Judging The Quality Of Educational Materials - A Research Project On Student Voice

This article reports a research project investigating student voice in the judging of published educational materials. Students' opinions of the quality of educational materials that are used for teaching and learning purposes in classrooms do not feature in the research into educational materials. Multiple data sources were accessed, both qualitative and quantitative, including: focus group data, interviews, group judging processes, students' score sheets, and judges' short-listed and winning titles. This article concludes that there is significant alignment between the views of students and publishers as to what constitutes quality teaching and learning materials, and that students interpret the quality of materials by aligning materials to their own prior knowledge. Further, students developed agency in the use of the metalanguage of evaluation in relation to educational materials.