Abstract
There is a small but growing body of literature about engaging students as partners (SaP) in Asian countries. To further collective understanding of learner-teacher partnership practices in China, we invited undergraduate students and academics from three Chinese universities to complete a survey on their involvement in, and sense of importance of, 17 practices that align with SaP activities. The 402 students and 85 academic staff who engaged in the survey reported high levels of agreement about the importance of such practices that foster learner-teacher interactions although levels of involvement were lower. The findings demonstrate that SaP practices are unfolding in Chinese universities with evidence of a desire for growth of such activities. Our findings reveal potentials and possibilities for growing such practices in Chinese universities while raising questions about the underlying drivers and values motivating increased interest in learner-teacher interactions that warrant further qualitative research.
Highlights
Relationships are complex, in established educational institutions such as universities
Because the language of Students as Partners and its translation into Chinese are uncommon, we adapted a practice-focused lens in our research design, which is based on the approach of Matthews et al (2017), to capture largescale involvement in students as partners (SaP) activities while not naming them as SaP practices
Descriptive statistics and paired t-test results are presented in tables and visually with graphs
Summary
Relationships are complex, in established educational institutions such as universities. With a focus on establishing quality learner-teacher relationships, engaging students as partners (SaP) has emerged from a long history of practices and research that questions taken-for-granted learner-teacher interactions. While there has been emerging scholarly discussion about SaP in China (Liang & Matthews, 2021), it is not clear to what extent SaP practices in learning and teaching—whether named SaP or not—are unfolding in Chinese higher education. Our aim is to further collective understanding of learner-teacher interactions in Chinese universities by investigating practices that fall into the realm of SaP activities espoused in Western literature. Because the language of Students as Partners and its translation into Chinese are uncommon, we adapted a practice-focused lens in our research design, which is based on the approach of Matthews et al (2017), to capture largescale involvement in SaP activities while not naming them as SaP practices.
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