Scotland’s Student Learning Experience model: building partnership in quality in a tertiary context

Abstract

Since 2003, student engagement has been a key pillar of Scotland’s higher education Quality Enhancement Framework, through which sparqs, Scotland’s pioneering student engagement agency, was founded. A key tool underpinning this has been sparqs’ Student Learning Experience (SLE) model, created in 2006 from Scotland’s quality arrangements for colleges and placed at the heart of sparqs’ course rep training. The SLE model is designed to support conversations between students and staff to identify priorities to enhance the quality of learning. In 2021, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) announced the development of a new tertiary quality framework which would aim to put the experiences of students at the centre of the sector’s approach. sparqs identified the potential of the SLE model to fulfill this purpose and in 2021 was commissioned by the SFC to redevelop and embed the model in Scotland’s forthcoming tertiary quality arrangements. A distinct aspect of the redeveloped SLE model is that the building blocks, lenses and reflective questions are founded upon the views of students across Scotland about what makes an excellent quality learning experience. Throughout 2022 and 2023, sparqs worked with hundreds of students, alongside staff from students’ associations, institutions and sector agencies, to develop the SLE model. That it will remain at the core of course rep training, while also now rooted in quality arrangements, presents a significant opportunity for deeper synergy in understandings of the enhancement of learning and teaching. This article will introduce the SLE model, how conceptualisation of the student learning experience has evolved in policy, practice and literature, and the methodology behind the creation of the new model. It will then describe applications of the model for practice in academic development, course-level student-staff partnership, and strategies for quality enhancement. The article will conclude with next steps in the future of tertiary quality, in which students can be full, active partners in shaping their learning.