Using students as informants in redesigning distance learning materials: possibilities and constraints

Abstract

The extensive literature, situated mainly in ‘first world’ contexts, on design and evaluation of distance learning materials, emphasises the importance of student feedback. This paper begins with an account of how two groups of students responded to questions on a text they had used in an in‐service professional development programme for teachers of English in a ‘developing’ country. Analysis of assignments based on this text indicated a need for changes to the ways in which the content is mediated, assignments are scaffolded, and diverse teaching and learning contexts are acknowledged. However, when invited to suggest how the text had attempted to construct or position them and in what ways it could be improved, most of the teachers responded as uncritical, satisfied ‘customers’. In the second part of the paper I reflect on possible reasons for this lack of a critical voice and argue that in contexts in which many of their formative experiences as students have been as passive receivers of particular knowledge selections, the lack of critique is to be expected. In order to act in new ways, informants need new discourses, new forms of symbolic capital and opportunities for sustained dialogue. I also argue that where the habitus of a course designer is very different from that of her or his students this difference may constrain productive interaction with student informants.

Keywords:

• Student feedback
• Figured worlds
• Positional identities
• Habitus
• Redesigning materials