrates four overlapping areas of focus where partnerships may be fostered and emphasises the importance of learning communities.

Figure 1: Framework for Student Engagement through Partnership (HEA, 2015)

In recent years some institutions have adopted partnership working which may be categorised in one of the four areas indicated and these

examples provide an indication of different types of partnerships in practice. Inevitably the institutional examples don’t just fit neatly into any

one particular area and there is evidence of crossover within the four areas:

 Learning, teaching and assessment;

o Bryn Mawr College, USA: students as co-creators of teaching approaches (see for example: Bovill, Cook-Sather and Felten, 2011)

o Northumbria University, UK: assessment partnership model (see for example: Sambell and Graham, 2011)

o University of Leicester, UK: working together to reduce plagiarism (see for example: Badge et al. 2011)

 Subject-based research and inquiry;

o University of Lincoln, UK: student as producer (see for example: Neary and Winn, 2009)

o The University of Warwick and Oxford Brookes University (The Reinvention Centre): staff-student collaboration on the creation of an undergraduate research journal (see for example:

Metcalfe, Gibson and Lambert, 2011)

 Curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy;

o University of Exeter, UK: students as change agents (see for example: Dunne and Zandstra, 2011)

o Elon University, USA: students as co-creators of course design (see for example: Bovill, Cook-Sather and Felten, 2011)

o University College Dublin, Ireland: students as co-creators of curricula (see for example: Bovill, Cook-Sather and Felten, 2011)

 Scholarship of teaching and learning.

o Birmingham City University, UK: student academic partners scheme (see for example: Nygaard et al., 2013)

o Northumbria University, UK: collaboration between staff and students in SoTL (see for example: Allin, 2014)

The HEA (2015) suggest that ‘embedding partnership as an ethos requires a holistic approach, with attention to all four areas of focus’ (p2). They also suggest that it can be most effective if adopted at an institutional level, as well as embedded within programmes’ (p1). Individual practitioners may find

the framework useful in that for new entrants to the arena of ‘partnerships’, this framework offers a starting point and perhaps a way for them to dip their toe in the water – by trying out a partnership approach in the learning,

teaching and assessment area. Some examples of how this might be done – e.g. flipping the classroom or work-related learning are provided in the

framework. What might emerge is a realisation that for many practitioners they are already doing partnership work – they just may not have been labelling it as such. As suggested by Matthews (2016), language is

important and the recent language of students as partners emphasises the more relational form of SE.

However, there can still be reluctance or a capacity deficit on the part of both staff and students on adopting a partnership approach. Healey, Flint and Harrington highlight:

…that the understandings of the impact of partnership work – for students, staff, institutions, society more broadly – remain relatively poor, and there is a need for a greater evidence base around the benefits of partnership.

(2014, p60)

Bryson (2014b) also points out that there are many problems and challenges to practising partnership including ethical dilemmas and issues to resolve. Whilst the HEA framework (HEA, 2015) provides areas of focus, one of the challenges facing staff and students is in relation to where the partnership takes place – is it inside the classroom or is it extra-curricular? The former might suggest that all students would be involved and the latter might suggest that only a small number of students would take part – perhaps those students who would put themselves forward anyway, for roles such as student representative.

If institutions wish to scale-up partnership working so that they can challenge traditional forms of SE which position the student in a passive role, and move towards more relational forms of SE, which embrace collaboration and

shared goals between staff and students (Flint, 2016; Matthews, 2016), then we need to consider our current institutional SE base line and how we got to where we are. In the remaining sections I have undertaken a brief review of SE over the last number of decades in different contexts so that I can clarify the aspects of SE in which my research is situated.