https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1195-0370
![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
There has been a rapidly growing interest in student-staff partnerships (SSPs) in learning and teaching in higher education in the last decade and a half. It is timely to synthesise what we have learnt about the role of academic developers (ADs) in initiating, developing, and supporting SSPs. We offer a systematic narrative literature review that draws on 35 papers on SSPs published in the International Journal for Academic Development (IJAD). We argue that to reimagine students as actors in and agents of academic development there is a need to step back from the specifics of these projects and discuss the varying roles that ADs may play in championing SSPs. We end by drawing on a selected wider literature to discuss the contextual factors that underpin SSPs and propose a new framework for examining the variety of ways that ADs may initiate, develop, and support SSPs. We hope that this review will stimulate significant conversations between ADs, students, and staff that will contribute to a more holistic approach to academic development and will be relevant not only for ADs working on SSPs but for all ADs.
Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to Kelly Matthews, Alison Cook-Sather, and Jennie Marie who provided many helpful and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article, as did two anonymous referees.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mick Healey
Mick Healey is managing director of Healey HE Consultants and Emeritus Professor at the University of Gloucestershire (UK).
Ruth L. Healey
Ruth L. Healey is Professor of teaching and learning in higher education at the University of Chester (UK) and a director of Healey HE Consultants.