Student-driven teaching and educational action research combined: an approach to teaching development and student empowerment

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an action research study in a student-driven context at a university. The study focused on students organizing and leading workshops for other students. We aimed to support students in their teaching, facilitate their reflection on their teaching experiences, and contribute to their self-esteem and empowerment. The basis for our research became reflection sessions with two student groups responsible for a series of workshops (six students in total), in addition to gathering data about our context – student-driven teaching in workshops. Context data included open questionnaires for students, staff interviews, planning group meetings and a focus group discussion with other students involved in workshop organization. Reflection sessions were intended to create awareness about students’ practices as well as provide a possibility to develop their teaching. Our data demonstrate how this student-driven context had implications for the educational approach in the workshops, organizing, and the educational action research project. Ultimately, we discuss how the educational action research contributed to student agency and empowerment and what we learned about developing supportive processes in a student-driven context.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational action research
• student-driven
• students as teachers
• students as partners
• student empowerment
• action research in higher education

Introduction

Action research in higher education is often used in building knowledge about teaching and learning practices. It is often described as a response or a counterargument to neoliberal trends in education (de Castro and Sebastián 2020; Levin and Greenwood 2008). Instead of promoting individualism, compliance, and a competition-based approach to academia, action research provides an approach for more inclusive and participatory practices (Hardy, Salo, and Rönnerman 2015; Harvey and Jones 2021). In a literature review on the use of action research in higher education, Gibbs et al. (2017) identified two main areas focusing on 1) teaching development through researching one’s own teaching practice and 2) student engagement through the co-creation of learning environments. Our study aims to address both areas. We investigated the development of teaching through questioning one’s own teaching practice; however, the action research cycles were performed by undergraduate students actively engaged in teaching roles.

The students engaged in teaching practices were part of a student-driven innovation centre (SIC) at Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). The sporadic and extracurricular character of SIC has led to a significant part of its practices remaining undocumented and informal. As a result, SIC’s staff and faculty leadership have voiced the necessity to describe and reflect on SIC’s educational practice through educational action research, and a PhD position was financed for that purpose. An important part of the educational practice in SIC is knowledge sharing between students in the form of workshops. The workshops do not provide any European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS)¹ credits, yet students, associated with SIC, take on a teacher’s role by planning and implementing series of workshops for other students. Therefore, in this study we understand that the students perform teaching and are engaged in their own teaching practice despite the lack of ECTS credits. As highlighted by Mardahl-Hansen (2019), we understand ‘teaching’ as a social practice including ‘complex and coherent bundle of activities, requirements, and considerations’(9), and having an intentional and at the same time responsive nature. Peer-to-peer teaching is often understood in the literature in light of social constructivism and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (Stigmar 2016). Vygotsky’s theory is based on the assumption that students, together with more experienced and capable peers can learn more than they are alone (Vygotsky 2001). The students who are part of SIC are more experienced than their peers, and they perform both – planned (preparing for workshops) and responsive (facilitating learning during workshops) teaching activities. Before our project was initiated, students teaching in these workshops had no systematized support, formal preparation processes, or preplanned educational guidance meetings. As part of the PhD project, the first and the second authors (both working as educators at the university, yet not related to SIC) together with SIC staff and faculty representatives discussed possible support processes for the students leading the workshops. It was decided to initiate a study investigating how we could support students teaching in a student-driven context (as SIC represents) through educational action research.

This study was informed by a few assumptions of the first and second authors. Firstly, after working many years supporting teachers, we believed that supporting and promoting conversation and reflection on teaching activities is beneficial for both – those who teach and those being taught. In the field of academic development, reflective practice (where one reflects on day-to-day teaching), making sense of teaching experiences is seen as a key to teaching quality (Ashwin et al. 2020). Secondly, we believed that raising questions and reflecting on one’s experiences contributes to the students’ learning. We have been influenced by experiential learning focusing on the importance of reflection and critical analysis for building knowledge from experience (Kolb 2015). In addition, to be able to articulate, describe, communicate, and reflect over informal and extracurricular learning in SIC was the main starting point for the whole project. Of course, students conducting the workshops might benefit less from knowledge about teaching theories and methods than teachers, but skills in developing reflective practice would doubtlessly be required in the future, in their work life. It is argued that reflexivity is a key for lifelong learning (Ryan 2015). Finally, we have experienced (in other contexts) that students participating in teaching activities often lack support and that educational guidance and building awareness about their practice positively affect their self-esteem and contribute to their empowerment. Our assumption was supported by literature stressing the importance of training and support for teaching assistants (see review, Park 2004) and the published call of the Norwegian students association asking ‘not to leave them alone’ (without support in teaching) (forskning.no 2011).

Consequently, this study was built with an intention to investigate student-driven teaching and to create structures or methods for the students that would support their teaching and learning experience and would contribute to their empowerment. Our study is not presenting a tidy process, based on neat action research cycles. The mess in action research is a common feature; it might even facilitate the emergence of new directions, to transform thinking and enquiry (Cook 2009). Our study presents a turn in direction, yet not a change in the intention – to investigate student-driven teaching and how we can support it. The turn in direction was closely related to tighter cooperation with some of the students, engaged in SIC and teaching in workshops. We involved them more (and differently) in the creation of knowledge about supporting student-driven teaching than initially planned. In this process, two of these students entered our article writing team as the third and fourth authors. Consequently, this paper is a result of cooperation between lecturer authors (first and second authors) and student authors (third and fourth authors).

Case description

SIC is a mainly student-established, student-driven, extracurricular, technology-focused centre aimed at increasing employability for students at NMBU. Established in 2014 as an informal and loosely structured makerspace,² it has developed into an engaging environment for student projects, workshop organization, and mentoring. At the time of our study, SIC had two full-time employees (referred to as ‘staff’ in the text).

This paper is focused on student-driven workshops, which have been important SIC activities for many years. Workshops are not a part of formal academic education; they are voluntary for participants and provide them with introductions to technology-related topics (machine learning, rapid prototyping, etc). Workshop activity is financed by SIC and the university – providing premises and a small lump sum as a time compensation for the students who organize the workshops. During workshops, the students who organize them have full control over the content, form, and organization of workshops with minimal practical restrictions provided by SIC staff (time used, equipment, etc.). In fall of 2021, it was planned to increase the number of workshops (circa 15 per semester) and create a more permanent structure for them. Workshops were provided by five student teams (team size two-four students) thrice per semester. Our cooperation was aimed at understanding student-driven teaching in the workshops as a process as well as establishing support structures. In addition to the SIC staff, we have formed a good working relationship with two student teams consisting of six students in total. Two of these students have devoted considerable time and effort in the process and are co-authors of this paper.

Students as teachers

The rationale behind students taking on a teacher’s role has been closely related to the neoliberal shift in higher education. Mass education with overfilled classrooms in line with increased quality requirements has invited creative and effective solutions. One is involving students as tutors or teachers in class (or after-class) activities as an aid to teachers, as a less costly solution (Wald and Harland 2020).

From an educational perspective, students learning from and with other students has been broadly explored as peer learning. Peer learning is a broad field in education sciences and has many forms and application areas (see Boud and Cohen 2014). In higher education, peer learning might be used as a pedagogical tool to ensure required competencies for graduates (Boud and Lee 2005). Though peer learning is often used to describe students (‘peers’) taking on the same role in a classroom, students taking on a teacher’s or tutor’s role have also proved to lead to significant educational benefits. A critical literature review performed by Stigmar (2016) revealed that though this model does not seem to affect grades, it has a number of benefits for both students as learners and students as teachers in the development of generic skills, such as critical thinking, learning autonomy, collaborative and communication skills, and metacognitive skills – taking control of or increasing responsibility for the learning process.

Finally, partnerships between students who teach and university teachers/lecturers represent an important potential gain. Partnership in learning, teaching and assessment is one of four key areas for partnership between students and teachers/lecturers identified by Healey, Harrington, and Flint (2014). Led by values such as authenticity, inclusivity, reciprocity, empowerment, trust, challenge, community, and responsibility such partnerships have transformative potential (Healey, Harrington, and Flint 2014). This transformation might occur through sharing power between teachers and students as it challenges existing hierarchies and promotes student participation, an alternative ‘way of being in academia’ (Matthews 2017). There is a disagreement in literature regarding whether students teaching other students together with teachers/lecturers is a form of partnership. For example, Bovill (2019) criticized partnership with a few students (instead of the whole class), naming those students already ‘super-engaged or privileged’ and implying that these partnerships do not have the same transformative power to teaching and learning practices nor community building. On the other hand, studies have demonstrated that teaching assistant (or mentor) programmes, in addition to the benefits to the quality of teaching and self-development of students, might contribute to a change in a culture within departments as well as awareness around the partnership (Begley et al. 2019; Gourlay and Korpan 2018).

Student-driven context – a step [up] in the participation ladder

Student participation in education is often understood as a linear process with an aim of reaching the highest level of participation possible. The student participation ladder was inspired by Arnstein (1969) citizen participation. The lowest levels are usually regarded as no student participation, gradually increasing to partial participation or consultancy, and ending up with partnership relations with academics or even having total control (Ashwin and McVitty 2015; Bovill and Bulley 2011). In contrast to student partnership, though at top rank, ‘students in control’ has gained less attention. This level is characterized by teachers having no control and a very limited supporting role in activities performed by students and happens rarely in practice (Ashwin and McVitty 2015; Bovill and Bulley 2011; Fletcher 2017). Bovill and Bulley (2011, 182) provided an example of ‘student led journal clubs; student led journals.’ Student-led activities in education are often seen as critical, opposing formal education structures – a way of rebelling against the system (Ashwin and McVitty 2015; Neary 2020).

Despite good intentions, student-led activities might be seen as insignificant, small-scale, indifferent, and ‘operating in a vacuum’ (Fletcher 2017). Student partnership with teachers/lecturers is often seen as based on relationship-building, an idea to challenge traditional higher education structures through power-sharing, connecting, and relating (Bovill 2020; Matthews 2017). The latter might be absent in student-driven contexts. Indeed, the scarce studies about student-driven teaching indicate that support structures are important. Barrineau and Anderson (2018) pinpointed the need for support and routines to facilitate dealing with uncertainty. Marvell et al. (2013) also identified the teacher’s role as critical in student-led activities. Indeed, the role of the teacher is different than in traditional educational contexts: in student-driven contexts, teachers are rather facilitators (Marvell et al. 2013) with ‘behind the scenes’ roles (Fletcher 2017).

Methodology

In this study, we investigated how we can support student teaching in a student-driven context through educational action research. We sought to address both professional and personal dimensions of educational action research. The professional dimension in educational action research seeks ‘to reframe the nature of teaching as in itself a form of research, and to extend the concept of the professional to highlight careful deliberation over both ends and means of educational work’ (Noffke 2013, 9). Continuous reflection on one’s teaching practice as a basis for theory creation lies at its core (Gjøtterud 2020; Noffke 2013). The personal dimension in educational action research is focused on personal growth and development, emphasising the value of individual (teacher) experiences and belief (Noffke 2013). In our context, we, the lecturer authors, aimed to develop student-driven teaching itself through providing tools for reflection and development. At the same time, we sought to support the development of the self-esteem and self-trust of teaching students, and hence support their learning from teaching experiences.

As was mentioned in the introduction, the study took a turn in the middle of its process. Initially, we, the lecturer authors, discussed with SIC staff and faculty representatives (extended planning group) and created ‘a rough plan’ for our study. We aimed to gain more knowledge about student-driven teaching, map out students’ challenges and needs for support and then, together with the students create a training and support programme. In our first, ‘mapping’ and analysis stage, we started to follow up two (of five) student teams organizing workshops during a semester. However, what started out as ‘mapping’ became the basis for our research. We, the lecturer authors, organized six reflection meetings with one student team (organized throughout an academic year; half the student team became the student authors) in addition to three reflection meetings with a second team (which cancelled workshops in the spring semester due to time pressure). These meetings developed into a structure providing support and educational guidance for the student teams.

The meetings were informed by the theory of [educational] guidance. Allgood and Kvalsund (2004) describe ‘guidance’ as a process for help and support without forcing direction or advice (Allgood and Kvalsund 2004). The word educational shows the nature of this guidance – that it is indeed aimed at learning, even more precisely – as a support for experiential learning (as shown in Pettersen and Løkke 2004). In our reflection meetings we used dialogue as the main tool. Dialogue in educational guidance stimulates reflection, contributes to creating awareness and learning, and strengthens self-efficacy (Tveiten 2019). We further describe the methods we, the lecturer authors, used and provide examples in the findings section.

The data in our study were collected on several levels to allow exploration of the complex context of student-driven teaching in SIC and the development of support processes (see Table 1). Firstly, our main data source was transcripts from our reflection meetings with the two student groups. Secondly, we performed interviews and documented meetings with SIC extended planning group, distributed open questionnaires for students about perceived learning, and organized a focus group discussion with the students from all five groups in the middle of the academic year for better insights into the context. Finally, data were derived from individual and joint reflections after (and during) our meetings. The first author collected her own written reflections after every meeting with the students, and dialogue between four co-authors about what our reflection meetings should look like was continuous. In addition, the first author performed a co-analysis of our meeting transcripts with four of the participating students (individually), identifying important moments and discussing them. Data sources are provided in Table 1.

Table 1. Data sources.

STUDENT-RELATED DATA
	Reflection meetings		Co-analysis of meeting transcripts	Open questionnaire	Focus group discussion
	Autumn, 2021	Spring, 2022
Number of participants	6	2	4	5	7*
Gender	Female (2) Male (4)	Female (2)	Female (2) Male (2)	Female (2) Male (3)	Female (2) Male (5)
Study field	Engineering	Engineering	Engineering	Engineering	6 - Engineering 1- Other
Workshop team (A/B/C/D/E)	Workshop A (4) Workshop B (2)	Workshop A(2)	Workshop A(2) Workshop B (2)	Workshop A (3) Workshop B (2)	Workshop A (2) Workshop B (1) Workshop C (2) Workshop D (2) Workshop E (1)
STAFF-RELATED DATA
	SIC staff interviews		Meetings with SIC extended planning group
			I (September 2021)	II (November 2021)	III (February 2022)
Number of participants	2		3	4	5
Affiliation	SIC staff		2- SIC staff 1 - Faculty representatives	2- SIC staff 2 - Faculty representatives	2- SIC staff 1 - Faculty representatives 2- Student representatives
INDIVIDUAL (FIRST AUTHOR’S) AND COLLECTIVE REFLECTIONS IN OUR CO-AUTHOR GROUP (BETWEEN FOUR OF US)

*one of the students was part of two workshop teams.

We conducted thematic analyses as an iterative process (Braun and Clarke 2006) using NVivo R1 (2020) software. The analysis was driven by the research question (i.e. How can we understand and support student teaching in this student-driven context through educational action research?). Coding was performed by the first author in constant dialogue with the three co-authors. Data were collected, handled, and archived following the requirements of the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research.

The study was performed, documented, and described by four of us (two lecturers and two students) in collaboration with the SIC staff and with other students holding workshops. As was mentioned, the degree of involvement of other students holding workshops differed – we had close collaboration with six students (two teams), and other students participated only in focus group discussion. In terms of cooperation, the first author was responsible for documenting the process, organizing meetings, performing initial data analysis, and writing a draft of this paper. The second author took an active role in our reflection meetings as a co-teacher and co-facilitator as well as a mentor and partner in the first author’s self-reflection process. We, the lecturer authors, regarded the students as co-researchers or research partners in the inquiry, as students were systematically inquiring into their teaching practice, and they actively influenced the development of the reflection meetings. Further, they took active parts in the data analysis, discussions about the focus of the paper, and the writing process.

Findings

This section is divided into two main blocks of findings. The first describes student teaching in a student-driven context as a phenomenon, and the second describes creating support processes in that context. All quotes are translated from Norwegian to English by the first author.

Understanding student teaching in a student-driven context

The idea of students sharing skills with each other has been one of the main SIC characteristics for many years. This knowledge sharing gained the form of a workshop in 2018 as a few workshops for students outside of SIC (by SIC-engaged students) were organized. In fall, 2021, a more extensive workshop programme was started. It was a strategy to handle the many new student inquiries about being part of SIC after the pandemic. It was convenient to use SIC-engaged students for organizing and leading workshops, as they were a more flexible, paid-by-the-hour workforce. At the same time, as mentioned by SIC staff, ‘leading workshops spurted their personal growth’ (SIC staff1, individual interview).

Pedagogical approach in workshops

Learning in student-driven workshops, as in many other activities in SIC, is experienced to be different from regular studies. Workshops were described to be a ‘learning by doing’ approach where the experience of implementing something in practice accelerates the learning process (Dewey 2008). Workshop participants got an opportunity to try out software and hardware themselves during the workshop, implement their own little project (e.g. creating a 3D model).

Student 11: Yes, to play a bit with that. It’s like starting to play football immediately instead of talking about playing football. It’s a bit that way of thinking here …

Most often, workshops were organized consisting of two main parts – a short presentation of the software and hardware and a practical part where participants try to make something themselves and get guidance from SIC-engaged students. Workshop-organizing students underlined that they believed that participants learn most when they get an open and flexible task and can employ creativity in designing something. At the same time, they underlined that in teaching they employed a facilitator’s rather than a teacher’s role, scaffolding on demand:

Student 10: If we come with way too many structure points to workshops, it won’t be that flexible for the participants. Then the fun will be gone. You can be there just to discuss without much of a structure. You help if help is needed. And in [SIC], it’s about older students helping the new ones. That model should be transferred to the workshop activity as well.

Work organization

All the teams were initially given a very high degree of freedom in organizing workshops. The only requirements from SIC staff was to agree on a topic, use 100 paid hours for preparation and delivery, and make sure that workshop participants were filling out feedback forms. Yet, the teams still had different interpretations of their agency. For example, two of the teams were asked by participants to provide a workshop in English. While one of the teams concluded that this question should be addressed to SIC staff, another one made the decision to organize the last of their workshops in English. Another example was marketing – while some of the teams were actively involved in inviting participants to their workshops in social media, others left that activity for SIC staff and explained that they did not consider marketing part of their task.

All teams had good contact with SIC staff and were able to obtain consultation or advice if they considered it needed. The freedom and total responsibility for workshop organization was an important feature of the arrangement for both students as well as SIC staff, as one staff member observed:

SIC staff 1 (in individual interview): It’s good with the workshops that we don’t provide any guidelines or structure for the students. We’ve learned that the best events come from a high level of freedom in organizing.

Students’ teaching experience

Students often started organizing workshops because of their passion for the topic and SIC itself. In interviews and reflection meetings, they used words indicating feelings when talking about workshop topics (‘I’m passionate about’, ‘I love’, ‘I admire’). In addition, students mentioned joy in teaching others (‘to see aha in the eyes’), learning more about the topic, and improving their presentation skills as motivating factors. The amount of freedom, trust, and autonomy students are given were frequently mentioned as particularly motivating.

The experience of providing workshops was also positive to the students: they used words such as ‘joy,’ ‘useful,’ ‘fun,’ and ‘pleasure’ in describing it. In terms of perceived learning outcomes, several benefits were identified. First was knowledge about the topic and how to explain it at the beginner level. Secondly, soft skills, such as organizing, communicating, and delegating, were mentioned. In addition, students participating in the project (see below) stressed that they understood the value of reflecting upon their experiences.

Creating processes supporting student teaching in SIC

As mentioned in the methodology, originally, we started with a mapping and analysis phase. After the first reflection meetings with student teams, a few topics for potential training were identified – interaction in teams and with workshop participants, insight into own strengths and weaknesses as teachers, basic knowledge about student-centred learning environments, and an introduction to reflection methods. However, when this idea was presented (without details) to the students, their reactions were extraordinarily negative. The students were worried that ‘you won’t need to do that much yourself then, you will lose the autonomy if there are way too many guidelines (Student 13).’ Some of the students pointed out that they would drop out from workshop organization if any training was obligatory. Therefore, SIC extended planning group decided to cancel the plans for the training. At the same time, the first and second authors observed that the reflection meetings they had with two student teams contributed not only as a workshop mapping tool but also as a development process. Consequently, we continued to work in this direction.

Reflection meetings

After clearly seeing our reflection meetings as an educational development process, we, the lecturer authors, took a more considerate look at the dialogue between us and student teams. The dialogic nature of action research and conversation’s place in it have been broadly discussed in the literature (Husebø, Skeie, and Johannessen 2020; Wells 2013). Consequently, we aimed to view conversations as a way to promote the professional [and personal] development of the students and to get them to use reflection as a tool for improvement. We were inspired by Brookfield (2017) four lenses of critical reflection (student’s eyes, colleagues perceptions, personal experience, and theory) and guidance methods (indicated in Kvalsund 2006; Tveiten 2019) such as using listening skills (questions, encouragement, reflection of feelings) and impacting skills (interpretation, summarizing, sharing own experience, advice and feedback).

In our sessions, we used feedback from workshop participants as an input for discussion and discussed the limitations and potential of the workshops. We have also actively used listening and impacting skills as a tool to increase self-awareness and awareness about what happened in the workshop. We, the lecturer authors, also shared our own experiences and gave advice on planning and teaching decisions. In addition, some theoretical models were used as a way to become more aware of teaching experiences. Finally, after the cooperation was finished, we, the lecturer authors, performed a few individual interviews where meeting data were used for meta-reflection. This meta-reflection on meeting transcripts served as an evaluation of the work as well as an additional lens for reflective conversations. The two examples below illustrate how we worked with workshop planning and reflection facilitation.

Example I: determining learning outcomes

In one of our first meetings, we started to identify the main learning outcomes for a series of workshops. As workshops were not part of the formal education, defining learning outcomes wasn’t a requirement. With one of the groups, we identified the aim of the workshop in one of our meetings – ‘to be able to continue with [name of software] by yourself.’ We discussed the importance of the alignment between a learning aim (the intended learning outcome), teaching methods, and evaluation (Biggs and Tang 2011). In relation to discussing it, one of the students suggested including a self-evaluation question in participant questionnaires after the workshop. In this way, participants got to evaluate their level of preparedness to use the software, and, at the same time, the student group organizing the workshop would receive feedback regarding their self-defined aim. In a later meeting, students explained that they modified the workshop setting a bit (demonstrating broader functions, not only following instructions step-by-step) to ensure that they could reach their self-defined aim. In meta-reflection, early determination of the learning aim was also identified by the students as an important element:

Student 4: It was important that you asked about the aim of our workshops. That we became more aware what we aimed there at all. […] When you start to plan… it’s important to aim that to expected learning outcomes.

Example II: interactions with the participants

We used descriptive reflection to talk about details in the classroom (at workshops), especially in interaction with participants during their individual work with the software. We worked a lot with developing student attention to the details and to awareness. For example, we discussed how students approached participants in their individual work and what strategies worked better for them than others. In one of our later meetings, one of the students shared her reflection:

Student 3: The fact that we walked around and asked questions and showed engagement. So, then the students [participants] became not afraid to ask questions themselves.

Lecturer 1: So, it was the first step to walk around and the second – to actively ask questions about their [participants’] work?

Student 3: At the beginning I was just walking around, but it felt very unnatural since it felt like I was walking around and kind of lurking. I didn’t want them to feel like we were watching. I thought it [asking questions] was strange at first, but people needed help all the time. I remember when I was a child, and it was completely quiet in the classroom and teachers just walked around between the desks.

Another example about interaction in the classroom (at workshops) was about the way students provided help for the participants. We discussed what was the best strategy for the participants to master the software themselves. Students articulated the wish ‘to take over and show the right answer immediately,’ but with time they learned to give more time to the participants and try asking questions first.

Co-analysis of data: evaluation of the process and providing a meta-perspective

At the end of our cooperation, we, the lecturer authors, organized individual interviews with each of the students we had reflective meetings with. In these interviews, we (together with students) looked through reflection meeting transcripts individually and afterward shared the moments we considered important. Students discussed first to avoid being influenced by the lecturers. Meanwhile, we, the lecturer authors, reviewed our own written reflections to observe developments in the project.

It was interesting that co-analysis of the data provided a few opportunities for critical reflection. Two students found in the meeting transcripts that a year prior they had said that something was impossible (e.g. to give more time for a task, to shorten the presentation) due to external limitations (such as time or knowledge of the participants), yet, in the later workshops, they did exactly that.

Co-analysis also demonstrated that students appreciated the awareness created through our questions as well our introducing some teaching and learning theory. For example, we saw that some students got insights to themselves – that they actually liked to teach and that they handled difficult situations better than they had feared. In terms of theory, we used sources on authority to discuss that they had authority based on competence over their peers³; we used competence levels to discuss learning outcomes⁴; for workshop planning, we used a didactic planning tool.⁵ Students identified that theoretical models helped ‘categorize in a way you wouldn’t think of. It is a lot of things to think about … […] [In using the theoretical models] you think of more points than you would have without them’ (Student 4). On the other hand, we saw that direct advice had little impact on students’ decisions in the workshops. In our co-analysis, one of the students pinpointed ‘it’s better if we discuss it ourselves and come to the conclusions by ourselves’ (Student 3). Students identified that the way we organized our reflection meetings was very different from regular teaching in their studies. One of the students identified ‘it [reflection meetings] wouldn’t have worked if you didn’t have the background you have’ (Student 3). A good working relationship between us (the university lecturers and students conducting workshops) was also mentioned as an important factor for the success of our reflection meetings.

Overall, the reflection meetings were perceived as being positive and facilitating professional and personal growth. They provided awareness and confidence regarding one’s teaching and helped them not to be afraid ‘to fail – to say something wrong or not to know about something’ (Student 3, Student 4, Student 5). One of the students identified a shift in her focus: ‘In the beginning, I was thinking how I look when teaching, how to say the right things … Now I think what I could do so they [the participants] learn’ (Student 4).

For the lecturer authors, it was a journey of learning as well. We started the process as a tool to map out the needs of SIC-engaged students so we could create a training programme for them. Therefore, our starting point was curiosity – about how they plan, what challenges they meet. Later, we felt a need to provide advice, to ‘teach’ them how to plan, organize, and arrange workshops. Yet, ‘a quick fix by external educators’ wasn’t that successful either. At the end, we adopted the role of conversation partner: asking questions, linking to the literature, yet not leading.

Finally, we would like to share an extract from our final interview/co-analysis of the data:

Lecturer 1: You will have someone you will train in the new semester. Are you going to use something from your experience with the workshops?

Student 4: What I will take forward is that I’ll have such reflection conversations after each workshop with them. Try to make them think a little like you made us think… that’s what I will do.

Discussion

The SIC case provides insights into the field of students as teachers as well as elaborates on a student-driven context and its impact on performing educational action research. In correspondence to the literature, students were sat into the teachers’ role as a financially affordable and practically feasible measure to meet the needs of potential SIC students. The educational benefits followed: the students who took on a teaching role indicated countless benefits – from better understanding of the topic to the development of soft skills such as organizing, communicating, and delegating.

Empirical data demonstrate how the student-driven context had implications for workshops and our educational action research project. These can be observed on three levels. First, in terms of the educational approach for the workshops, plenty of methods encouraging learner-driven or student-centred learning were used. Open, flexible, and creative tasks, creating objects of engagement, and learning by doing were definitely features of the educational approach in workshops which have strong theoretical foundations (Land, Hannafin, and Oliver 2012). Students led workshops as facilitators, providing scaffolding on demand to workshop participants and not directly imposing a direction for learning. Learners (workshop participants) were given decision power over their learning. Secondly, this educational approach to workshops was grounded in students’ perceptions of a good way of teaching/learning as well as traditions and their own learning in SIC. Since before our project most students conducting workshops did not have (and seemingly, did not want) any organized educational professional development or support, they mainly used their own experience. This corresponds to empirical studies performed on starting teachers – they rely on their own experiences as learners and have teaching/learning biases that are very resistant to change (Korthagen and Kessels 1999). And while the educational principles they used were grounded in theory in this case, there is always a danger of falling into a certain pattern. For example, Cotronei-Baird, Chia, Paladino, and Johnston (2023) demonstrated how lack of support and training might push inexperienced tutors toward more teaching-centred rather than student-centred teaching. Finally, our reflective meetings demonstrated that students who chose to be in the project corresponded better to awareness creating questions, rather than direct educational advice. It was important to leave decision power with workshop organizers to achieve success in our project.

Student-driven or student-led activities in education are often defined by the amount of decision power or agency being left to them, in addition to a distant (or not existing) role for teachers (Ashwin and McVitty 2015; Bovill and Bulley 2011; Fletcher 2017). Both students holding workshops and SIC staff described student agency⁶ in SIC as the lack of ‘guidelines’ and ‘structure’ in their decisions about workshops (when it comes to choosing the educational approach, organizing, or participating in educational training). Indeed, some understandings of agency emphasize an individual’s freedom to act within certain predefined structures (Stenalt and Lassesen 2022). In SIC, responsibility and trust given to the students contributed to their motivation and perceived learning outcomes. This is in line with literature claiming that, often, students’ self-reported agency beliefs lead to individual educational benefits (Stenalt and Lassesen 2022). That said, our empirical data demonstrate a few controversial issues related to student agency. First, in empirical data we saw differences in perceptions of agency – some of the students believed that decisions (regarding instructional language and participation in marketing) were to be made by themselves while, for others, they were to be made by the SIC staff. Klemenčič (2015) refers to this as agentic possibilities – ‘perceived power to achieve intended outcomes in a particular context of action and interaction’ (Klemenčič 2015, 6). And it seems that the same structural constraints were experienced differently by different students. The second issue relates to the often-mentioned self-reflective nature of agency. Klemenčič (2015) claimed that in addition to the already-mentioned agentic possibility, in order to exert agency, students need agentic will – ‘the way students relate to past, present and future in making choices of action and interaction’ (6). The empirical data demonstrated how our reflection meetings provided students with a possibility to reflect on their assumptions and teaching practices and to make decisions for the future. This is indeed a demonstration of how agency, understood as the freedom to make decisions about participation in a certain practice (in our case, reflection meetings and training), can affect agency as an act requiring a high degree of self-reflection. And, here we mean self-reflection for both agentic possibilities and agentic will (Klemenčič 2015). By reflecting on past actions, one can make future choices; by questioning structural boundaries, one might find new possibilities as well.

We do not claim that students who did not participate in our reflection meetings did not perform self-reflection. It is a limitation of our educational action research that it cannot establish a direct causal relation about the consequences of our reflection meetings and determine what would have happened if we had not started our project. Instead, our research demonstrates an example of how reflection meetings in a student-driven context can lead to both improvements in workshops as well as the development of agency for workshop-holding students. This student-driven context has provided quite a few implications to our educational action research – building relationships, clearly leaving decision power with the students, asking questions, and illustrating experiences with theory rather than providing theory-based advice were things we have learned in this project.

Finally, we would like to come back to our initial intention to connect a tradition of educational action research aimed at developing one’s teaching practice to student empowerment through co-creation (Gibbs et al. 2017). Through examples regarding creating awareness and improvements in teaching practice, we have definitely practised educational action research aimed at teaching practice development. In addition, we would like to claim that working with reflection as an instrument for creating awareness of our initial biases, for helping students to build confidence in teaching, we have worked to increase student agency and contribute to their empowerment in this way. In this paper, we understand empowerment as an expansion of agency, meaning that more agency can potentially mean empowerment (see Ibrahim and Alkire 2007). According to Moon (1999), empowerment is an outcome of a reflection process created though awareness. The decision of one of the students to continue with reflection meetings with her new group is a good illustration for this. This educational action research involved not only the development of students’ teaching practice but also ours, speaking as the first and the second authors. We have also learned about how we can work in a student-driven context to develop student teaching as well as contribute to their empowerment.

Concluding remarks

The first and the second author – the lecturers

This work has indeed been a roller coaster for both of us. We started with enthusiasm and high expectations to dive into the context and develop the best training for and with the students. Yet, students’ power to make decisions in this context – an aspect that is particularly motivating and that undoubtably has learning benefits for them – caused the project to hit a wall. Students used their power to say ‘no’ to co-developing a training programme. Nonetheless, this change of direction helped us engage in deeper and more personal reflective conversations with some of the students. Instead of working with a crowd of students, we worked with a few – those who questioned their own actions, assumptions, and practices. This kind of experience was extremely educational for us as university lecturers who were used to more systematically created educational solutions.

The third and the fourth author – the students

Our participation allowed us to gain first-hand insights into the student-driven context and enabled us to contribute with our perspectives to the educational action research.

While participating in thoughtful discussions on decision-making processes, educational approach in the workshops and the impact of student autonomy on learning outcomes, we shed a light on the nature of the SIC environment. We believe that with the experience we received from being co-authors, together with other roles in SIC, we may participate in a broader discourse on innovative educational practices and the transformative power of student-driven learning environments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The system is adopted by the most countries belonging to the European Higher Education Area. This system is aimed at increasing mobility of the students among countries adopting the system (see more in European Commission n.d.). In this context, ECTS credits mean formal education, studies being a part of a recognized degree.

2. Makerspace is a learning environment dedicated for ‘making’, often practical activities such as sewing, woodwork, etc. These environments might host a number of activities, but often it is a space to share tools for ‘making’ (e.g. equipment) and knowledge (Tomko et al. 2021).

3. See more in McGarr, O’Grady, and Guilfoyle (2017)

4. See more in Biggs and Tang (2011)

5. See more in Bjørndal and Lieberg (1978)

6. The word ‘agency’ does not appear in the empirical data; it was a decision by the authors to introduce it. Instead, words like ‘freedom,’ ‘free to choose,’ and ‘autonomy’ were used. It is important to underline that the empirical data were gathered in a language other than English and that the word ‘agency’ is not that common in the language.