Student partnership can bring uncertainty as well as trust

Updated Sep 11, 2026

Before calling a student partnership successful, ask what still feels uncertain to the students taking part. That is a useful question to bring to Gerald L. Decelles III, Catherine Bovill and Anders Mattias Lundmark’s study in the Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal. For those of us interpreting student feedback, it offers a reason to look beyond an overall positive or negative verdict.

What the researchers examined

The study asked whether students and teachers share partnership experiences. It analysed open survey responses and interviews using reflexive thematic analysis. There were 10 student and 10 staff survey respondents; three students and six staff were interviewed. Recruitment centred on Norwegian geoscience departments, with additional participants from Edinburgh.

For UK teams, we suggest using this research to question what a partnership evaluation should capture. Start with the decisions students can influence and the support they need to participate. Our introduction to student voice in higher education provides context for thinking about different forms of involvement.

Key findings

Uncertainty differed between groups. Staff described reassurance through partnership, while some students found it challenged expectations of university learning. The paper also describes relationships helping students manage uncertainty.

Being heard involved visible follow-through. Students wanted evidence that suggestions informed action or further discussion. Teachers nevertheless described constraints on sharing power, including assessment responsibilities.

Positive accounts leave gaps. The authors acknowledge that critical student voices did not shape the main themes sufficiently and that negative staff perspectives were absent. These findings are situated accounts, not estimates of how common each experience is.

Questions for a university’s feedback review

The following are our proposed applications, rather than a process tested by the study. When reviewing comments, distinguish uncertainty about the task from uncertainty about influence. A student may need clearer instructions, a decision from the project lead, or an explanation of which choices remain open. Record that distinction before assigning an action, so the response addresses the concern the student actually raised.

Invite students to review how their comments have been interpreted. For a local pilot, ask them to identify missing context, misleading labels and disagreements hidden by a summary. Keep a note of amendments and unresolved interpretations. This gives the partnership team a specific record to revisit, rather than an assumption that everyone accepted the analysis.

Review the invitation as well as the experience of people who accepted it. Offer an optional way for students who declined or withdrew to explain their reasons, without asking them to justify their decision. The briefing on participation costs in student voice work is a useful next discussion. The aim is to identify barriers that recruitment or meeting records alone cannot explain.

Finally, agree what students will receive after the review: the issue raised, the decision, its owner and the next update. Include reasons where a proposal cannot proceed, and ask whether the explanation answered the original concern. That creates a concrete basis for checking follow-through at the next meeting.

FAQ

Q: How could we apply this to our next partnership survey?

A: Try separate open questions about what students influenced, what remained unclear and what support they wanted. Review the wording with students before use. These are suggested prompts, not a validated scale; assess whether they elicit useful accounts in your setting.

Q: What about applying the findings across the institution?

A: Treat them as questions for local investigation. The small, discipline-focused sample cannot establish institution-wide patterns or causal effects. If you compare local feedback, document who responded, the questions they answered and the limits of each comparison.

Q: What does this mean for analysing student voice?

A: Our practical recommendation is to report what a comment concerns alongside its sentiment. Keep disagreement available for discussion and check automated categorisation against the original wording. The student comment analysis governance checklist can help a team agree review responsibilities. Analysis should support decisions that students can inspect and question.

References

[Paper Source]: Gerald L. Decelles III, Catherine Bovill and Anders Mattias Lundmark, "The Same, But Different: Teacher and student experiences of partnership" DOI: 10.66561/sehej.v7i2.1367

Published 6 November 2025 in Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 7(2), 133–153. The complete publisher paper is available from the linked journal page.