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                                7.2.2 Research question 2: What can the contribution of students to the collaborative and co-constructive process of validating such a foreign language literature teaching model be?
In Chapter 3 we explored different perspectives in which we could constructively involve secondary school students in the development of the Comprehensive Approach. An analysis of student voice research revealed that (1)
student voice is routinely excluded in foreign language research, (2) students are
primarily involved as objects of study in foreign language teaching research (Pinter,
2014; Pinter & Zandian, 2014), and (3) when student voice plays a role in research,
it is mainly as a data source, which other researchers (e.g. Hart, 1992; Holdsworth,
2000; Fielding, 2001; Lodge, 2005) consider to be a passive role (Pinter, Mathew,
& Smith, 2016). In Chapter 3 we proposed that existing frameworks involving the
inclusion of student voice could be grouped according to the way in which they
involve learners. We proposed a new categorisation, which includes the following
three perspectives: Learners as data source, Learners in dialogue, and Learners as
initiators. In our understanding, each of these perspectives should be considered
unique and complementary, thereby questioning the leading hierarchical ideas
that the Learners as initiators perspective is supposedly superior to the Learners as
data source (Fielding, 2001; Hart, 1992; Holdsworth, 2000; Lodge, 2005). We also
argued that the prevalent current practice where student voice, when included, is
primarily included as a data source, results in a mono-dimensional and therefore
limited view. 7
These arguments led us to the design of a multi-dimensional dialogical process in which both the research team and a group of secondary school students (n = 268) engaged. The aim of this process through learner-oriented discourse (Charteris & Smardon, 2018) was the further validation of the Comprehensive Approach. Learner-oriented discourse is a shared narrative based on collaboration and co-construction of knowledge in which learner agency, personalised learning, and radical collegiality is distinguished (Charteris & Smardon, 2018). The shared narrative was established through written reflective accounts, unguided focus groups, and a single open question survey through which the collective student voice as well as the individual student voice could be heard (Cook-Sather, 2002). By working through the three different data elicitation methods consecutively with different groups of students, we created alternating turns in which both the students and the research team engaged in convergent and divergent inclusive forms of dialogue (Burbules, 1993).
Summary, discussion, and conclusion
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