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“A common question student representatives get asked is ‘what do students think?’, as if there’s such a thing as a single student voice. Although there are things that bring us together, we are an incredibly diverse community” (Whiria Ngā Rau, 2021).

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The phrase ‘student voice’ can misrepresent the range of student voices and the importance of how they differ. International student experiences can be overlooked within their cohort, and smaller cultural or religious groups inside the ‘international’ label may also be overlooked. Whatever processes you use to understand student voices, none of those options by themselves will be able to represent everyone.��

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They don’t need to! Clarify which viewpoints have been represented and give attention to those who have not been given that platform. Research shows that the best processes encourage ‘learners talking to learners’. Consider how students themselves can be involved in opening more spaces for underrepresented views to be expressed.��

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Students’ experiences should also be compared alongside the many other forms of data your institution collects about students. Broad survey results can show what certain groups experience, while their specific voices paint deeper pictures of how and why.

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“Students are the primary stakeholders of the university and its decisions, so it only makes sense that we play our part in those decisions” (NZISA et al., 2020, p. 8).

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Student representatives in courses and committees have been a long-standing mechanism for incorporating student voice into decision-making. Their effectiveness depends on investing in some key inputs to encourage successful collaboration.��

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Active and thoughtful recruitment����

Advertise representative positions widely, and encourage international students to apply. High achieving and majority students are more likely to take on these roles, but your institution can benefit from the perspectives of those who overcome learning obstacles. More institutions now recognise the importance of making some committee positions specific to key student groups, such as Māori, Pasifika, and students with disabilities. What decision-making group(s) at your institution would benefit from an international role?��

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Training and support

Reviews of student representation processes most often identify training and support as the most important factors for the success of these roles. Make sure there are clear processes for representatives to escalate any issues raised by students who come to them (Te Pūkenga, 2021). Pair the student with a friendly mentor on the committee and provide training. If possible, arrange handover activities with the previous representative. Be sure the wider student body knows how to contact their representative.

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Make use of existing meeting times

Decision-making groups and student groups at your institution already organise regular, routine meetings. Have institutional representatives ask to attend a student group’s meeting from time to time, and vice versa.����

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It is also helpful to review where these good practices should be happening, to make sure that is the case – as this practitioner reflection illustrates:��

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“A university Students’ Association at a uni I worked for had, for many years, been very domestic focussed. So much so that it only elected domestic students into the role of International Student Representative on its board each year. In 2021, the domestic student elected into the role made it a priority to ensure the position was held by international students only going forward. As a result, in 2022 the university has an international student on the association’s board.”��

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At Ara Institute of Canterbury:

• Class representatives are provided an update on the actions from the previous meeting, at the beginning of all faculty representative meetings. Faculty staff are responsible for owning and tracking any programme concerns that are raised at class representative meetings. The student voice co-ordinator is responsible for resolving and tracking any non-academic concerns.
• This information is shared back to learners through class representatives and to the student council via the student voice co-ordinator who attends all faculty meetings.
• The student voice co-ordinator also tracks the actions from student council meetings and provides an update at the beginning of every meeting.��
  (As cited in Te Pūkenga, 2021, p. 11).

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Resource for students��

developed by the and other student bodies, supports tertiary student representatives to engage with their institution’s systems. This guide can also give you a window into representatives’ experiences and inform how you create institution-specific guidance.

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The sections above show how diverse relationships and communication channels enable your institution to better understand international students and collaborate with them to create effective practices. Better communication helps make sure everyone has appropriate expectations as students’ learning journeys progress.��

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Student voice research provides more channels and tools for international students to communicate. There are many types of tools that serve different purposes, depending on the context of what you want to know and how students want to engage. These include:��

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• Surveys
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Dialogue circles
• Arts-based methods like Photovoice, drawing, and digital storytelling
• Co-creation workshops��

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We’ll look further at some of these tools below. Working with a range of tools gives students different ways to participate, and can uncover different solutions to improve the international student experience.��

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Just because a tool looks appealing, it doesn’t make it effective or fit for the purpose you want to achieve. Whether your institution needs new methods for drawing out international student voices or improvements to your existing ones, follow some tried-and-tested key principles for success.��

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Working with student voice tools requires in-depth planning – expert input will go a long way in making them effective. For example, you may see that international students are not well-represented in your institution-wide survey, and plan to conduct some focus groups to bring out their views. Is there a researcher or student services manager at your institution with experience in running focus groups? Or perhaps you know someone with those skills through a professional network? We often do not need to start from scratch to fill a gap.��

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Also consider whether you can offer to add on to existing student voice mechanisms by facilitating some tailored international student input. Connecting existing activities and people can be more effective than creating new separate activities.��

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Student surveys are a common way that institutions seek students’ voices about their courses and experiences. Surveys can uncover wider patterns and point to issues worth exploring more in-depth. Nevertheless, students may not feel they have time to respond to all surveys, nor be convinced that responding will make a difference. Institutions often believe that low survey response is due to ‘survey fatigue’, or students being surveyed too often. This belief has not been tested in our Aotearoa New Zealand context. One study from Otago Polytechnic found that most of their students believed the number of surveys was right (Terry, 2020). What was often missing for their students was knowing the purpose of the survey, and receiving survey invitations at appropriate times.��

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Is your survey relevant to international students’ concerns, and does it follow up on their previous feedback?

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You can improve the level and quality of survey feedback you receive with these practice-tested tips:��

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Here’s one example of putting these principles into action:��

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“Focus more on us because English is our second language and our pronunciation and how we say or call that stuff are different, and also making fun of us.” (Offshore high school student, as cited in NielsonIQ, 2021)

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NielsonIQ’s 2021 international student experience survey was sent to students in New Zealand and offshore through multiple channels and practitioners to encourage participation, along with a prize draw to win one of 24 gift cards. They also translated the survey into seven other languages that students speak.��

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Three open questions enabled students to explain their points of view in their own words. The survey report uses direct quotes from students to shed more light on their responses to the other ‘closed’ multiple-choice questions.��

See the (ENZ, 2021) for more.

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Any student voice tool you use will have its strengths and limitations. As noted above, surveys are useful for getting feedback from a large group of students, but cannot offer more in-depth information about student experiences, or how or why an experience happens.��

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Interviews and focus groups are often used with smaller groups to create those deeper insights. As above, if you don’t have experience with running focus groups and interviews, it’s best to collaborate with others who do. You may draw on colleagues, or professional support like or the NZCER . Nevertheless, if you are keen to learn more about effective interviews, this chapter on from the Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education is available to download for free. (Your institution may have access to the full handbook.)

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If you have more experience with interviews and focus groups, then you know that how they are structured can create more or less active student participation in the process. Here are some examples of how practitioners use tools to increase student collaboration in interviews and focus groups

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PRACTICE EXAMPLES:

As with any other student voice tool, comparing interview and focus group data alongside other information about international student voices and experiences will show how those sets of information confirm or challenge each other. Bringing sets of information together creates fuller pictures of the international student experience.��

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“We don’t appreciate it if you are going to ask us how we feel and we voice our concerns. Are you going to do something? Because I find there is a lot of talk here. A lot of meetings but nothing ever comes out of it.” (International student cited in Nielson IQ, 2021, p. 61)

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The purpose of student voice processes is to take action with what you learn, and that requires reporting back to students about your institution’s response. Across studies of student voice in Aotearoa, students report that they do not know what happens with their feedback (Ako Aotearoa, 2013; Te Pūkenga, 2021, Terry, 2020). This creates an environment where students do not participate and/or do not believe that participating will make any difference.��

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Student voice mechanisms should be designed from the beginning to report back to students and across your institution. For any student voice process, answer these questions as part of your design:

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• Which decision-makers need to know about these findings?��
• Which decision-makers can take action on these findings?��
• Which decision-makers are accountable to students for these findings?��
• How will these findings be reported back to students?
• How often should we follow up with students about our progress?
• How and when will students have opportunities to check our progress and let us know if we are on the right track?������

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It may seem tricky to report back to students about ‘action’ given the time that institutional processes require. International students may leave your institution before any changes are implemented. Be honest about those timelines, and let students know how current practices are built on prior student contributions. Clear communication about your institution’s planning processes demonstrates your transparency and commitment (Massey University, 2018).��

[IMAGE - sourced from ]

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Consider how you can involve students in reporting findings to decision-makers. When students are part of the process as facilitators or co-designers, they can communicate findings from the investigator and student perspective. You may also ask participants to sign up to present findings. Offering incentives such as training for advocacy and research presentation can help make the experience valuable for students and your institution.����

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If you present findings to a decision-making group that includes student representatives, connecting with those representatives and their usual reporting schedule is a great way to link student voice mechanisms together. If a particular committee does not have a student representative, reporting student voice findings can be a great opportunity to start bringing students into those spaces. Make sure these decision-makers provide clear commitments and timelines for how they will respond to findings.��

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Make use of students’ regular meeting times to have Q&A sessions and review your planning with them. This could be at student group meetings, special events, or in the first five minutes of courses. Continue to work with student groups regularly about how to take action and collaborate on planning. This supports students’ ownership and responsibility for their role in implementation. You may also get better insight into how students advocate for themselves.

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From providers to the Ministry of Education to the updated Code of Practice, our international education sector is recognising how ‘student voice’ processes need to deepen in order to understand and improve the international student experience. This topic outlined frameworks for improving that collaboration with international students, using The Sun Model to look at their roles and Whiria Ngā Rau to grow collaborative relationships across your institution.��

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We looked at how to improve the most common student voice mechanisms institutions use: student representative roles and wider student surveys. We also explored other in-depth and creative options to create space for international students to express their viewpoints, experiences, and ideas.��

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Most important to these processes is building in ways to take action and improve the international student experience. This topic highlighted the biggest gap in current student voice processes – closing the ‘feedback loop’ and demonstrating how the institution is putting their feedback into practice.

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The pathways for building accountability mechanisms between international students and institutions may not be clear at first. Nevertheless, linking a range of formal and informal student voice practices to endorse frameworks like Whiria Ngā Rau demonstrates their value – while nurturing the collaborative relationships needed over time. As expectations for institutions to respond to student voices increase through mechanisms such as the Education Code of Practice 2021, the case has never been stronger for international student voice networks.��

References

Ako Aotearoa. (2013). Using the student voice to improve quality. Retrieved from

Irish Council for International Students (ICOS). (2015). Diverse voices: Listening to international students. Retrieved from:

Lathouras, A. (2020). A critical-relational approach to community development that increases well-being, learning outcomes and retention of international students. In G. Crimmins (Ed.), Strategies for supporting inclusion and diversity in the academy.

Mann, C. (2020). Advising by design: Co-creating advising services with students for their success. Frontiers in Education.

Massey University (2018). Massey University Library Te Putanga ki te Ao Mātauranga annual report 2018. Retrieved from

Ministry of Education in partnership with Te Mana Akonga, New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations, Tauira Pasifika, and the National Disabled Students’ Association. (2021). Whiria Ngā Rau: Progressing from student voice to partnerships. Retrieved from:

New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) (2021). Guidance for tertiary providers: The Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Learners) Code of Practice 2021. Retrieved from

New Zealand Union of Students’ Association (NZUSA), Te Mana Ākonga, Tauira Pasifika, & New Zealand International Students’ Association (NZISA). (2020). Student voice handover guide. Retrieved from

Nielson IQ. (2021). International student experience survey 2021. Retrieved from

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). OECD future of education and skills 2030 concept note. Retrieved from

Park, D. (2020). Student voice: The wellbeing of our international students. Retrieved from

Te Pūkenga. (2021).�� Te Reo Ākonga i Tēnei Wā: Te Pūkenga learner voice current state. Retrieved from

Terry, S. (2020). Student perceptions of student evaluations: Enabling student voice and meaningful engagement. Retrieved from

Wass, R., Anderson, V., Rabello, R., Golding, C., Rangi, A. & Eteuati, E. (2020). Photovoice as a research method for higher education research. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(4), 834-850.