Students as equal partners? Where do we stand? And how to reach beyond the surface regarding participation? Andrea Blaettler, Academic Affairs Committee European Students’ Union (ESU) 59 th ESU Board Meeting Seminar Quality Assurance – the ultimate tool?

Contents A) An account of student participation in quality assurance B) What can we reach by what? ▫Formal representation of students in QA panels and in university bodies ▫Student participation in internal quality assurance and enhancement:

A) An account of student participation in quality assurance Analysis in historical steps of the Bologna framework, supported by ESIB/ESU BWSE and EUA Trends: ▫2003 – Berlin ▫2005 – Bergen ▫2007 – London ▫2009 – Leuven and Louvain-la Neuve

2003: EUA Trends Greater involvement of stakeholders, especially students, in the external evaluation processes. Student participation in the self-assessment of the institutions and in the experts’ site visit interviews was much more widespread.

2003: ESIB BWSE Regarding quality assurance provisions on the national or federal level, 20 respondents indicate that student organisations have a right to form opinion. Procedures can be initiated in 7 cases, while seven respondents indicate a right to agree and 4 respondents indicate that there is a right to appeal.

The right to form opinion regarding quality assurance at institutional level is listed by 21 respondents. A number of respondents indicate that student organisations can initiate such procedures (16), whereas fewer have a right to agree (9) or to appeal (7). Regarding involvement of students in the evaluation of programmes/courses no general trend could be stated, however several unions pointed out that students’ say is not broad.

2005: EUA Trends Student evaluation questionnaires are a tool used everywhere, but there is a wide range of practice in how they are used. At many institutions, faculties and even individual professors may decide whether questionnaires are actually handed out and analysed, and can also influence whether and how the results are taken into account.

2005: ESIB BWSE From the countries that do have a national body for QA, slightly more than half have students represented in the governing board. An important part of QA processes in most countries is the external review of programmes or HEIs. Only in a limited number of countries the teams include students as full members.

According to the Bologna Process, external reviews are supposed to be based on internal assessments and other information provided by those actually involved in the programme or HEI under review. The involvement of students is perceived as equal to the involvement of other internal stakeholders in only a limited number of countries.

If internal reviews exist within HEIs, in most cases students are asked about their opinions. But there is a great variety in the comprehensiveness of student evaluations, the levels within the HEI they are undertaken, whether the results lead to improvements or if they just end up in a forgotten desk drawer. Taking the whole system of QA, student involvement is only adequately implemented in 4 countries that were part of this survey: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Scotland.

2007: EUA Trends

(…) significantly increased emphasis on internal QA mechanisms. At the heart of these internal mechanisms lie a greater use of student and graduate feedback (…) Students are increasingly present in the QA process within institutions. The EUA research teams heard on a number of occasions that this increased student involvement was in fact a driver of QA within the institutions concerned.

2007: ESIB BWSE Whilst many countries have a coherent system of external QA in place, there is a lack of coherent frameworks for internal QA mechanisms, which are often completely left in the responsibility of institution. At programme level, involvement of students takes place only through student questionnaires for all students and by the involvement of student representatives in respective bodies. Not in all cases both ways of student involvement are in place.

2010: EUA Trends The introduction of internal quality assurance arrangements has been uneven Students’ participation in senates and councils continues to be strong. However, the recent governance reforms have led to smaller deliberative bodies, thus affecting student representation, although they are increasingly involved in quality processes.

Regular evaluations of student learning services are still rather low. It appears that students feel intimidated in serving on quality boards in some institutions. Staff involvement in internal QA is still too often based on the individual interest of academic staff. A number of academics complain that students are not in a position to assess teaching and teacher quality. They do not express any real understanding of the importance of student participation in quality assurance processes.

2009: ESU BWSE Overall student participation in QA has progressed since But the analysis of the answers shows the serious gaps in terms of formal participation in decision-making processes and a rather unequal rate of participation in the different processes associated with QA across different countries. Student unions are less vocal in their critique against external evaluation processes when compared to internal quality assurance.

We can conclude that, in spite of students being partially accepted as a part of the follow up rather than only technical processes, they are still face reluctance towards their involvement in the decision-making process. There appears to be a correlation between how seriously the ESG are taken and the level of student participation, thus we can conclude that proper ESG implementation acts as a safeguard towards student participation.

B) What can we reach by what? Formal representation of students in QA panels and in university bodies: ▫University bodies like senates and faculty boards: strategic decision making, student support services, general teaching and research environment ▫QA panels: students perspective on QA evaluation ▫Involvement of the student community on site in QA processes: student input to QA evaluation team – must be on all levels!

Student participation in internal quality assurance and enhancement: ▫Curriculum planning, evaluation and improvement!  Qualifications  Competences  Learning Outcomes  Student Workload  Modules ▫Publication of evaluation results and meaningful follow-up measures

Potentially fruitful model for the course level (seen similarly in a Swedish HEI which was awarded by the Swedish QAA for a very good internal QA system): ▫student focus group in each course (volunteers) ▫publication of evaluation results and follow-up on them on an internal website, accessible for students of the respective course ▫joint committee to design, evaluate and improve study programs ▫graduate questionnaires

End Thanks for your attention! Direct questions to me? If not, please direct comments and general questions to both Derfel and me in the end.