The evidence behind OU teaching: Why your voice is vital

You already give feedback that shapes your modules, but what if you could actually work with OU academics to improve the teaching and learning experience for students?

Scholarship is the research the university undertakes to make your learning experience better. It's the evidence base that answers questions like: "What's the best way to design a module?", "Does audio feedback or written comments help students more?" and "How can we use technology to support students to develop skills?" This research helps ensure module materials, assessments and tuition are of high quality and supports student success.

Your faculty, your say

Each Faculty has a scholarship centre which supports academics to carry out high-quality research into teaching and learning. These centres also engage students as co-researchers on specific projects. This provides opportunities to gain valuable employability skills, including empirical research and collaboration. Student co-researchers may review surveys, contribute to interview questions or run focus groups, helping projects benefit from student perspectives and richer insights.

Many projects also depend on students sharing their experiences and views through surveys, focus groups and interviews. The information provided enables project teams to make evidence-based recommendations to improve teaching.

Depending on faculty and project requirements, some co-researcher opportunities are paid while others are voluntary. Projects often offer vouchers to participants as a thank-you for taking part in surveys, focus groups or interviews. To recognise student commitment, each centre offers a "Student Partner in Educational Research" digital badge to students who accumulate eight or more hours of involvement in scholarship projects.

Do look out for emails about our scholarship projects and make time to respond, as we can only improve the teaching and support we offer with your help.

Student partnerships in action

Across the various centres, OU undergraduate students are partnering in scholarship projects year after year.

A recent FBL project involved students in setting up and evaluating a peer mentoring programme, and participants were interviewed for a video about their experiences. One student mentor stated that she now has a "better understanding of the way in which the OU strives to improve the learning experience for students."

One STEM project team worked in partnership with three students as desktop auditors. Their task was to identify and analyse how other higher education institutions had reconstructed and reframed their teaching programmes to make them more inclusive.

The FASS project Understanding Black and Asian Students’ Experiences of Arts and Humanities at the OU was co-designed with a student intern as part of the WELS/FASS Student Internship Scheme. The intern later became a co-researcher, helping to design the questionnaire, conduct focus groups and write reflections on the project's findings.

The Praxis project Building Student Community ECYS involved two Year 3 Student Champions. They worked with project leads to develop community spaces, gather feedback, contribute to research meetings and lead workshops. Their experiences helped ensure the project reflected the needs of APP students and strengthened student community.

Ready to get involved?

Student partnership opportunities are advertised on module sites, Study Home and the Student Voice Community website. Students may also receive dedicated emails about surveys or focus groups.

You can contact your faculty's scholarship centre directly for more information:

• eSTEeM (STEM)
• FASSTEST (FASS)
• Praxis (WELS)
• SCiLAB (FBL)

Both eSTEeM and SCiLAB maintain registers of interest where students can sign up to be notified of future opportunities. Only current undergraduate students in STEM and FBL may register with their respective scholarship centres.