Abstract
The evolving landscape of higher education emphasizes the transformative role of students as partners (SaP) in the learning process, challenging the consumption model with a participatory one. The concept is more mature in Western settings and this paper seeks to provide an Asian perspective. The study is situated in one of the top Asian universities. This qualitative case study delves into the experiences of undergraduate students involved in a program where they collaborated with faculty supervisors to teach their undergraduate peers and receive academic units in return. A total of ten students and three faculty participated in the research. The qualitative research methodology involved post-program data collection through 45-minute audio interviews which were later transcribed. Coding was conducted by two research investigators and a research assistant with inter-rater agreement. Eight out of ten students indicated satisfaction with the programme. We further examined themes related to the principles of partnership or SaP (Healy et al., 2004). Relating to the framework, positive experiences were linked to themes of empowerment, trust, and responsibility. However, there was a lack of community and a lack of challenge. Findings point to difficulties in developing partnerships through communication and dialogue in the co-creation process of student engagement and partnership. Meaningful collaborations take place when students become active participants, co-constructing understanding and resources with faculty (Bovill et al., 2016). Within the Asian context, such partnerships may challenge the traditional roles of student and instructor where Confucianism values of respect, obedience, and deference are prevalent (Dai et al., 2021).
Author Information
Siew Leng Verily Tan, National University of Singapore, Singapore
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