Repositioning Student Voice and Agency: A Call for the Epistemic Expansion of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Inquiry

Abstract

An expanding body of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) research reflects a commitment within higher education to refine teaching practices and support student learning. A dominant investigative approach evidenced in associated publications involves soliciting student feedback or perspectives. While the methods may vary, many are extractive in that they position students as passive sources of data, rather than domain experts or contributors to the production of knowledge. Our critique invites scholars to consider the necessity for an epistemic expansion for engaging in SoTL inquiry—one that leverages the potential and expertise of students in research design and scholarship praxis. This paper identifies early adopters and leaders who reposition and embrace students at the heart of scholarship, co-design projects; or choose to frame students as partners (SaP). We call for recalibrating SoTL, to broaden opportunities for the democratisation and repositioning of students in ways that actively shape their education and in doing so generate legitimate insights that directly inform the design and lead to progressive, authentic, and responsive learning and teaching practice in higher education.

Keywords

scholarship of teaching and learning student voice agency democratisation Students as Partners co-design

Introduction

The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) evidences a staunch and sustained commitment to reflect on and refine teaching and learning practice in higher education (HE; Brown, 2025; Tight, 2024). Some popular investigative strategies evidenced across diverse studies, including the authors’ own (Brown, 2024; Brown et al., 2022, 2023; Dann et al., 2024; Redmond et al., 2023), have focussed on seeking student perspectives, or feedback on learning environments (Burke et al., 2022; Fan et al., 2024; Fuentes & LaBad, 2025; Getenet et al., 2024; Ochrana et al., 2024), pivoting online (Flores et al., 2022), underrepresented groups studying online (Horlin et al., 2024; Lomellini et al., 2025; O’Shea et al., 2015; Reedy, 2019) innovative teaching strategies (Tomlinson et al., 2023) teaching interventions, assessment practices, and more recently the use of AI (Dann et al., 2024; Matthews, 2025).

However, extractive methods such as pre-structured student surveys and questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews (Cook-Sather et al., 2018; Matthews, Dwyer, Hine, & Turner, 2018), where the study, the problem, and the questions are determined by the researcher, dominate the locus of inquiry within the existing corpus. Insights from studies of this category frequently provide experiential data, with most enquiries reporting on -one off- or discreet interventions where students are “seen as passive” (Geurts et al., 2024, p 104). Epistemically the very nature of this category of methodological inquiry implicitly frames students as epistemic objects (sources of data or scientific research), rather than being recognised as active agents capable of contributing to how learning is shaped, investigated, and interpreted (Geurts et al., 2024).

This paper does not dismiss existing contributions to scholarship. Rather, we argue that there is a degree of urgency in challenging the existing methodological status quo, “established research practices, paradigms, and perspectives” that continue to shape much of our engagement in scholarship (Brown, 2019, p. 259). We suggest that studies within this defined category may methodologically narrow the production of SoTL or, by association, the types of knowledge about, and interpretations of, and implications to, teaching and learning, thereby narrowing the type of knowledge produced. We challenge scholars to question how engaging in a process of reflexivity and reciprocity could positively frame the types of inquiries we employ in ways that better afford student agency, consultation, and epistemic contribution.

Our perspective invites scholars to pause and to reconsider the methods employed in SoTL inquiry. In doing so, scholars are urged to closely look at where their work can be reframed in ways that reposition student voice and agency. This paper examines four main categorical axes which may enable an epistemic recalibration of methodological considerations for scholarship inquiry. First, attention turns to how student voice and SaP are conceptualised within the literature. Second, exemplars of ethical and equitable research with participants are shared from within and beyond SoTL, such as co-design methods like Yarning, Think Tanks, and World Café. We then bring attention to prominent thinkers, such as Freire (1973) and Dewey (1916/2004) whose work foregrounds students as co-constructors and active citizens and invite scholars to critique how this type of framing would afford parity of student participation and input in SoTL. Finally, we challenge scholars to engage in an epistemic recalibration of methodological considerations for their scholarship work in ways that democratise student’s agency in their own learning, afford epistemic justice (in terms of how knowledge is acquired and shared), and generate authentic insights into teaching and learning in higher education.

Student Voice and Students as Partners (SaP)

First, let us turn attention towards student voice and Students as Partners (SaP) by providing definitions, examples, and exemplars along the way. “Student voice” is interpreted as students having a legitimate perspective on their education, learning, and teaching. These insights are not only worthy of attention, but students should have “opportunities to actively shape their education” (Cook-Sather, 2006, p. 360). These sentiments continue to be reinforced with scholars such as Matthews and Dollinger (2023) reaffirming the importance of listening to students but also appreciating their insights making a valuable contribution “in the decisions that impact their learning and education” (p. 555).

Many examples of SoTL studies that have sought to gain student perspectives. For example, Lynam et al. (2024) employed focus groups to seek undergraduate students’ opinions on factors that contributed to their learning. Reyes et al. (2023) invited students with a disability to share their reasons for preferring to study online and Casinto (2023) adopted mixed methods to gain student perspectives on aspects of virtual teaching that helped scaffold their learning. However, we argue that simply soliciting students’ opinions and perspectives does not equate to authentically capturing student voice.

Common to these SoTL studies, as well the authors’ prior work, are extractive methods that adopt surface level questions, privilege researcher defined knowledge and innately limit genuine consultation, including student agency and empowerment over the direction of inquiry. We argue that these examples of methodological approaches narrow the type of data that is extracted, and therefore the type of knowledge that is produced and privileged. We recommend that it is timely to reframe student voice in scholarship research and interrogate our own current methodological approaches and in doing so consider the ways new knowledge related to teaching and learning is positioned, situated, and framed, whilst at the same time reflect on what knowledge is silenced, overlooked, or missing (Brown, 2019). We see this as an opportunity for leveraging the potential and knowledge of students as experts in their own learning.

Recent years have seen the emergence of a movement which chooses to frame Students as Partners (SaP; Matthews, Dwyer, Hine, & Turner, 2018; Matthews, Dwyer, Russell, & Enright, 2018) or active agents (Naylor et al., 2021). This framing aligns with the work of Freire (1973), who critiqued hierarchical education models and called for approaches that were more consultative, leveraged the expertise of students, and considered opportunities for students and teachers to co-construct, or engage in the process of co-creating in relation to learning and teaching. This positioning of students is supported by a body of work by colleagues working in the SaP space who see students as pivotal in making a valuable and coherent contribution to learning and teaching in higher education (Bovill, 2017; Lubicz-Nawrocka & Bovill, 2023; Matthews & Dollinger, 2023).

Scholars and practitioners choosing to frame their research in terms of SaP strongly emphasise an engagement process of shared responsibility and reciprocity, with equitable insights drawn from various stakeholders, including students and academics (Matthews & Dollinger, 2023). This democratic process sees all stakeholders contributing to legitimate knowledge production (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2014; Gutiérrez-Braojos et al., 2019) through their strengths and insights. SaP practice, or engagement work, includes co-creating curriculum (Cook-Sather et al., 2018); a capstone activity (Knaggs et al., 2021); governance (Matthews & Dollinger, 2023); input into institutional and change initiatives (Matthews & Dollinger, 2023); or pedagogical approaches that shape practice. In this sense, scholars working in the SaP space challenge traditional hierarchies (Dewey, 1916/2004; Matthews, Dwyer, Hine, & Turner, 2018) and see partnership as relational and democratic while pursuing efforts to counter practices in HE that position students as passive consumers (Matthews, Dwyer, Russell, & Enright, 2018), or research subjects, serving as a means for extracting information (Cook-Sather, 2018). From this perspective, “democratic education and critical pedagogy” require “foreground[ing] . . . power dynamics” in HE (Matthews et al., 2023, p. 1503). While academics such as Bovill (2017) view SaP as opening “higher education learning and teaching to become a dialogue between staff and students” (p. 152), at this point, key principles underpinning SaP are often implicit (Matthews, 2017), under-integrated and under-used, with much of the literature reporting on practice rather than embedded in or as scholarship. Therefore, we see the key ideas and framing of SaP as often being situated adjacent to those engaging in SoTL projects, particularly in relation to SaP as a research paradigm, such as students co-designing a project, or students being positioned as co-researchers.

It is beyond timely and necessary for scholars to critique the framing of their studies and the legitimacy of student participation in research in ways that better afford student input (Habermas, 1996). Any reframing must interrogate power differentials, the degree of agency participants have in a project; the relevance of the topic to students; whose knowledge has been drawn on to frame questions; who has determined the goals and value of the study; who benefits, and whose voices are silenced. We see these types of considerations as being central to advancing epistemically robust approaches to SoTL inquiry.

Reframing Methods in SoTL

Within and beyond the SoTL field, there are examples in disciplines and contexts, such as education, health, and economics, of equitable and ethical research with participants that more fully afford student (participant) voice, input, and epistemic contribution (Brown, 2019). These approaches demonstrate that it is possible to move beyond extractive methods to “the meaningful involvement of end-users” in matters that concern them (Shay et al., 2024, p. 844). Popular methodological research approaches include co-design and co-creation (Avila-Garzon & Bacca-Acosta, 2024; Iniesto et al., 2022; Moll et al., 2020).

Researchers highlight the need to expand scholarship with students as research collaborators or co-researchers (Dollinger et al., 2023; Dunnett, 2025). These approaches are not yet considered mainstream, particularly in SoTL enquiry. We posit that approaches like students as co-researchers offer practical benefits, including the potential to address staff-student power imbalances. When students are co-researchers they develop research skills, increase confidence, and are more engaged in their learning.

One illustrative example is a joint teacher and student study by Gourlay et al. (2021) that focussed on engagement in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This included an online survey with post-graduate students, involving “a bottom-up approach to project design and data collection, with two student representatives . . . identifying key issues raised by their peers as the basis for the research” (p. 5). The study reflected a strong focus on student input, with the study being “conceptualised by a student,” and “supported by two staff members . . . and another student representative” (Gourlay et al., 2021, p. 5). By stressing “questioning” and being interested in “how to enact a critical approach” (Gourlay et al., 2021, p. 11), students became co-constructors of knowledge (Freire, 1973), going beyond listening to the student voice (Partridge & Sandover, 2010).

Unlike co-creation, where researchers develop solutions with citizens, co-design is where those who will use or deliver a service or product are involved in its design (Burkett, n.d.). Co-design is person-centred (Burkett, n.d.). Stakeholders need “to walk in the shoes of each other” (p. 6), recognising they are equals who bring “different perspectives and knowledges” (p. 5). Stakeholders see each other’s uniqueness and share responsibility (Dollinger & D’Angelo, 2020). People need to be “empowered to jointly reflect on their practices and experiences, to communicate and cooperate, and to improve their own or other people’s situations” (Steen, 2013, p. 20).

Co-design is a bottom-up process (Dollinger & D’Angelo, 2020) where there is “deep engagement with key stakeholder groups and collaborative problem solving” (Shay et al., 2024, p. 844). Student voice is foundationally important in respectfully engaging with students from First Nations backgrounds. In working with students from First Nations backgrounds, narrative practices such as Yarning or Talking Circles methods of imparting and privileging traditional knowledge, can be one way of achieving relationality and collaboration (Barlo et al., 2020, p. 90; Kennedy et al., 2022; New South Wales Department of Education, 2024; Reedy, 2019). These principles of co-design resonate with Dewey (1916/2004) traditions linked to experiential learning, joint inquiry with individuals and communities, and the recognition of collective contribution (Steen, 2013).

Co-design studies in HE illustrate these possibilities. Research has examined the co-designing of curriculum (Cardinal & Fenichel, 2017; Garcia et al., 2018) and assessment (Smith et al., 2025) to increase student control over their learning and share power with students. Although students valued involvement in decision making about their learning, they needed to be trained on providing “feedback and teachers need[ed] to learn how to be responsive to comments given by students” (Garcia et al., 2018, p. 9). A number of these studies also exposed challenges academics experienced in relinquishing control and sharing power with students. Yet, at the same time, these types of studies surfaced a range of benefits including Co-design increasing students’ engagement, understanding of assessment standards, control over their learning (Smith et al., 2025), and skills as critical thinkers and meta-cognition (Dollinger & D’Angelo, 2020). It might be argued that SoTL could be extended in higher education through students co-designing research questions and co-researching these questions with staff. In this sense, we propose the term Students-as-researchers of learning and teaching.

We suggest that these types of methodological approaches can help shape, inform, or inspire the way in which scholarship projects are designed, conducted, and interpreted. These examples are instructive about how students are consulted and embedded into projects with shared authority and knowledge production. These approaches could prompt thinking about how students could participate in, inform, and support the design process for a study; and how students could be recognised as co-researchers. Fraser’s (2009) notion of parity of participation might be a way of decolonising research with higher education students and of enhancing methodologies of students as researchers (Timmis et al., 2024). But students as experts and students as co-researcher’s approaches are not “mainstream” (Dollinger et al., 2023, p. 1379). As experts, students can and should co-design, as well as provide data about their learning experiences. Students and teachers need to be co-researchers of learning and teaching.

Beyond Mainstream Scholarship

Extending our call for reframing methods in SoTL, we recommend exploring existing and inspirational literature that evidence consideration for the integration and reconsidering of student voice and agency in higher education scholarship. Indeed, it is worthwhile to try to continue holding this tension as we explore literature around social theory in terms of epistemic justice (Fricker, 2007; Lee & Mao, 2025; Spiegel, 2022) and knowledge democracy. Applied in SoTL, these considerations offer a critical lens for challenging routine and extractive methods of SoTL inquiry and foregrounding alternative models of knowledge production, including participatory approaches where students are involved, and student agency centred, throughout multiple stages of an inquiry. With these approaches properly considered, SoTL and academia may be enabled to become emancipatory in terms of reconfiguring “the relationship between researchers and participants” and foregrounding “the voices and perspectives of those historically marginalized,” conditional on researchers’ integrating these latent learnings (Felder, 2025, p. 269).

These considerations are not new, with foundational thinkers, theorists, and writing for some years now and reflecting epistemically upon student-focussed approaches yet not specifically referring to this as SaP’s. For examples Dewey (1916/2004) and Freire (1973) reinforced learners as active participants (Dewey) learners as meaning makers, learners as co-constructors and co-creators of knowledge (Freire). Student-focussed and person-centred (Godwin et al., 2021) approaches offer scholars an opportunity to consider foregrounding students as active epistemic agents (Nieminen & Ketonen, 2024), and as active knowledge producers. Such pedagogical framing champions students as contributors of learning and knowledge, and shifts students from passive recipients (objects) in inquiry towards a transformative approach where lived experiences and critical insights are valued, recognised, and importantly leveraged in inquiry, from co-identification of a problem to co-designing solutions (Freire, 1973).

The use of methods such as Think Tanks (TT’s; Pan, 2021; Planells-Artigot et al., 2021) and World Cafés (The Word Café, 2026) help break down default methodological approaches that move beyond feedback from students, to students being part of agenda setting and contributing to the dialogue of knowledge production. These types of alternative methods and methodologies value the unique contribution to new knowledge and an enduring commitment to democratising student agency and student voice in HE. The employment of innovative methodological approaches, such as TTs, affords for leveraging the expertise in the room and affording a cross-fertilisation of insights. While TT’s are typically used to bring together a group of field experts to advance knowledge and influence policy and practice (Pan, 2021), innovative studies that are employing TT methods in the social sciences and educational research are emerging (Planells-Artigot et al., 2021). TT’s serve as a catalyst and sounding board for ideas, and knowledge creation, whilst also achieving a data-driven, evidence-based solution-focussed approach. The outcome of these events and practices offering recommendations for action, and potentially influencing both practice and policy, whilst also contributing research being more pragmatic and aligned with contemporary approaches that afford student voice and input in HE.

We argue that, despite the resonance of these ideas, such as shared enquiry evidenced in a range of other research and adjacent fields, many originate outside mainstream HE publications, and hence remain peripheral, underdeveloped and under-integrated into higher education scholarship. This underutilisation is a missed opportunity to legitimately and collaboratively engage students as experts, designers, informants, and contributors in all aspects of scholarship. We encourage scholars to challenge the realm of student participation and contribution across all stages of scholarship and move towards what Arndt et al (2023) refer to as “a new metho-pedagogical model” where students are recognised as “students as co-designers of research-and-learning-and-assessment” (p. 217).

By employing innovative methodological approaches that embrace an enduring commitment to democratising student agency (Dewey, 1916/2004) and student voice in HE online learning and teaching we can reconsider all aspects of scholarship (Fielding, 2001, 2004; O’Reilly & O’Grady, 2024), from identifying the rationale and goals of the study, to shaping research questions, to engaging students in the production of knowledge and new insights. For example, methodological approaches that are participatory, or invite students input in the co-designing or as co-enquirers of a study, such as participatory action research and design-based research, invites participants to co-design, “to research with,” and to engage in critical reflection related to matters that concern them (Cela-Ranilla et al., 2025; The Design-Based Research Collective, 2003; Scott et al., 2020). Applied to SoTL, these methodologies foreground students’ epistemic authority, in terms legitimising students as experts contributing to action-orientation solutions to real world problem and call for rethinking of empowerment and agency in scholarship studies (Lechner et al., 2026).

An Opportunity for Epistemic Recalibration

We challenge scholars to shift beyond a normative yardstick, or mindset myopia (i.e. working within established ways of knowing and doing research; Brown, 2019), to a recalibration of methodological considerations and approaches to SoTL inquiry (Arndt et al., 2023; Brown, 2019). This involves reframing students as situated epistemic agents (Heikkilä et al., 2023; Lakoff, 2014) which in turn leads to reframing scholarship as sites of co-produced knowledge. This type of reframing would mean that rigour would emerge from epistemic plurality, rather than control alone, and position students as productive participants. This approach would strengthen the agency students feel and have over their learning (Heikkilä et al., 2023). We suggest that this recalibrated approach to scholarship would align with other types of social institutions that promote positive epistemic outcomes “through broader epistemic systems” (Lechner et al., 2026, p. 2).

This synthesis does not necessarily mean the abandonment of traditional methods, but more about a move towards the transformation of epistemic logic. This dialectical shift would mean hesitating before defaulting to fixed surveys, questionnaires, or interview, where questions and protocols are traditionally designed solely by the researchers. We could look to early adopters leading the way in co-designed research approaches, such as those engaged in SaP studies. We could take inspiration from this work in efforts to inform the relational and pedagogical reconfiguration of SoTL. In doing so, we would be better positioned to answer questions like: “how can we work better together as students, teachers, and researchers?”, or “What kinds of knowledge becomes possible—or impossible?”. This reframing challenges established hierarchies, redistributes epistemic authority, and opens more inclusive and equitable futures for scholarship.

Epistemic recalibration, such as repositioning students in SoTL inquiry, creates an opportunity for scholarship research to move beyond generic notions of student consultation towards educational research that is innovative, robust, ethical, and transformative. When students are recognised as partners and listening forms the central spoke in a process of reciprocity, these insights contribute to “how we see,” “how we think,” and “how we do” learning and teaching in higher education (Bovill, 2020; Cook-Sather, 2018). The flow-on effect is the generation of legitimate insights that directly inform the design of equitable learning and teaching practices in HE. We see this as an exciting opportunity, but also a necessary next step for scholarship research that moves beyond generic notions of student consultation, to research that reframes and repositions students. At the same time, we see these efforts being an enduring commitment to democratising students as agents in their own learning and essential for the responsiveness of teaching and learning in higher education.

Conclusion

Repositioning HE students in educational research helps to generate legitimate insights that directly inform the design and equitable teaching and learning practices in HE. Reframing scholarship research in the manner presented in this paper presents an opportunity, and ethical stance, to reposition the input and voice of HE students, essential for the lasting improvement, impact, and accessibility of HE teaching and learning. Reframing scholarship is to recognise alternative methods, paradigms, and student expertise, and how adaptions to existing approaches can fundamentally alter the kinds of knowledge higher education scholarship is able to produce.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Alice Brown

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Alice Brown is a distinguished academic practitioner within the School of Education & the Creative Arts, at the University of Southern Queensland. Alice has a strong track record of successful SoTL fellowships and grants, leading and working in research multi-disciplinary research teams, and has published and been cited widely. She has established a national and emerging international reputation in SoTL focussed on innovative strategies to support online student engagement in higher education.

Megan Kimber is an experienced researcher and editor in Australian universities. She has worked on a range of projects in politics and education. Megan has worked with Associate Professor Alice Brown in multi-disciplinary teams focussed on SoTL, including student engagement in online learning, equity in online learning, and strategies students find most helpful in aiding their learning online.

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