The role of academic developers in initiating, developing, and supporting student-staff partnerships in learning and teaching in higher education: A systematic narrative literature review and a new framework

Abstract

There has been a rapidly growing interest in student-staff partnerships (SSPs) in learning and teaching in higher education in the last decade and a half. It is timely to synthesise what we have learnt about the role of academic developers (ADs) in initiating, developing, and supporting SSPs in learning and teaching in higher education. We therefore offer a systematic narrative literature review that draws on 35 papers on SSPs published in the International Journal for Academic Development (IJAD). We argue that to reimagine students as actors in and agents of academic development there is a need to step back from the specifics of these projects and discuss the varying roles that ADs may play in championing SSPs. We end by drawing on a selected wider literature to discuss the contextual factors that underpin SSPs and propose a new framework for examining the variety of ways that ADs may initiate, develop, and support SSPs. We hope that this review will stimulate significant conversations between ADs, students and staff that will contribute to a more holistic approach to academic development and will be relevant not only for ADs working on SSPs but for all ADs.