Enhancing Quality Professional Education: Putting Students At The Centre
Chair(s): Kristin Vanlommel (University of Applied Sciences Utrecht)
Discussant(s): Dennis Shirley (Boston College)
Researchers, practioners and policy makers have been engaged in investigating issues of educational improvement and effectiveness, too often students themselves are forgotten in the discourse. Students are treated as passive actors in educational change, seldom are they involved as experts of teaching and learning. Authors, for example Shirley and Hargreaves (2021) stress the importance of student engagement, but a lot remains unclear about how this works in practice. Our central aim is to understand how we can use student voice and student data to strengthen quality professional education. We aim at understanding how students can learn to use data to guide teaching and learning, and how (student) teachers can redesign education in a reciprocal relation with students. Paper 1 questions how an increase in Student Voice can enhance students motivation to learn by supporting students basic psychological needs. Paper 2 investigates how student data literacy has been defined, classified and understood in existing literature. Paper 3 discusses how teachers can engage in data discussions with students related to assessment decision-making. The discussant will connect insights from these papers to discuss how and why students should and can be involved in re-imagining education in and interactive discussion with the audience.
Presentations of the Symposium
How Can We Motivate Students? Using Student Voice To Redesign Education
Emma Strating1, Kristin Vanlommel1, Marjan Vermeulen2
1University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, 2Open University
Purpose
Schools search for educational approaches able to address students’ progressively declining motivation (Inspectorate of Education, 2022). Student Voice (SV) is a specific form of data use, valuing students’ Voices on education, with the potential of improving education for the benefit of student learning. Teachers and school leaders use this data, deriving from e.g. dialogue, to redesign education. Although previous research is promising on the effect of SV on motivation (Conner et al., 2022; Kahne et al., 2022; Smyth, 2006; SooHoo, 1993), it is unclear how different SV approaches can be used in the classroom, how these approaches benefit motivation, and on what aspects of educational design students would like to express their voices.
Theoretical framework
Students’ intrinsic motivation to learn is supported by an environment that supports three basic psychological needs (BPN): autonomy, competence, relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2002). Student Voice (SV) embodies all approaches in which students are able to voice their opinion and participate in educational decisions that affect their lives (Cook-Sather, 2020). Implementing SV school-wide has been promising in satisfying students’ BPN and improving learning motivation (Conner et al., 2022). However, caveats remain in understanding how SV approaches can be used in the classroom.
Methods and evidence
In a large project in the Netherlands, secondary education teachers have experimented with Student Voice approaches in their classroom, in different educational contexts. Students, taught with these approaches, have been asked to fill in a questionnaire that assesses motivation, satisfaction of BPN, and how engaged they are in all components of lesson design (Van den Akker, 2003). They have also been asked on which component(s) they would like to have more Voice. Qualitative data (focus groups with students) have been acquired to gain a deeper insight in the relation between SV and motivation.
Results and educational importance
Besides a strong positive correlation between BPN and students’ motivation to learn, a correlation between Student Voice and students’ motivation to learn has also been found. Qualitative data gives more insight into what motivates students when SV approaches have been adopted in the classroom. The impact of SV on educational change is limited to engagement in practical components of lesson design, such as what activities are being done in the classroom or with whom students work. We found little evidence of an effect of engagement in components as learning content, learning goals, and difficulty of materials nor did students’ express a wish for engagement on these components.
Connection to the conference theme
In discussions on the conference theme ‘Quality Professional Education Enhanced’ the Voice of students should be heard. Giving students’ a Voice, investigating how intrinsic motivation to learn can be enhanced by a collaboration between students and teachers on curriculum design, is a crucial topic in that regard.
Defining Data Literacy For Students: From Data Literacy For Student Learning To Data Literate Citizens
Kim Schildkamp1, Edmond Sebestyén2
1University Twente, 2University of Szeged
Purpose, focus of inquiry
Data literacy has become crucial in today's digital society. We need to be able to access, read, work with, analyze and interpret different types of data, draw conclusions and make right decisions. The preparation for this starts in schools. There are many studies on teacher’s data literacy, but only a few about student data literacy (SDL). To be able to study SDL, we first need to define and conceptualize the concept. Therefore, in this paper, we investigated how SDL has been defined, classified and understood in the existing literature.
Theoretical framework
Many different definitions of SDL exist (e.g., see OECD, 2017; Carlson, Fosmire, Miller, & Nelson, 2011; Gebre, 2018; Rahmawati, Wilujeng & Kamila, 2021; Williams, Deahl, Rubel, & Lim, 2014; Wolff et al., 2016). Most of these definitions include the following components ideally taking place in a iterative inquiry process: Identifying a problem and/or goal; collecting data; determine the quality of the data; develop hypotheses and/or questions; analyzing data; interpreting data and formulating conclusions; developing and implementing an action plan to reach a goal/solve the identified problem; evaluating; and understanding the ethics of data use. The operationalization of SDL may look different at the different levels of the system. Therefore, we distinguished between SDL at the student, classroom, school, and society level.
Methods and evidence
This conceptual paper is based upon a range of relevant literature, including several review studies in the area of data use and (student) data literacy (e.g., Datnow and Hubbard 2016; Hoogland et al. 2016; Van Audenhove et al., 2020; Wolff et al., 2016).
Results and educational importance
Our results show that a distinction can be made between SDL at the individual-, school and society level. For example, at the individual level students need SDL to be able to regulate their own learning based on data. At the school level, students need SDL to go from being passive data sources to active data users when it comes to the quality of education. At the society level, today's citizens should be able to use various types of data in different contexts in order to make better decisions. In this paper we have established a foundation for SDL, which can be used to study SDL in education, but can also help in identifying the place of SDL in the curricula of our schools and how to teach SDL.
Connection to the conference theme
This paper is well aligned with the focus of the conference on the role and impact of quality education in the context of school effectiveness and improvement. In today’s society being data literate is essential for teaching and learning in schools, and data use (monitoring) is a well known factor from school effectiveness research.
Enacting Data Discussions With Students: A Communicative Activity Analysis
Henning Fjørtoft, Marit Olave Riis-Johansen, Stine Aarønes Angvik, Iveta Kohanová
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Purpose
Data discussions are increasingly common in many contexts and typically involve teachers discussing student learning using protocols, achievement data and other artefacts (Datnow et al., 2013; Lai & McNaughton, 2013). Implementing data use requires a range of factors at the individual and organizational level (Hoogland et al., 2016). However, little is known about how teachers can engage in partnerships with students related to assessment decision-making (Deeley & Bovill, 2017). This paper studies how data discussions can be enacted with students. We frame data discussions as situated verbal interaction in an institutional context.
Research question
How do teachers enact data discussions with their students?
Theoretical framework
Talk in institutions (e.g., in healthcare, education, or legal contexts) is often characterized by goal orientation related to institutional tasks, the roles of participants, and what the participants treat as allowable contributions to the interaction (Heritage & Clayman, 2010). At the same time, institutional interaction involves professionals who act according to their knowledge and discretion, making professional agency central to the interaction (Sarangi & Roberts, 1999). Understanding tensions between institutional constraints and professional agency can therefore illuminate the reciprocity between context and situated interaction.
Methods
Communicative activity analysis is an approach which examines communicative situations through their framing dimensions, internal interactional organizations, and sociocultural ecology (Linell, 2009).
Norwegian policy requires teachers to conduct developmental talks (DTs) with students: semi-annual conversations about students’ learning outcomes, future potential, and well-being in school. DTs typically comprise a range of test scores, classroom observations, and other artefacts. However, following Norway’s high trust, low accountability policy environment (Hopfenbeck et al., 2013), there are no protocols for the enactment of DTs (Utdanningsdirektoratet, 2023). We used video data of authentic DTs to analyze how teachers interacted with students and data.
Data Sources
We video-recorded 22 DTs between 4 teachers and their students in 3 upper secondary schools. 15 DTs were related to mathematics, 2 to Norwegian language, and 5 to chemistry. The median length was 6 minutes and 52 seconds.
Results
The analysis revealed five key dimensions of DTs:
1. DTs seemed to have ambiguous or contradictory purposes.
2. Feedback played a key role and was mainly framed as improvement oriented.
3. There was considerable variability in the use of mediating artefacts (e.g., computers, digital portfolios, or paper documents) to access data and the use of shared experiences.
4. Some DTs covered broad curriculum goals while others focused on specific aspects of student learning.
5. The awareness of future summative assessments affected teacher-student interaction.
Educational importance of this research
Enacting data discussions with students raises several dilemmas, including tensions between structured and unstructured formats, variability in teachers’ enactment, and the role of students in data discussions. Furthermore, while video data are common in classroom research, they are less used for studying other interactions in schools. We argue that using video data and communicative activity analysis can improve data use policy and practice.
Connection to the conference theme
We discuss dilemmas in developing evidence informed policies promoting teacher professionalism and student learning.
