A Hidden Agenda for Teaching and Learning - Student Partipcipation in Higher Education

Author(s):

Jörgen Dimenäs

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 10 B, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (Part 3)

Paper Session. Continued from 22 SES 09 B

Time:

2009-09-30

14:45-16:15

Room:

HG, HS 30

Chair:

Coral Pepper

Contribution

In this paper, a study of student participation in higher education is presented. From the end of the 1990s, students' rights to participation have been enshrined in higher education. Due to the Bologna Process, matters of student participation have become of crucial interest and importance. However, research on student participation shows that students' in general experience lack of participation (Persson 1998; Kamperin 2004; Menon, 2003, 2005). Instead, this study emphasises several views on student participation: engineer, nurse, teacher students, higher-education teachers, and that of staff members. The aim of the study is to describe and understand student participation in relation to learning, organisation, and contents. Defined as participation entailing a real chance to influence things and to experience involvement (Arnstein, 1969; Foucault 2002), the debate on student participation reveal three distinguishable elements: student participation as part of educational organisations' qualitative work, individual students' learning process and personal development, and education in and implementation of democratic values (Astin 1985; Englund 2002; Molander 2002; Toohey, 2002, Persson 2003; Boland 2005, Bartley, Dimenäs & Hallnäs, 2009). Kamperin (2004) views participation as when students feel responsible for their own learning through the facilitation of their teachers as well as the participation in collaborating activities, i.e. that teachers and students collaborate to improve their education and hence its quality. Molander (2002) distinguishes between political and academic democracy. Political democracy is the practice of public democratic decision-making methods whilst academic democracy is that of argumentative and open knowledge-creating methods, i.e. democracy as co-operative learning. Thus, academic democracy is a prerequisite for political democracy and also the explanation for the crucial role of teachers (Boland 2005). However, the study on student participation of the Council of Europe, which covered most of the European countries, showed that participation in educational issues was weak at a national level but stronger on institutional levels (Persson 2003). The theoretical framework of the study is a socio-cultural and phenomenographic perspective on learning and teaching. The socio-cultural theory is focused on interaction, i.e. learning as the ability to assimilate different forms of communication (Säljö, 2000), whereas the phenomenographic theory is focused on content, i.e. the experience of various phenomena with the capability of discerning yet simultaneously be aware of certain aspects. In phenomenography, learning and the learning process can be analysed and seen through individual conceptions of learning contents as well as the learning process itself (Marton & Booth, 1997).

Method

The qualitative interview approach of the study is based on the assumption that the constituent parts are interrelated and that it is possible to clearly identify well-defined descriptive conceptions combined with the aim of developing an understanding for what is being studied. Thus, it is possible for knowledge to be in line with what researchers experience; a changing subject, yet concrete and related to a context rather than something abstract and theoretical (Yin 1994). These statements have constituted the basis for an overall thematic analysis which results have been described in separate qualitative categories and continuously been checked against the outcome in several topics and categories. Therefore, I have been able to describe what could be defined as ‘qualitative perceptions’, which are represented in the context of the interviews (Larsson 1986, Alexandersson 1998, Malmqvist 2007).

Expected Outcomes

The preliminary results of the study show that student participation can be understood in a more complex way than merely allowing students to enter committees and other decision-making boards. Therefore, participation is crucial when it comes to regarding the contents of student learning subjects and to view learning as an ideological process in terms of socially accepted values (Kamperin, 2004; Persson 1998). This could lead to ideas of ‘real’ participation and, in extent, a power shift to the benefit of students that in fact might lead to intensifying the teaching aspect (Dimenäs, 2001, 2007; Marton & Booth, 1997; Säljö, 2000; Zuniga, Williams & Berger, 2005). To conclude, I wish to assert that student participation should be illustrated from a wider perspective than is normally the case, and which is why I find it about time to highlight this hidden agenda.

References

References Alexandersson, M. (1998). Den kvalitativa studiens logik (Småskrifter från Institutionen för metodik), nr 16. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet, Institutionen för metodik. Arnstein, S A (1969). A Ladder of Citizen Participation. JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969, p. 216-224. http://lithgow-schmidt.dk/sherry-arnstein/ladder-of-citizen-participation.html 2007-10-25 Astin, A. W. (1985). Involvement: the Cornerstone of Excellence. In Change, p. 35-39. Bartley, K., Dimenäs, J. & Hallnäs, H. (2009). Studentinflytande och makt. En studie av studentinflytande i relation till styrning, verksamhet och utvärdering ur lärares perspektiv. Rapport nr 1:2009: Borås: University of Borås. Boland, J.A. (2005). Student participation in shared governance: A means of advancing democratic values. Tertiary Education and Management (2005) 11:199-217. Dimenäs, J. (2001). Content and Interaction. The process how students learn natural cience. (Göteborg studies in educational sciences, nr 154). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Dimenäs, J. (2007). Undervisningens röda tråd – möjligheter i naturvetenskap. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Englund, T. (2002). Higher education, domocracy and citizenship – the democratic potential of the university? Studies in Philosophy and Education (2002) 21:281-287. Foucault, M. (2002). Sexualitetens historia. Band 1: Viljan att veta. Göteborg. Daidalos. Kamperin, RM. (2004). Inflytande och lärande. Göteborgs universitet, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik. Larsson, S. (1986). Kvalitativ analys – exemplet fenomenografi. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Malmqvist, J. (2007). Analys utifrån redskapen. In J. Dimenäs (Ed.), Lära till lärare. Att utveckla läraryrket – vetenskapligt förhållningssätt och vetenskaplig metodik. Stockholm: Liber. Marton, F. & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Menon, M. E. (2003) Student involvment in university governance: A need for negotiated educational aims? Tertiary Education and Management (2003) 9:233-246. Menon, M. E. (2005) Students´views regarding their participation in university governance: Implications for distributed leadership in higher education. Tertiary Education and Management (2005) 11:167-182. Molander, B. (2002). Politics for learning or learning for politics? Studies in Philosophy and Education. (2002) 21:361-376. Persson, Anders. (1998). Studentinflytande i massuniversitetet. Lunds universitet. Utvärderingsenheten. Rapport nr 98:204. Persson, Annika (2003). Student Participation in the Governance of Higher Education in Europe. Strasbourg: CD-ESR Bureau. Toohey, S. (2002) Designing Courses for Higher Education. The Society for Research into Higher Education: Open University Press. Säljö, R. (2000). Lärande i praktiken. Ett sociokulturellt perspektiv. Stockholm: Prisma. Zuniga, X., Williams, E.A. & J.B. Berger (2005). Action-Oriented democratic Outcomes: The impact of Student Involvement With Campus Diversity, The Journal of College Student Development, 46 (6), 660-678. Yin, R. K. (1994). Case Studies research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications, Inc.

Author Information

Jörgen Dimenäs

University of Borås

School of Education and Behavioural Science

BORÅS

186

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