Higher education institutions are striving to enhance student engagement in learning (Carini et al, 2006). Increasing the degree of student ownership of the learning process and offering an authentic situated learning experience (Brown et al, 1989) are possible ways to enhance student engagement. In response to this, participants on a postgraduate programme in Professional Education at Queen Margaret University (QMU), Edinburgh, were invited to set up a writing group in partnership with a member of staff from the programme team. Participants on this course were either lecturers at QMU, lecturers at other higher education institutions or health professionals with an education remit. All participants were under differing degrees of pressure to publish written work related to their practice and only the member of staff from the programme team had published previously. Many of the participants were not confident in their ability to produce writing for publication (Dixon 2001).
This paper outlines the experiences from this collaborative writing group in which members of the group wrote an article for publication about their perceptions of being involved in an action research project. An outline is given of the aims of the writing group, the writing approach adopted, the group processes involved and the outcomes from the group. This work offers insights into how partnership working between ‘students’ and ‘academics’ as part of a course, can enhance student engagement in learning and develop their confidence to write and publish
