Voice In Higher Education Research Articles

International graduate students: Unique stories and missing voices in higher education

International graduate students: Unique stories and missing voices in higher education

The Relationship Between Intercultural Sensitivity and Speaking Skills: Voices in Higher Education

This study aimed to assess the levels of intercultural sensitivity among students and to explore the potential correlation between intercultural sensitivity and the speaking proficiency of English department students in Indonesian institutions. To achieve these goals, a descriptive study design utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods was employed. Data collection involved a questionnaire and interviews, with 64 students participating as respondents. The questionnaire included 24 items from the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS), which were answered on a four-point Likert scale. The questionnaire was distributed via Google Forms. To assess speaking ability, the researcher conducted interviews focused on language and cultural descriptions, which were evaluated using a custom rubric. The findings revealed that students exhibited high levels of intercultural sensitivity in terms of intercultural attentiveness, confidence, and engagement. Additionally, they showed moderate sensitivity in interaction enjoyment and respect for cultural differences. Statistical analysis indicated a correlation between intercultural sensitivity scores and students' perceived speaking proficiency. Future research could explore different aspects of intercultural sensitivity to observe students' practical behavior in cross-cultural interactions.

Student voice in higher education: A negotiated curriculum in the foreign language classroom

AbstractThe article examines an action research of negotiated curriculum in a university‐level EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom. Drawing on critical pedagogy, this study is best suited to action research as negotiated curriculum can be explored with a deeper understanding through action‐oriented research. The research details how negotiated curriculum affects learning and teaching in an EFL classroom. Data collection methods included participant observation, teacher journals, student journals, and minutes of student meetings. The findings revealed that student choice, participation in classroom management, negotiated assessment, collaborative dialogue, and student‐led activities can be considered in a negotiated curriculum. Moreover, it was indicated that the negotiated curriculum contributed to speaking skills, learner engagement, motivation, self‐confidence, and enjoyment.

Autoethnography as a decolonising tool: bringing identity into the classroom

ABSTRACT The need to include indigenous perspectives in curricula is a challenge facing education internationally. In the context of higher education, decolonising practices and processes are the responsibility not just of institutions but also individual academics. Despite individual aspirations to decolonise teaching, it can be difficult to know where to start. Our aim is to guide others to engage in teaching practices that seek to decolonise. To do this we outline our respective teaching and research experiences that are united by our use of critical autoethnography in workshops we have designed for our respective teaching in different institutions. Our paper describes different ways to bring into focus the lived experience and nuanced views of groups who, through the process of colonisation, have not previously been given space or voice in higher education. Enabling the inclusion of indigenous enquiry within classroom settings provides a valuable decolonisation tool for groups such as the indigenous Māori population in Aotearoa New Zealand. Our practices seek to create space to prioritise storytelling, the sharing of researcher positionality, and personal identity in a way that centralises indigenous perspectives. We argue that these autoethnographic practices help teachers and students to hold hegemonic systems to account, explore strengths-based solutions and express aspirations for the future.

Universities and the long arm of neo-nationalism

Neo-nationalism and Universities, a collection of essays edited by John Aubrey Douglass, explores the effects of the global phenomenon of neo-nationalism on the behaviors, roles, and values of major universities. The book's contributing authors, diverse and seasoned voices in higher education, illustrate how nationalisms of the past have taken on new configurations, ranging from nascent populism to autocratic regimes, across contexts such as the U.S., UK., Hungary, Poland, Turkey, China, Russia, and Brazil. Through grounded national and pan-national examinations, the chapters shed light on how neo-nationalist parties and leaders have domesticated universities, weaponized science, and curtailed dissent to service their respective political and ideological agendas. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this book is that universities, despite the malleability of their missions, should function as responsible stewards of knowledge and promote the common good while maintaining the dignity of free persons. While broad in its scope, the book could have been more holistic and pluralistic in its analysis of neo-nationalism by better incorporating Third World perspectives and trends.

‘How does universal design for learning help me to learn?’: students with autism spectrum disorder voices in higher education

ABSTRACT The number of students with autism spectrum disorder in university is progressively increasing, which implies great challenges for higher education. Existing literature indicates that students with Autism Spectrum Disorder face many barriers to their participation and learning, some of which are attributed to teaching practices. Thus, this keeps us still on the road towards achieving genuinely inclusive institutions. With the purpose of promoting more inclusive practices according to students’ preferences, this article aims to analyse the learning enablers for students with autism, which are related to inclusive teaching practices based on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL). A qualitative approach was selected, which allowed to gather the testimonies of seven university students with this disorder through semi-structured interviews conducted at a university in Spain. These students reported several enablers that supported their learning at university. Many of them indicated highlighting key concepts or receiving the information progressively. The majority described feeling more engaged when teachers considered their opinions and valued their efforts, among other facilitators. The study concludes with valuable recommendations, based on students’ testimonies, for teachers to incorporate into their teaching practices. The perspectives of students with ASD have highlighted the significance of their voices. However, there is still a need to develop a shared speech that directly impacts the transformation of practices. The UDL approach could benefit students with ASD and others. Therefore, investigating how to introduce these practices into teacher training programs in higher education should be a priority for future research.

HOW DOES UNIVERSITY FACEBOOK BRAND TONE OF VOICE AFFECT STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY?

This research studies the impact of universities’ brand tone of voice in their Facebook communication with students and the perceptions students develop about their university. This phenomenological research used in-depth interviews and applied social impact theory (SIT). A purposive sample of 15 students from eight Bulgarian universities was collected using a snowball strategy. This study contributes to the existing literature on brand communications and brand tone of voice in higher education in particular. The main findings suggest that the brand tone of voice that universities use their Facebook pages is serious, formal, respectful, and rational. However, those definitions are loaded with different connotations. A respectful university sounds bureaucratically polite; a rational university is one that views its current students as a source of income. In adherence to social norms, students expect their university to speak in a serious and formal manner on Facebook. However, they find rigid communication and bureaucratic courtesy disrespectful. From practical perspective it can be assumed that universities need to abandon strictly formal, distancing, and non-inclusive brand tone of voice and their publicistic style and one-way communication.

Emotion, ethics, epistemology: What can shame 'do'in medical education?

Recent empirical studies have described and theorized a culture of shame within medical education in the Anglo-American context (Bynum). Shame is universal and highly social human emotion characterized by a sense of feeling objectified and judged negatively, in contrast to one's own self-concept. Shame has both an embodied and a relational dimension. Shame is considered especially relevant in healthcare settings (Dolezal and Lyons), and the tenets of patient care within the medical profession include respecting the dignity and upholding the safety of patients. However, shame is frequently deployed as a teaching tool within medical training. Here I ask, what can shame do in medical education (Ahmed)? What epistemic and relational conditions does it construct? I draw from philosophical voices in higher education to illuminate how shaming practices in medical education can undermine dignity safety (Callan), preclude inclusivity, and in the context of the hierarchical and marginalizing medical system, propagate epistemic injustice (Fricker). This argument shows how shame in education can be both phenomenologically and normatively problematic and may act differently upon students who experience marginalization and those who are majoritized. I further suggest that a medical education system which upholds the epistemological and relational frameworks of power, shame, and epistemic injustice, underscores those frameworks in the medical system at large, disserving individual patients who are already at risk of suffering epistemic injustice (Carel), and society at large. This analysis of shame in medical education focuses on the highly relational and interpersonal elements of learning to live and work in the medical system, highlighting the need for respect, trust, and resistance to reorient the relational learning environment toward individual and systemic forms of justice.

Student voice in higher education: the importance of distinguishing student representation and student partnership

Student representation and student partnership differ and the difference matters. To further scholarly understanding of, and appreciation for, the important difference between the two, we examine these two commonly evoked conceptions for student voice in higher education. We draw on two points of difference—responsibility and access—to illuminate conceptualisations and discourses of each in the current literature. In doing so, we clarify the unique contributions of each, shaped by differing contexts of interaction, and articulate issues arising by confounding and conflating partnership and representation in the name of student voice. Advancing an argument for an ecosystem of student participation grounded in student voice, we warn of the harm in positioning student partners as speaking for other students and the risk of diminishing the importance of elected student representation systems in favour of staff selected student partner models of student representation.

Student engagement and voice in higher education: students’ perceptions

There has been intense debate about student engagement and student voice in institutions of higher education in the past decade or so. Most of the discussion has been theoretical or based on a cause-and-effect research design. With the aim of gathering student perspectives on student voice and its related mechanisms, this study collected the voice of 13 students, the majority of whom were international students, from one UK university. Participants include undergraduate (n=1), postgraduate taught (n=7), and PhD (n=5) students who voluntarily agreed to have an online interview with the researcher, a PhD intern of the Student Voice team. Findings indicate that participants have an overall positive and supportive view of student voice mechanisms at this institution, although some understandings are not adequate or accurate. Participants’ attitudes towards some commonly used communication channels indicate that they prioritise an interactive and dynamic tool to initiate dialogue with the university. Suggestions are put forward for managerial strategies for a sustainable and inclusive student voice mechanism.

Older Adults as Citizen Scientists and Policy and Planning Voices in Higher Education

The University of Maine is embarking on achieving AFU status. In addition to maximizing older adult participation in all facets of campus life (education, recreation, culture, etc.), their presence in nontraditional sectors of university activity will be emphasized. Building on the principles of community-based, participatory research, focal points of UMaine’s AFU strategy will be to ensure that age-specific, engagement mechanisms are created and maintained that ensure older citizens play an influential role in guiding and interpreting academic research and development and curricula innovation across multiple professions and disciplines. Using a state-wide, older adult research registry, and co-design, community test-beds in partnership with continuing care retirement communities, older adults will serve as citizen scientists. Other empowerment strategies for maximizing elder voice include expanding the number of departments that incorporate life span perspectives in their mission statements and expanding the number of older adult advisory bodies that inform university policy and practice.

Tensions of student voice in higher education: Involving students in degree programme curricula design

ABSTRACT This paper considers the direct involvement of students in degree programme curricula design, specifically four computer science teacher students designing new curricula for the Faculty of Information Technology of the University of Jyväskylä. They participated in a project to make recommendations for the 2017–2020 master’s and bachelor’s programme curricula. We examined how these recommendations were implemented in the new curricula and what hindered student voice. The project led to major changes: making basic studies in mathematics optional, adding three new courses, and defining new learning goal descriptions for two master’s programmes. Several factors hindered student voice: insufficient perceived expertise, doubts about project significance, negative attitudes towards student involvement, and lack of personal interest. Hence, despite the project leading to considerable changes, the students themselves expressed rather critical attitudes towards student involvement in curriculum design. Consequently, promoting student voice in higher education curricula design is a more tensioned phenomenon than has been discussed in earlier research.

Student voice in higher education: Opening the loop

UK national policy and the practices of university course boards tend to reduce understandings of ‘student voice’ to a feedback loop. In this loop, students express feedback, the university takes this on board, then they tell the students how they have responded to their feedback. The feedback loop is a significant element of the neoliberal imaginary of higher education globally. This qualitative research study drew on interviews with course representatives in three universities in England, and on policy analysis, to explore the discursive construction and enactment of student voice. It uses the feedback loop as an analytical frame. Drawing on Foucault’s later work, the article aims to open up the feedback loop by exploring its manifestation in the mundane everyday practices of universities. In opening the loop, we identify the following effects of the student voice policy ensemble: students have to construct feedback as it is not just waiting to be gathered; it promotes a dividing practice, where reps are positioned differently to other students; there is a focus on problems; an ‘us and them’ is reinforced between staff and students; the loop closes down discussion; and a managerial logic obscures political processes. The article articulates its opening of the loop as a way of unmasking the modes of power which work through discourses of ‘student voice’, and hence seeks to create possibilities for resistance to being governed this way.

The use of voice in higher education: What the professors have to say?

ABSTRACT Purpose: to describe the perception of university professors regarding their use of voice at work. Methods: a total of 247 higher education professors participated in this study. They answered a questionnaire on voice complaints, in which three complaints or more were considered indicative of a voice disorder. After the professors with a potential voice disorder were identified, a conversational interview was conducted with five professors to learn more on their perceptions on the use of voice at work. The study was approved by the research ethics committee of the institution of origin. The data were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. Results: the age group 20 to 30 years old was the one that most presented voice problems. The most recently hired professors (up to five years of work), with a 40-hour weekly workload, were those who most reported voice complaints. The professors had a good perception of their voice and demonstrated good knowledge about it. Conclusion: although voice complaints were prevalent, the professors proved to be aware of how to take care of their voices.

Students’ Voice in Higher Education in Italy and Latvia

The participation of students in the educational process is a key to success for higher education. The implementation of activities in which students’ voice is heard via different practices and actors on mega, macro, meso and micro levels brings unexpectedly impressive results in learning. The article investigates the role of students’ voice in two public educational institutions in Latvia (University of Latvia) and Italy (University of Padua). The comparison is made in two categories, actors and practices, to respond to the research question of whether the Italian and Latvian systems support students’ participation/engagement in higher education. The comparative methodology of the study determined the differences and the similarities between the students’ voice practices of the two higher education institutions and proved that Italian and Latvian systems support students’ participation/engagement in higher education; although some improvements are still needed, they are on the right track to implementing it on all levels and in all dimensions.

Student Voice in Textbook Evaluation: Comparing OpStudent Voice in Textbook Evaluation: Comparing Open and Restricted Textbooksen and Restricted Textbooks

<p class="3">Advocates for student voice in higher education believe students should have the right and power to engage in much of the decision-making traditionally dominated by instructors or administrators. This qualitative study examines the role of student voice in the evaluation of textbook quality. Evaluators included two graduate students enrolled in a project management course at a university in the western U.S. and their instructor. Evaluators used their own student-created metric to analyze the comparative quality of eight graduate-level project management textbooks, two of which were open and six copyright-restricted. The purposes of this study were to assess the comparative quality of low-cost open textbooks and traditional copyright-restricted textbooks and to identify key student-generated criteria wherein all textbooks may be improved to better serve student needs. The analysis revealed that textbooks can be rigorously and meaningfully evaluated by students, that open textbooks can compete with restricted textbooks in terms of quality, and that polyphonic approaches to textbook evaluation can be valuable for learning. We discuss the implications of open textbooks as viable, high-quality classroom options, and the importance of valuing both student voice and instructor perspectives to ensure the highest quality textbook selection for courses in higher education.</p>

IN SEARCH OF THE AFRICAN VOICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: THE LANGUAGE QUESTION

This article seeks to understand what South African universities are doing by making use of language as a tool or as an enabling voice towards Africanisation and transformation with particular reference to Rhodes University, which serves as a case study. Although many universities now have language policies in place and are part of an enabling policy environment, when it comes to using language as part of transformation and asserting an African voice, there are still policy implementation challenges. It is argued in this article that implementation of policy, including university language policies, is now a key indicator for two levels of transformation; namely the more superficially visible or visual representation transformation, as well as deeper curriculum transformation through appropriate language usage. It is the latter form of transformation that largely eludes the contemporary South African university, whether these are historically black universities (HBUs) or historically white universities (HWUs). With the exception of a few best practices that are highlighted in this article, it is argued that transformation of the curriculum remains a long-term process, in the same way that language policy implementation is an ongoing process and requires commitment at all levels of university managerial and academic culture. The African voice in higher education remains an elusive one; though it is gaining ground, as evidenced by the recent removal of the Cecil John Rhodes Statue at the University of Cape Town. Furthermore, there is evidence of selected ongoing curriculum and pedagogic transformation, as presented in this article.

How can we confidently judge the extent to which student voice in higher education has been genuinely amplified? A proposal for a new evaluation framework

This article aims to contribute to the development of frameworks for evaluating student voice projects in higher education by offering a critically evaluative account of two student voice projects. Although both projects had been underpinned by the principles of participatory (inclusive) research, one appeared to be more successful than the other in engaging students in a productive or meaningful way. In order to confirm and explain these perceived differences, this paper draws on both student voice and participatory research literature to identify two potentially useful evaluation criteria: reach and fitness for purpose. These criteria are applied to three project factors: aims and assumptions, processes and outcomes to produce an amplitude framework for evaluating student voice in higher education. It is argued that this framework has the potential to enable a rich account of the relative successes and failures of student voice initiatives in higher education.

Personal voices in higher education: A digital storytelling experience for pre-service teachers

Digital storytelling (DST) has recently emerged as a new tool in instructional environments. DST involves the combination of media and technology with traditional storytelling to help students learn. This paper examines the use of DST in a university course and pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their learning experiences using this tool. Thirty-eight pre-service teachers participated in the study, in which DST was employed as a learning activity. In the course, the participants created personal digital stories about their careers. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used for data collection and analysis. The findings indicate that DST is very useful for learning. The pre-service teachers perceived DST as an attractive way to share ideas and feelings, and valuable for using in lessons. DST served as a practical learning tool to present the students’ personal experiences to others, and the process encouraged emotional interactions. Implications regarding these findings are discussed.

Hidden voices in higher education: inclusive policies and practices in social science and law classrooms

This paper pertains to a broader biographical-narrative research project which studies barriers and support as identified by students with disabilities at a Spanish University (Barriers and Support That Disabled Students Identify in the University. Project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Dir. Dr Anabel Moriña; Ref. EDU 2010–16264, 2010–2014)). The present study focuses specifically on barriers and support identified by students with disabilities enrolled in undergraduate programmes in the Social Sciences and Law. The purpose of this paper is to analyse, from the point of view of disabled students (applying the biographic-narrative methodology), which barriers and which support this group encounters in Higher Education. To this end, findings are organised in the following categories: general institutional data; infrastructure, architectural and accessibility-related data; faculty and teaching-related data; data relating to fellow students; and suggestions for improving the university and/or university classrooms. In the Conclusions section, we return to our earlier discussion of key findings which shed some light on how the University helps or hinders learning among participants in the study. From this perspective, taking as a reference the social model of disability, we conclude that in order to be inclusive, the University needs to commit itself to adopting proactive measures that eliminate the barriers that do not permit the learning and the full participation of the students in question.