Abstract:
In student voice research, an enduring issue has been how others, such as teachers, policy makers or parents, are engaged to listen to young people, to enact on their understandings, and to resolve issues arising from tensions they raise that can potentially be viewed as problematic. In earlier research exploring how the introduction of national standards in Aotearoa/New Zealand influenced the way students approached their learning, year 4 and 8 students channelled discussions from the role of assessment in their learning, to the point of learning. Five themes were identified through the students’ own understandings of the point of learning: connecting to others and belonging; growing up and understanding how to live; developing economic benefits; understanding, developing and using talent and teaching others. For these students, it was important that they could express their priorities around learning in relation to why they learned, distinct from learning to be assessed. Using the research findings from this earlier work, we were interested to explore how these student experiences influenced the way teachers thought about their own students’ experiences in their class, and whether they would change, adapt or engage with pedagogical approaches, and assessment, in different ways. Could student voice act as a catalyst to thinking about learning in a new way? Teachers at eight schools were invited to take part in this research. These included the four schools of the pupils that generated the student voice data and an additional four primary school across the declie rankings. Teacher Focus Groups (TFG) involved face-to-face meetings with up to 40 teachers (8 focus groups with up to 5 teachers). During the Focus Group Interviews the teachers were presented with the 5 ‘point of learning’ themes arising from year 4 and year 8 student data. The TFG aimed to explore what the student findings meant to teachers and how they thought the student voice research might influence the way the teachers might respond to challenges of learning and assessment in the classroom. Key points from each focus group were fed back to the participants at the end of each session. Relevant contextual information, such as policy documents and site based pedagogical innovations or programmes, were collected at each school. A thematic analysis of the focus group was conducted. This session presents the findings of the impact of returning student voice research back to teachers.