Putting students in the driving seat. Is it safe to remove the L-plates?

The title of the white paper, ‘Students at the heart of the system’, reflects a sentiment that most of us in HE would agree with, and a major focus in recent years has been on student-centred learning, students as researchers (eg Walkington, 2008) and students as participants in learning communities (eg O’Donovan et al, 2008). Vince Cable and David Willets claim that the white paper will be ‘doing more than ever to put students in the driving seat’ (BIS, 2011: 2). But students are being asked to do more than drive their own learning; they will be expected to drive the design and provision of learning and teaching through their decisions about which institution to choose and evaluation of their programmes.

Students have a valuable contribution to make but should they be in the driving seat? I would suggest that the L-plates should stay firmly in place and, metaphorically speaking, we should continue to take students out for lots of practice so they master the techniques of manoeuvring a car (understanding techniques used for high-level complex learning) and develop a deep understanding of the nature of driving: that is, the complex set of factors to be aware of and monitor, the significant responsibilities of the driver and the need to be concerned with the immediate situation and to anticipate the future (pedagogic literacy). Until students have sufficient experience of HE learning and a reasonable level of pedagogic literacy, no matter how much extra information is available, they cannot be expected to make informed judgments about the quality of teaching and learning opportunities.

We have all met someone who, just because they attended school, thinks they know how to teach. Unfortunately, the white paper seems to make a similar assumption: if students are given extra but very limited information, they will be able to make sound judgments about a complex process simply because they are part of that process and pay fees (see BIS, 2011: 32, 2.24). However, many students are pedagogically illiterate, tend towards conservatism and are sceptical about learning approaches with which they are not familiar. This can militate against innovation and risk-taking (Gapp and Fisher, 2006). They may be able to make judgments about the ‘service’ (Price et al, 2010) provided but judging the effect on their learning requires a completely different ability.

Providing information about courses, which is promoted by the white paper, may appear helpful if learning and teaching is perceived in a simplistic and unsophisticated way. However, if the users of such information cannot see the complexity of assumptions and myriad of possible interpretations around it, they are not making informed decisions. The following are a few examples of what else is needed to make informed decisions:

• Hours in the classroom: what are the learning activities, are they challenging and difficult, can the teacher and student relate to one another?

• Types of assessment: do students relate to the learning expected, are they given sufficient practice in a task before summative assessment?

• Timing and clarity of feedback: is it relevant to future, does the student trust the feedback, what is the purpose of the feedback?

Many students have understood the rules of the game at school and bring with them to HE a view of what learning and teaching involves. This commonly places the teacher in the role of all-knowing expert, who is there to provide knowledge that is unquestioned and must be reproduced by the student in assessment tasks. Higher education would fail in its role if its graduates were unquestioning and just parroted others’ views and ideas. It is the job of HE to dispel this view of learning and knowledge and provide students with opportunities to develop and take responsibility for their own learning, to think critically and challenge ideas and orthodoxies. However, some teachers of first-year undergraduates who challenge their students’ notions of the teacher’s role by, perhaps, introducing peer assessment or suggesting that there are several but different excellent answers to a question often find that they are not rewarded with excellent scores in module evaluation. Over time, students’ notions of learning gradually change and they begin to see the complex of factors and processes it involves. So at what point should we ask students to make judgments about learning and teaching in HE? When they first arrive? When they are about to leave? Do we count the views of some students but not others? Far better is to recognise that the student voice is a very important part of the debate in classrooms and learning communities, along with those of other participants, but not to privilege one group with potentially naïve views of learning. Not only would this be counterproductive but it would also deny students the opportunity to develop their understanding of learning through discussion and debate.

The student voice is an essential and valuable contribution to improving quality and to steering the direction of institutions and the HE sector, but to stretch the driving metaphor a little further, I would suggest they may benefit from the voice of satnav or a good map in the background to help them to test their assumptions and sense of direction before they presume to lead a convoy along the road.