Abstract
This critical reflection asks what contributions a research partnership, active between 1997 and 2014, made to knowledge about student learning in higher education. It focuses on three overarching projects. The first, on assessment, addressed ways to empower students in assessment processes and make them fairer for students from diverse backgrounds. The second, on student retention and success, identified ways for students to integrate into higher education while also advocating that institutions adapt their cultures and practices to meet the needs of students from diverse backgrounds. The third, on student engagement, attracted considerable interest for a conceptual organiser of this complex construct. It included ten proposals for action and recognised the impact of non-institutional factors on engagement. It also found that engagement is best researched within institutions. A critical reflection on the influences of the projects suggests that their impact on assessment was negligible. However, the retention and engagement projects have influenced mainstream thinking.
Highlights
Researchers live and work in an environment of ideas, policies and practices
Our background in adult education inspired our interest in learning and teaching. It helped shape our work: teaching and learning of adults should promote learner autonomy; recognise prior learning experiences; encourage critical reflection; facilitate learning processes; and teach content that is relevant to learners, is 2 | Student Success, 9(3) July 2018 practical, collaborative and transformational
Our work on retention and outcomes was based on findings from two research projects: A Ministry of Education funded best evidence synthesis on student outcomes (Prebble et al, 2004), and a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) funded project on ways to improve student outcomes in their first year of tertiary study (Zepke, Leach, Prebble et al, 2005)
Summary
Researchers live and work in an environment of ideas, policies and practices. Some become so dominant in mainstream thinking that an affirming consensus about them develops. Through the years of our collaboration between 1997 and 2014 neoliberal ideas defined the ‘conduct of conduct’ of institutions, teachers and students in higher education. To be ‘heard’ in this environment, researchers’ work must be acceptable to the state, relevant to other researchers and useful to teachers and students who are part of the neoliberal consensus. During our years of collaboration, we worked to both further mainstream ideas, policies and practices in higher education and to critique them. Our background in adult education inspired our interest in learning and teaching It helped shape our work: teaching and learning of adults should promote learner autonomy; recognise prior learning experiences; encourage critical reflection; facilitate learning processes; and teach content that is relevant to learners, is 2 | Student Success, 9(3) July 2018 practical, collaborative and transformational.
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