Student-centred culture needs student voice at every level
Updated Aug 27, 2026
A university cannot become student-centred one module at a time. If strategy, staff development, programme design, and everyday relationships pull in different directions, collecting more feedback will not create a culture in which students can influence their education. Petra Nilsson Lindström, Åsa Bringsén, Maria Melén, and Ann Ooms' Studies in Higher Education paper, "Models for student-centered educational culture: Holistic University Systems for a Student-Centered Educational Culture (HOLUS) and Co-Created Student-Educator Engagement Model (CO-SEEM)", shows why student voice must connect decisions across the whole institution. For UK universities, its central message is practical: listening works best when every level has the structures and relationships to respond.
Context and research question
Student-centred learning is now familiar in higher education policy, but implementation often remains uneven. A course may invite students to shape activities while faculty processes leave little room for their influence. A university may collect evaluations while staff lack the time or support to discuss what students said. The result is a gap between student-centred language and the conditions students actually experience.
The authors ask how relational, pedagogical, and organisational processes interact across university levels to support a student-centred educational culture. They used constructivist grounded theory in an online public health bachelor's programme at a university in southern Sweden. The study brought together eight reflective sessions with nine educators, two focus groups with five first-year students in each, and two rounds of member-checking with 72 first- and second-year students. This iterative design allowed students and staff to shape and test two models rather than treating student accounts as a final validation exercise.
That question transfers well to UK higher education because it joins two concerns institutions often separate: student-staff relationships in teaching and the systems that govern quality enhancement. It also complements evidence that student-staff partnerships need shared power and responsibility, not simply more invitations to participate.
Key findings
Student-centred culture depends on alignment across four connected levels. The HOLUS model covers the university and wider society at the macro level, faculties and their support structures at the exo level, programmes and courses at the meso level, and direct student-educator interactions at the micro level. The paper does not present one level as the decisive lever. Its argument is that policy, resources, programme practice, and relationships reinforce or weaken one another. A supportive seminar cannot compensate indefinitely for institutional systems that make student influence difficult.
Formal student voice belongs inside the operating model, not beside it. Students valued access to academic support, but they also highlighted representation on boards and committees and the ability to influence decisions. Educators connected course evaluation, peer discussion, programme goals, and institutional quality systems. The useful point for Student Experience teams is that comments, committee participation, and improvement work should feed the same decision process rather than remain separate channels.
"they felt their voices were heard and could influence strategies and decisions"
Programme coherence makes student-centred intentions visible. Educators described collegial reflection and a shared pedagogical approach as central to quality, while still allowing different teaching styles. Students also needed the rationale behind programme design to be explained clearly. Without that explanation, active learning or shared responsibility can feel like work being transferred to students. When expectations, course design, and staff practice align, students can understand how their participation contributes to their learning.
Relationships are part of the infrastructure for learning. At the micro level, students and educators emphasised trust, safety, communication, peer learning, and a sense of agency. The study links cognitive development with emotional and social conditions rather than treating academic literacy as an individual skill alone. Students were more able to participate, take responsibility, and learn with peers when the environment made challenge feel safe and support feel accessible.
Feedback works as a mutual process, not a periodic transaction. The CO-SEEM model describes active roles for both students and educators, with learning goals, methods, evaluation, and improvement shaped through continuing dialogue. Students were expected to offer feedback and reflection throughout their courses; educators were expected to remain responsive, organised, reflective, and attentive to different learning paths. Co-creation therefore meant more than asking for preferences. It required both groups to take part in interpreting and improving the learning environment.
Practical implications
First, UK universities should map student feedback to the level that can act on it. Comments about a seminar may belong with a module team, while repeated concerns about academic support, assessment design, or representation may require programme, faculty, or institutional ownership. A consistent method such as the NSS open-text analysis methodology can help teams group recurring themes before assigning action. The benefit is clearer ownership and fewer issues circulating between committees without resolution.
Second, institutions should connect formal representation with broader comment evidence. Boards and student-staff groups provide depth and dialogue, but their members should not carry the full burden of representing every student. Survey comments, focus groups, course evaluations, and representative discussion can test and explain one another. The benefit is a stronger evidence base that combines participation with wider coverage.
Third, universities should treat staff reflection as part of the feedback system. The study's educators used repeated reflective sessions to compare practice, develop a shared approach, and refine the models with students. UK teams can apply the same principle through structured programme review, educational development, and protected time to discuss student evidence. The benefit is feedback that informs collective improvement rather than becoming a private judgement on individual lecturers.
Fourth, institutions should make the path from voice to change visible across every level. Students need to know where their input went, who considered it, and why a proposal was adopted, adapted, or declined. The existing evidence on why student feedback only works when universities show what changed reinforces this paper's systems view. The benefit is a more credible feedback culture in which students can see that participation has consequences.
The wider lesson is that student-centred culture is not a collection of isolated teaching techniques. It is an institutional capability built through aligned decisions, supported staff, formal student influence, and everyday relationships. Universities that review these elements together are better placed to turn student voice into sustained quality enhancement.
FAQ
Q: How can a university apply the HOLUS and CO-SEEM models without redesigning every process at once?
A: Start with one recurring student-experience theme and trace it through the four HOLUS levels. Identify what students experience directly, what programme practices shape it, which faculty resources affect it, and which institutional policies set the conditions. Then use CO-SEEM to check whether students and educators have a genuine route to interpret the evidence together. This produces a manageable action map rather than another broad commitment to student-centredness.
Q: What are the methodological limits of the study?
A: The research comes from one online public health programme at a Swedish university, with two small student focus groups and a larger member-checking process. Two researchers also participated in the educator reflection process. The grounded-theory design is valuable for explaining relationships and developing models, but it does not estimate how common the findings are or prove that adopting the models improves outcomes. UK universities should test the framework against their own student comments, structures, and disciplines.
Q: What does this change about student voice practice more broadly?
A: It shifts attention from collecting voice to building the conditions in which voice can shape decisions. Surveys remain useful, but they work best alongside representative structures, staff reflection, shared interpretation, and visible follow-through. That broader system helps universities hear more than the loudest voices and connect feedback to the people with the authority to act.
References
[Paper Source]: Petra Nilsson Lindström, Åsa Bringsén, Maria Melén, and Ann Ooms "Models for student-centered educational culture: Holistic University Systems for a Student-Centered Educational Culture (HOLUS) and Co-Created Student-Educator Engagement Model (CO-SEEM)" DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2025.2596124
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