Evaluation and Research in Education
Editor: Professor Keith Morrison, Inter-University Institute of Macau
Associate Editor: Professor Stephen Gorard, University of York
Statistical Adviser: Professor Colin Baker, University of Wales Bangor
Reviews Editor: Dr. Emma Smith, University of York
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Volume: 17 Number: 1 Page: 31–44
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Improving Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Metaphors and Models for Partnership Consultancy
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Keith Morrison
Inter-University Institute of Macau, Hong Kong
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The management of partnerships with external consultants is discussed with reference to seven metaphors of partnership, illuminated by an external consultancy review of teaching and learning in a University Language Centre. Shortcomings are shown in each of the seven metaphors. A model of partnership is advocated, based on Habermas’s principles of communicative action and the ideal speech situation, which addresses key components of partnership whose absence or neglect in the previous discussion was observed. The openness and cooperative search for truth abiding by the ‘unforced force of the better argument’ which is required to sustain improvements to teaching and learning through effective partnerships is shown to reside within this model. Further, the communicative model supports facilitated and emergent improvements through self-organisation, themselves acting against ineffective bureaucratic strategies for improvement. Effective partnerships draw on social, affective and person-centred approaches, coupled with expertise and participatory approaches.
Keywords: Consultancy, higher education, partnerships, Habermas, communicative action
© 2003 K. Morrison
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