Making Student Voices Heard
Guidance to setting up and running Student Researcher Groups in schools and colleges: A peer evaluation approach.
Why?... Here at HOP we believe it is very important that our learners are able to articulate and express their opinions on their own educational development as part of making informed choices about their future career pathways.
What?... As a key part of improving students’ abilities and attainment in this way, we are pleased to share some of the outputs of an exciting project led by LiNCHigher, which we were able to lend collaborative support to along with other UniConnect partners, Inspiring Choices and the Sussex Learning Network.
The guides are for Uni Connect partnerships, schools and colleges that wish to set up and replicate Student Researcher groups in their own areas to enhance student engagement, encourage student voice and improve the quality and impact of their outreach delivery. The guides were developed out of pilots run during the school year 2021-22.
What it was…The project allowed students to comment and feedback on outreach activities they had participated in during the year. With training and support from the LiNCHigher evaluation team, students gathered feedback from their peers and reported their findings.
Outputs… The students rose to the challenge and presented their overall views, experiences, hopes and ambitions directly to LiNCHigher at an end of year student researcher conference. This provided LiNCHigher with valuable insights which will allow them to adjust their future outreach delivery.
Next steps…Further work will look to evaluate the impact of the activity on the student researchers themselves. Here at HOP we look forward to working collaboratively with other UniConnect partnerships in the future and sharing further updates from this project to produce sustainable outputs from the UniConnect programme. You can access the resources for this project here.