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The Distrust of Students as Learners: Myths and Realities

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Trusting in Higher Education

Part of the book series: Higher Education Dynamics ((HEDY,volume 57))

Abstract

Drawing on illustrations from the historic literature on British higher education, contemporary concerns about the extent to which students can be trusted as learners are nothing new and largely based on a mythology about a Golden Age of hard working and intrinsically motivated undergraduates that never was. The chapter will explore trust as a meta-concept consisting of elements including competence, benevolence, integrity and predictability. It will be argued that many of these elements of trust have deteriorated in the context of the changing relationship between universities and their students. This decline will be attributed to the altered nature of the relationship between students and their institutions and the manner in which a reciprocal exchange has been replaced by a negotiated exchange, based on business principles. There is little, if any, empirical evidence to suggest that students are now less trustworthy as learners than in the past. They are, nonetheless, increasingly distrusted by their own institutions.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education and Human Development, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

    Bruce Macfarlane

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  1. Bruce Macfarlane
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, Middlesex University London, London, UK

    Paul Gibbs

  2. Department of Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Peter Maassen

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Macfarlane, B. (2021). The Distrust of Students as Learners: Myths and Realities. In: Gibbs, P., Maassen, P. (eds) Trusting in Higher Education . Higher Education Dynamics, vol 57. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87037-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87037-9_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-87036-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-87037-9

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