Students as Partners: Researching Objects at Cardiff Story Museum – Aimee Ward,
University of South Wales
In November 2012, the HEA
Students as Partners work
strand defined “students as
partners” as: “Involvement of
both parties at all stages and
levels of decision making;
Students having an active
part in their experience rather
than being passive learners;
Advising each other as
equals; Students getting involved and making a difference”
(http:/www.heacademy.ac.uk/
wales/students-as-partners,
accessed 5 June 2014). A
research project recently conducted by first year Interior
Design students at the University of South Wales (USW)
in conjunction with Cardiff
Story Museum (CSM) exemplifies this definition, as students partnered with each
other and the museum.
Students Partner with Each
Other
Throughout the project, students worked as equals, cooperating at each phase.
They created their own group
contracts which outlined their
expectations of each other
and established a fair
workload distribution. Students selected and researched an object from
the museum collection
together. They co-wrote
and co-edited one essay
on their findings. This was
intended to develop transferable interpersonal skills,
as well as research and
analysis, more typically
associated with essays. It
also encouraged a continual process of peer review,
not to mark the work, but
rather to produce it.
Students were also asked
to reflect upon their experience of the project at key
stages – upon introduction, at the mid-point, just
before the hand-in, and a
week after the hand-in.
Analysis of these reflections shows that their experience of the project
often centred on their experience of working as
partners. At first, students
expressed mixed reactions
toward this but gave more
distinctly positive or nega-
tive reactions as the project progressed (see figure). Dissatisfaction with
group work peaked just
before the hand-in, but,
perhaps surprisingly, a
week after the hand-in,
90% of students expressed
a positive reaction toward
working as partners, 10%
were neutral, and 0% reported a negative reaction.
This indicates that, despite
any stresses encountered
in the process, in hindsight,
students had an overwhelmingly positive reaction toward working as
partners.
Students Partner with
Cardiff Story Museum
CSM was established in
2004 and tells the story
(ies) of Cardiff through objects, “…giving the local
community a sense of
place, an introduction to
their history, and a place to
record, share and preserve
memories” (http://
www.cardiffmuseum.com/,
accessed 5 June 2014).
The CSM collection in-
cludes over 3,000 objects
that were donated to the
museum (ibid.), many of
which require further research – including those
which students selected.
This was a challenge for
students (as noted in their
reflections) but one to which
they rose. After the hand-in,
studen