Student Voice and Promoting Holistic Assessments In Schools
I lana Finefter- Rosenbluh & Amanda Berry
It is no secret that education policies have been increasingly promoting the use of studentperception surveys in Australian schools. The idea behind this initiative is to bring about a moreholistic assessment in the classroom, one that considers key aspects of teaching and learning,including teacher-student relationship and belonging which are typically ignored by moretraditional assessment tools like NAPLAN. However, studies show these surveys tend to beoverlooked too, mostly because educators are unsure what to do with them-- leaving studentssceptical and frustrated about the value of their voice.
Shedding more light on the complexity of using student perception surveys in schools, we share our recent studies on related professional learning initiatives and offer insights into utilising student voice data in ways that empower both teachers and students. We argue that student perception surveys can be useful tools if part of a shared teacher-student research process, where teachers and students collaboratively explore the data to make more sense of its meaning for their context.
Using students’ perception surveys to assess schooling experiences
Like many other nations, Australian schools employ student perception surveys, typically in Years 4-12, with the intention to assess and improve their everyday learning experiences. The state of Victoria, for example, administers the Attitudes to School Survey which has been running for nearly 20 years. Asking about students’ thoughts on their school, learning, peerrelationships, resilience, bullying, health, wellbeing, and physical activity, the survey is intended to helpplan programs and activities that improve teaching and learning experiences. In other states, the Queensland Government uses the School Opinion Surveys, and New South Wales authorities administerThe Tell Them From Me student survey, designed to provide school leaders with insights into their student engagement, wellbeing and effective teaching practices. Likewise, the Northern Territorygovernment employs the Annual School Survey, containing questions that aim to provide schools withkey insights into student wellbeing, engagement, and learning. Taking a similar approach, the Tasmanian Government employs an Annual Student Wellbeing and Engagement Survey, while the government ofSouth Australia implements the Wellbeing and Engagement Collection Survey, and the Government ofWestern Australia administers the Student Satisfaction Survey.
Driven by similar ideas and principles of student voice, more and more Australian schools have been incorporating additional student perception surveys that focus on students’ classroom experiences,including social-emotional measures with the hopes to better capture, assess and improve teaching and learning experiences. But a recent study conducted in Victorian government schools having a strong student voice culture shows that students see no significant change in their teachers’ practice after completing perception surveys, and that while teachers say that they value the insights provided by students in such surveys, they need some support to be able to act on the data and make it productive. Thus, while student perception surveys can bring about a more holistic assessment by illuminating important and complex aspects of teaching and learning (e.g., teacher-student relationship, belonging, pedagogical effectiveness)— typically overlooked by more traditional measures like standardised tests/NAPLAN— they tend to be ignored, mostly because educators are unsure what to do with these unique and quite overwhelming assessment data. This situation raises much scepticism and frustration about the value of such surveys from teachers, students and school leadership.
Scepticism and frustration
Make no mistake, ideas about valuing student voice are promising and important, but students regularly lament they can’t see much change in their teachers’ practice following surveys; suggesting more clarity and support are needed around procedures of voice in schools. As a Year 11 student explained in our study, “I think [teachers] care about [student feedback] but like, they have too much on their mind to actually realize whatthey’re doing, or to realize what they need to do to change the way that they teach.” Similarly, some Year 9 and Year 11 students questioned the meaning of such surveys and related ideas of student voice:
The idea of student voice is vague ... It’s weird that in teacher-parent conferences, teachers just talk about how bad we are, like, ignoring the feedback we gave in our surveys about the same exact things. [Teachers] just say student voice, student voice, student voice, but what is student voice? What is it for them? That’s what we’re trying to figure out here.
[Teachers] bring [the surveys] up but it looks like they don’t really know what to do with it… I have a teacher who doesn’t really engage with students outside of class, but he started some conversations with the surveys, but it felt really superficial and insincere.
Frustrated no less, teachers admit they do gain insight from their student perception survey data into where their practice can be improved, but they actually struggle to respond to it. They note how more guidance is needed to make the process productive:
Honestly, I didn't understand what I can actually do with some of the questions…like classroom belonging, which I went back to the kids and used that as one of those conversations where I said, ‘okay you guys have all reported that you don't think anyone cares about you, and you don't care about each other. What's going on? because I watch you work together and you're amazing…what's the difference between what you think and what you're actually doing in the classroom?’ but this strategy clearly wasn't enough…you can’t just have these surveys without some kind of support.
I can understand why some teachers would find student surveys confronting and difficult and I can see how you can easily get down on yourself … so I think when reflecting through these results, it’s really important to do it in a supportive teaching environment, as part of a collaborative process … to do it with other teachers and reflect on not just the ‘answers’ but the ‘how’ and the ‘why’.
Add the ethics of care issues and ‘survey fatigue’ to the student voice struggle mix
Not knowing ‘how’ to do it ‘right’ or ‘why’ the need for more student voice in the classroom seemed to lead many teachers to question the relationships they have with their students. One Year 10 teacher, for example, lamented how engaging in one-on-one conversations with students could expose him to student drinking and drug abuse issues which require his reporting and put his or his school’s image at risk.
Perplexed over how to balance between what his students ask for and what he feels he is able to do, he questioned the use of student perception surveys in his class— admitting to avoiding socialising with students, when possible, despite them asking for it in their surveys:
[Students] want to have like more personal conversations, they ask for it in the surveys… [but] if you chat with them about their personal lives and things like that, and I do think that’s important because it can change your practice and fit their needs best etc., it has to be gauged in a very calculated way…if a student has fun on the weekend, they’re at a house party and they’re drinking and taking drugs, I can’t hear that…I can hear they had fun, but as soon as they say where and how…I can’t know these things [because] I have to report it and it can have some really serious implications, you know…and yes, it’s absolutely the way it should be, but then, again, it’s more dangerous or riskier for me to actually talk or engage with them as ‘people’…[so] I stick to [teaching].
With this in mind, and with the increasing push for more student perception surveys in Australian schools, despite the collected data seemingly being ‘ignored’, it might not be surprising that there’s much ‘survey fatigue’ among students and teachers, requiring some attention too. As one of the teachers in our recent study explained:
There’s a risk with the overuse of surveys that the teachers and the children get jaded, you know, another bloody survey, call it survey fatigue . .
.[and] they can become complacent . .
. tick the box, get this done quick as lightning, get it out of the way . . . they’re not really interested in quality feedback.
Student perception survey data to be utilised better as a teacher-student research project
Our study with Victorian government secondary school teachers offers some ways to utilise student perception survey data to empower both teachers and students. The study shows that such surveys can be a useful tool if part of a shared teacher-student research process, where teachers work together with students to examine the data and make more sense of what it means for their context. One Year 11 teacher, for example, explored with his students one of the survey’s measures—‘valuing of subject’— to unpack together how students understood this measure and what might be changed based on their feedback. Following a teacher-student discussion, they created a podcast, envisioned to make their subject more engaging, valuable and authentic. As the teacher described:
The students focused on five [survey] questions in the breakdown on the valuing of subject … we wrote them together on a big butcher’s paper, and as they walked around and discussed their meaning, I showed them the data breakdown of the results and we chatted about it … they wrote more ideas on those bits of paper, linking it to class engagement and how it can be improved, and I came up with a podcast idea where all these ideas were shared broadly [with other students, including in other schools].
Taking a similar approach while unpacking his students’ surveys— though mostly focusing on the ‘engagement’ measure— another teacher found it difficult to support struggling students, therefore decided with his students to collect new “exit data”. The latter included students’ short reflection notes on his teaching approach, what they take from class, concerning questions, insights, and suggestions for novel assessment procedures tohelp improve their engagement. The process was followed by observations and note-taking of his students’ engagement in class, later discussing it with them to initiate further collaborations on assessment task design to be implemented in class, with the hopes to improve their engagement. Such an experimental procedure proved useful as some students “turned around,” becoming more engaged, not only attending all his classes but also achieving higher grades.
Obstacles, struggles and assessment puzzles of practice
Still, teachers found it particularly difficult to use a teacher-student collaborative approach. They were mainly taking and leading the survey-oriented research initiatives, with no active push for their students to be the research initiators or for the process to be student-led, rather than teacher-led. In a way, this somewhat conscious strategy was to protect the students and even the teachers themselves in the puzzling, thought-provoking research process. Of course, some may say that this approach could be seen as a form of teacher agency in an educational system increasingly shaped by students’ voices. As one of the teachers told us: “staff don’t feel like they have a lot of understanding of the survey themselves so that can impact how seriously they expect students to engage with it” -- highlighting the need for more institutional support in the survey unpacking process. Another teacher admitted how teachers can be “reluctant to push the survey forward to certain classes,” noting how students “can take it the wrong way,” so more focus is needed on the enactment process rather than its implementation. In this respect, other teachers admitted avoiding collaborating with students in rigorous survey data analysis, making a conscious choice to protect them from potential violence and abuse, seemingly respecting their rightto not participate.
As one of the teachers explained: “there are kids who don’t normally have a voice in class, so they might be scared,” concluding how “kids must feel comfortable enough to speak in front of others without fear of beingridiculed and all that sort of stuff.”
One way the teachers tackled these concerns and difficulties was by designing and employing additional student surveys. Adding more, and their own, specifically- designed surveys to the mix, produced additionaldata that helped them ‘solve’— by learning more about and from— a ‘puzzling problem’ reflected in their original student perception survey assessment data. By taking a problem-solving approach, reflecting therelationship between their own thinking (about their student perception survey data) and student voice- based action (producing more student survey assessment data to solve their practice puzzle) a professional learning happened.
Such an approach extended possibilities for deeper educational change. As one of the teachers declared:
There were lots of interesting and helpful comments [in her designed surveys], especially about feedback which became part of my practice … [students] wanted to get more feedback on their work to show what high expectation mean … so I’ve created a streamlined way where I can make that feedback meaningful to everyone.
Such back and forward assessment puzzles of practice, reflecting on the ‘how’ and ‘why’, helped her enrich and improve her teaching for better learning experiences in the classroom.
Moving forward: contemplations and recommendations
Working with student voice tools can be a complex, confronting and intriguing experience but it can also be a very exciting and rewarding journey. There are some insights and approaches, including such that are based on our research and broad literature about how schools and teachers might engage more actively and productively with student survey data.
The points below can serve as a guide in establishing more productive teacher- student use of student survey data:
Educators know a lot about supporting student learning, however they know much less about how to involve students in matters concerning their own learning. Therefore, providing opportunities for teachers to learn about using survey data as a tool to have meaningful conversations with students, is essential.
School leadership needs to support and promote a culture where discussions and investigations about classroom data are normalised as part of ‘good practice’, and being a ‘successful educator’ means trialling and learning from different perspectives. In this respect, educational processes should be connected to an inclusive 360-degree feedback culture, grounded in principles of reciprocity and even-handedness.
Scaffolding teacher learning is crucial - from introducing ways of beginning conversations with students through to developing collaborative action research projects with students.
Different teachers can feel more or perhaps less ready to engage in conversations with their students about data collected from their own classrooms. It’s important to acknowledge that readiness will depend on teachers’ level of confidence, willingness, and the nature of their existing relationship with a class or group of students.
Teachers need opportunities to share and build on each other’s experiences of working with students to investigate classroom data and to make changes in practice, knowing that efforts may not always work out as intended.
Dr. Ilana Finefter-Rosenbluh,
Faculty of Education, Monash University
Contact: Ilana.Finefter- Rosenbluh@monash.edu
Professor Amanda Berry,
School of Education, RMIT University
Contact: amanda.berry@rmit.edu.au
