Students as Partners

Students as Partners is currently a hot topic in higher education that is challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about the role of students in learning, teaching, and university decision-making.

Students as Partners (SaP) creates space for students and staff to work together on teaching and learning. Students become active participants with valuable expertise to contribute to shaping learning, teaching, and the work of the University alongside academic and professional staff.

The Students as Partners approach covers a wide range of activities, both in and out of the classroom. One of the most commonly cited definitions for teaching and learning partnerships 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 conceptualisation, decision-making, implementation, investigation, or analysis. Cook-Sather, Bovill, & Felten, 2014, p. 6-7

Get involved in a UQ Student-Staff Partnership

Who is included in Students as Partners?

Students as Partners is an ethos 'that values the collaborative interaction between all members of the university community' (Matthews, 2016, p.3).

Partnerships can involve:

students with students (peer mentoring)
students with staff, including professional staff and academics/faculty
students with senior university administrators
students with alumni or members of industry.

Excerpt from Five Propositions for Genuine Students as Partners Practice (PDF, 111KB).

What are the benefits?

A review of 65 empirical studies (PDF, 1.1MB) published on Students as Partners in university teaching and learning (2011 to 2015) reported a range of beneficial outcomes for both students and staff.

For students:

increased student engagement/motivation/ownership for learning
increased student confidence/self-efficacy
increased understanding of the 'other’s' experience (e.g. students understanding staff experiences)
enhanced relationship or trust between students and staff
increased student learning about their own learning (metacognitive learning, self-evaluation, self-awareness)
raised awareness of graduate attributes or employability skills or career development
increased sense of belonging to university or discipline or community
improved student content/discipline learning (actual or perceived)
positively shifted identity as student/learner/person/professional
enhanced student-student relationships.

For staff:

enhanced relationship or trust between students and staff
development of new or better teaching or curriculum materials
increased understanding of the 'other's' experience (e.g. staff understanding student experiences)
new beliefs about teaching and learning that change practices for the better
re-conceptualisation of teaching as a collaborative process to foster learning.

Good practice principles

There are five interrelated principles for good practice in partnership that can guide meaningful, power-sharing, and influential partnership approaches across a diverse range of institutional contexts and Students as Partners approaches.

You can read more about these principles in The International Journal for Students as Partners (PDF, 111KB).

Good practice should aspire to:

1. Foster inclusive partnerships

Ideally, institutions will direct attention to the experiences of a diversity of students as the focus of partnership work, while also offering a plethora of partnership opportunities that specifically seek to include students and staff from all backgrounds in meaningful, power-sharing learning partnerships that shape the university.

2. Nurture power-sharing relationships through dialogue and reflection

Power, whether discussed or left unspoken, is always a factor in student-staff partnership interactions. Those in partnership should aspire to share power.

3. Accept partnership as a process with uncertain outcomes

Partnership gives primacy to the co-creation of shared goals and outcomes that are mutually decided during the process of partnership. As such, the outcomes of students and staff engaging as partners are unknown at the beginning of the joint endeavour.

4. Engage in ethical partnerships

Engaging in partnership should be governed by ethical guidelines; conducted in an ethical process and for ethical outcomes.

5. Enact partnership for transformation

Transformation begins through our own active reflection and ongoing dialogue with others about who engages and why in partnership, what it means for higher education, and how we advocate for SaP more widely.

Case studies

Here is a collection of case studies of real practices and approaches for engaging Students as Partners in learning and teaching.

2018 case studies

17 case studies of partnership work (PDF, 3.7MB) generated from the 2018 National Students as Partners Roundtable at UQ
4 case studies of partnership work (PDF, 424KB) generated from the 2018 International Students as Partners Institute at McMaster University

2015 case studies

View the 20 case studies of partnership work (PDF, 10.3MB) generated from the 2015 National Students as Partners Roundtable at UQ.

Have a case study to share?

Complete the case study template (DOCX, 71KB) and email Kelly Matthews at k.matthews1@uq.edu.au to share it.

Join the network

Together we can extend the reach and impact of student-staff partnerships via the Australian Students as Partners Network.

We currently have approximately 720 network members passionate about student-staff partnerships; students and staff from Australia and overseas are welcome to join.

Regular email updates keep the Network connected, along with the annual Australian Students as Partners Roundtable event.

Update 1 (January 2016)
Update 2 (March 2016)
Update 3 (June 2016)
Update 4 (September 2016)
Update 5 (October 2016)
Update 6 (November 2016)
Update 7 (May 2017)
Update 8 (August 2017)
Update 9 (February 2018)
Update 10 (July 2018)
Update 11 (January 2019)

There are many benefits of joining the Australian Students as Partners Network.

Network members:

are connected virtually with like-minded students and staff
receive updates featuring latest events, research and practices
share their work via newsletters
contribute ideas and case studies to the website
engage in events and activities related to Students as Partners.

Join the Australian Students as Partners Network

Student partners

Caelan Rafferty, 2019

He is a co-facilitating workshops on engaging students as partners and co-evaluating the implementation of student-staff partnership at UQ.

Tsai-Yu (Amy) Hung, 2018-2019

She is a co-researcher for a study exploring students' experiences of co-creation in the curriculum. She is conducting focus groups, analysing the data, and reporting the findings as co-author.

Nattalia Godbold, 2018-2019

She is a co-researcher for a study exploring students' experiences of co-creation in the curriculum. She is conducting focus groups, analysing the data, and reporting the findings as co-author.

Catherine Sherwood, 2018

She is co-planning and co-facilitating the 4th Annual National Students as Partners Roundtable hosted by UQ.

Stuart Russell, 2017-2018

Stuart is conducting analysis of data from the ‘Students as Partners: reconceptualising the role of students in teaching and learning’ study. He is also co-facilitating workshops on Students as Partners at the 2018 International Students as Partners Institute, hosted by McMaster University, Canada.

Alexander Dwyer, 2016-2018

Alex is conducting analysis of data from the ‘Students as Partners: reconceptualising the role of students in teaching and learning’ study. He also co-facilitated workshops on Students as Partners at the 2018 International Students as Partners Institute, hosted by McMaster University, Canada.

Lucie Sam Dvorakova, 2015-2016

Sam is co-designing and facilitating international workshops; collaborating on an international, systematic literature review; and co-authoring publications.

Lucy Mercer-Mapstone, 2015-2017

Lucy is planning and co-facilitating international and local workshops on SaP in teaching and learning; co-researching on an international, systematic literature project; and writing scholarly publications.

Jarred Turner, 2015-2017

Jarred is contributing to an international, systematic literature review on Students as Partners. He is also co-researching SaP projects at various universities, through interviews with participants.

Fadia Khouri Saavedra, 2016-2017

Fadia is co-designing and co-implementing a UQ Students as Partners Community of Practice.

Lorelei Hine, 2016-2017

Lorelei is undertaking qualitative analysis of interviews from the ‘Students as Partners: Reconceptualising the role of students in teaching and learning’ study.

Benjamin Luo, 2017-2018

Benjamin is currently involved in understanding the SaP initiative from the perspective of students, by conducting qualitative and quantitative analysis of student written comments.

Lauren Groenendijk, 2016

Lauren is conducting comparative research on student and academic attitudes and perspectives on the concept of Students as Partners, specifically in the sciences. She is also co-designing and facilitating international workshops on SaP, as well as collaborating on an international, systematic literature review.

Yitong Bu (Coco), 2015-2016

Yitong is a co-evaluator on a Technology-enabled Learning Grant in the School of Mathematics and Physics, exploring the perspectives of students on the use of dynamic, interactive simulations for quantitative problem-solving and mathematical thinking.

Naima Crisp, 2015-2016

Naima is planning and co-researching SaP projects at UQ through interviews with academic leaders.

Yiet Hean Goh, 2015-2016

Goh is planning and co-researching SaP projects at UQ through interviews with academic leaders.

Jeremy Edirisinghe, 2015-2016

Jeremy is a co-evaluator on a Technology-enabled Learning Grant in the School of Mathematics and Physics, exploring the perspectives of students on the use of dynamic, interactive simulations for quantitative problem-solving and mathematical thinking.

Resources

Research and examples of practice

Conceptions of Students as Partners - Free access to research involving 11 Australian universities engaged in SaP projects
International Journal for Students as Partners - Free, open access journal documenting research and practice
A Systematic Literature Review of Students as Partners in Higher Education
International case studies of partnership in practice - Mick Healey hand-out on 'students as change agents'
Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education - Reflective essays on partnership practices
Engaging Students as Partners: A guide for faculty - A guide to developing productive student-faculty partnerships in higher education
Co-designing a Community of Practice for Students as Partners in Partnership